The Princess Elizabeth Alps ( da, Prinsesse Elisabeth Alper) 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 arise ...
in
King Frederick VIII Land
King Frederick VIII Land ( da, Kong 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 N/S direction along the coast of the Greenland Sea.
History
This va ...
, northeastern
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
. Administratively this range is part of the
Northeast Greenland National Park zone.
The range was named by
Eigil Nielsen during the 1938–39
Mørkefjord Expedition
Mørkefjord, meaning in Danish "The dark fjord," is a fjord in King Frederick VIII Land, northeastern Greenland.
History
Mørkefjord was named by the 1906-1908 Denmark expedition, which established a second weather station at Mørkefjord, in orde ...
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 o ...
(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 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
nunataks barely rising above the surrounding ice sheet.
[ Google Earth]
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 glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the Last Glacial Period at La ...
, 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 located to the south in
Holm Land
Holm Land ( da, Holms 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 ...
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, 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 (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...
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 (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...
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 ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...
zone. Tundra climate
The tundra climate is a polar climate sub-type located in high latitudes and high mountains. undra climate https://www.britannica.com/science/tundra-climateThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019 It is classified as ET according to Köppen ...
prevails in the area of the range, the average annual temperature
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, 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 meteorological ...
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.
See also
*List of mountain ranges of Greenland
This is a list of mountain ranges of Greenland.
List by alphabetical order
*Alángup Qáqai, located in SW Disko Island
*Albert Heim Range ''(Albert Heim Bjerge)'', located in northern Hudson Land, north of Promenadedal.
*Alexandrine Range ' ...
References
External links
Status of the endangered ivory gull, Pagophila eburnea, in Greenland
InSAR observations of ice elevation and velocity fluctuations at the Flade Isblink ice cap, eastern North Greenland
Mountain ranges of Greenland
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