The Princess Elizabeth Alps () is a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

King Frederick VIII Land King Frederik VIII Land (; ) is a major geographic division of northeastern Greenland. It extends above the Arctic Circle from 76°N to 81°N in a North-South direction along the coast of the Greenland Sea. History This vast desolate region ...

, northeastern

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

. Administratively this range is part of the

Northeast Greenland National Park Northeast Greenland National Park (, ) is the world's largest national park and the 10th largest protected area (the only larger protected areas consist mostly of sea). Established in 1974, the Northeast Greenland national park expanded to its p ...

zone. The range was named by Eigil Nielsen during the 1938–39

Mørkefjord Expedition The Mørkefjord expedition of 1938–1939 was sent out by Alf Trolle, Ebbe Munck, and Eigil Knuth in order to continue the work of the Denmark Expedition. It was an exploratory expedition to Northeast Greenland led by Eigil Knuth and had been plan ...

after

Princess Elisabeth of Denmark Princess Elisabeth of Denmark, (''Elisabeth Caroline-Mathilde Alexandrine Helena Olga Thyra Feodora Estrid Margrethe Désirée''; 8 May 1935 – 19 June 2018) was a member of the Danish royal family. She was the only daughter and eldest child ...

(1935–2018), daughter of Prince Knud.

Geography

The Princess Elizabeth Alps run roughly from north to south across the western half of the large

Crown Prince Christian Land Crown Prince Christian Land () is a large peninsula in northern Greenland. It is a part of King Frederick VIII Land and administratively it belongs to the Northeast Greenland National Park. It was named after Crown Prince Christian, later Christia ...

peninsula with an average elevation of . The range begins abruptly at the Ingolf Fjord in the south, with the mountains rising steeply from the shore. Towards the northern end the elevations decrease until the range becomes a chain of small

nunatak A nunatak (from Inuit language, Inuit ) is the summit or ridge of a mountain that protrudes from an ice field or glacier that otherwise covers most of the mountain or ridge. They often form natural pyramidal peaks. Isolated nunataks are also cal ...

s barely rising above the surrounding ice sheet.

Google Earth Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...

The area of the range is bounded in the north by the Flade Isblink, a massive

ice sheet In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacier, glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are the Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland ice sheet. Ice s ...

, to the west by the Nunataami Elv valley, to the south by the Ingolf Fjord, and to the east by the Tobias Glacier, beyond which lies Amdrup Land. The

Princess Caroline-Mathilde Alps The Princess Caroline-Mathilde Alps () are a mountain range system in the Holm Land Peninsula, King Frederick VIII Land, northeastern Greenland. Administratively this range is part of the Northeast Greenland National Park zone. The range was n ...

located to the south in

Holm Land Holm Land (), sometimes referred to as "Hahn Land", is a peninsula in King Frederick VIII Land, northeastern Greenland. Administratively it belongs to the NE Greenland National Park area. This peninsula was named by the 1906-1908 Denmark expedit ...

across the fjord display a similar structure. The Princess Elizabeth Alps lie in a desolate and uninhabited part of Greenland. The nearest settlement is

Nord Nord, a word meaning "north" in several European languages, may refer to: Acronyms * National Organization for Rare Disorders, an American nonprofit organization * New Orleans Recreation Department, New Orleans, Louisiana, US Film and televisi ...

, a military outpost with an airfield located about 60 km to the NNE of the northern end.

Mountains and glaciers

The range is an up to high largely

glaciated A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires d ...

mountain massif. The main summits are: *HP (1,466 m); highest peak at *Peak (1,446 m) at *Peak (1,440.7 m) at *Peak (1,422 m) at *Peak (1,330 m) at *Peak (1,327.7 m) at *Peak (1,326.8 m) at *Peak (1,313 m) at The Bjørne Glacier runs southwards, draining the area of the Princess Elisabeth Alps. Other important

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

s in the range are the Smalle Spaerre Glacier and the Hjørne Glacier.

Climate

The Princess Elizabeth Alps lie in the high

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

zone.

Tundra climate The tundra climate is a polar climate sub-type located in high latitudes and high mountains. It is classified as ET according to the Köppen climate classification. It is a climate which at least one month has an average temperature high enough ...

prevails in the area of the range, the

average annual temperature Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorol ...

in the area being -16 °C . The warmest month is July when the average temperature rises to 0 °C and the coldest is January with -26 °C.

References

External links

Status of the endangered ivory gull, Pagophila eburnea, in GreenlandInSAR observations of ice elevation and velocity fluctuations at the Flade Isblink ice cap, eastern North Greenland
Mountain ranges of Greenland {{Greenland-geo-stub

Geography

Mountains and glaciers

Climate

See also

References

External links