The midnight sun illuminates an iceberg, among the many shed daily into the sea from the Jakobshavn Glacier, on July 19, 2011 in Ilulissat, Greenland. Greenland is the focus of many researchers trying to determine how much its melting ice may raise sea levels. #

Inuit hunter Nukappi Brandt steers his small boat as he and his daughter Aaneeraq, 9, scan the water for seals, accompanied by his other daughter Luusi, 8, outside Qeqertarsuaq, Disko Island, Greenland, on July 21, 2011. Brandt, 49, has been a hunter since age 14, and said roughly 20 years ago, when winter sea ice became too thin to support dogsleds, seal hunting ceased to be a sustainable way of life here. #

Portraits of Inuits from Qeqertarsuaq, Disko Island, Greenland, taken on July 22, 2011. Clockwise from top left: Johan Lindenhann (hunter), Elizabeth Petersen, 14 (student), Nukappi Brandt, 49, (hunter), Knud Hansen, 66, (hunter), Ane-Katrine Brandt, 8, Malik Leander, 17 (shrimp boat crew member). #

Daughters of Greenlandic Inuit hunter Nukappi Brandt, Aaneeraq, 9, right, and Luusi, 8, ride their bicycles home late at night after an unsuccessful seal hunt with their father in Qeqertarsuaq, Disko Island, Greenland, on July 21, 2011. #

A Greenland sled dog pup touches his mother's nose in Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland, on July 21, 2011. According to many Greenlanders, roughly 20 years ago winter sea ice became too thin to support dogsleds, and seal hunting ceased to be a sustainable way of life here. Some hunters, who relied on winter game to feed their sled dogs, have been unable to continue to support large numbers of dogs, and have been shooting them. #

A narwhal tusk from a hunt hangs alongside miniature replicas of traditional kayaking and hunting tools adorning a wall above a television set inside the home of an Inuit family in Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland, on July 20, 2011. Whales have long been central part of Inuit life in Greenland, where a regulated subsistence hunt continues to this day. As the world warms, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, thinning the winter sea ice many Greenlanders have relied on as a hunting platform and for travel, and affecting life in Greenland in many other ways. #

Inuit family members from left, Estrella Brandt, holding her daughter Noelle, Louise Brand and their mother, Rosa Marie Brandt laugh during Rosa Marie's husband's 50th birthday party at their home in Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland, on July 20, 2011. #

Inuit hunter Nukappi Brandt aims his rifle to shoot a seal, which dived underwater before he could get off a shot, as his daughter Luusi, 8, keeps low inside their small boat outside Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland, on July 21, 2011. #

An Inuit fisherman pulls in a fish from a sea filled with floating ice left over from broken-up icebergs shed from the Greenland ice sheet in Ilulissat, Greenland, on July 18, 2011. #

The 53,000 ton Leiv Eiriksson oil rig, off the coast of Greenland, recently scaled by activists from Greenpeace in an attempt to stop the Scottish oil company Cairn Energy from starting deepwater drilling in the arctic waters. #

A Greenlandic Inuit hunter and fisherman steers his boat past a melting iceberg, along a fjord leading away from the edge of the Greenland ice sheet, near Nuuk, Greenland, on July 26, 2011. #

Attached by rope to a waiting helicopter, Arctic researcher Carl Gladish of New York University hammers a steel stake into ice, securing a newly-deployed GPS seismometer, or Geopebble, designed to track glacial movement near the edge of the Greenland ice sheet, atop Jakobshavn Glacier, outside Ilulissat, Greenland, on July 19, 2011. The chief researcher, NYU's David Holland, hopes to eventually deploy scores of the devices to help measure ice loss in Greenland. #

A cloud drifts past the ever-collapsing calving 6-kilometer-wide (4-mile-wide) front of Jakobshavn Glacier, situated at the edge of the vast Greenland ice sheet, near Ilulissat, Greenland, on July 19, 2011. #

On the world's longest ice runway, 16,800 feet long, a logistics worker stands ready to refuel an incoming New York Air National Guard C-130 transport plane mounted with landing skis, at Summit Station, a small research center situated 10,500 feet above sea level, on top of the Greenland ice sheet, on July 17, 2011. #

The main building at Summit Station, a remote research site operated by the U.S. National Science Foundation, (NSF), situated 10,500 feet above sea level, on top of the Greenland ice sheet, seen on July 15, 2011. The structure is periodically jacked up on its support columns to stay above accumulating snow. #

Atop roughly two miles of ice, with sleeping tents visible in the background, Dartmouth College engineering graduate Suk-Joon Lee helps test a prototype wheeled Arctic robot being developed for long-range instrument deployment, at Summit Station, on top of the Greenland ice sheet, on July 15, 2011. #

Liz Morris, 64, of Cambridge University's Scott Polar Research Institute, at Summit Station, on top of the Greenland ice sheet, days before a month-long, 500-mile research trip via snowmobile, photographed on July 15, 2011. Morris' research trip is funded by Britain's National Environmental Research Council and mounted with the U.S. National Science Foundation's cooperation. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth honored the intrepid Morris with a Polar Medal, given in recognition of distinguished service in Arctic and Antarctic exploration. #