Context: Recently, Scientists have discovered a new island off the coast of Greenland, which they say is the world’s northernmost point of land and was revealed by shifting pack ice.

• The new island is 780 m north of Oodaaq.

Key Discovery

• The scientists initially thought they had arrived at Oodaaq, an island discovered by a Danish survey team in 1978. 
• Only later, when checking the exact location, they realised they had visited another island 780 metres to the north-west.
• The small island, measuring roughly 30 metres (100ft) across and a peak of about 3 metres, consists of seabed mud as well as moraine – soil and rock left behind by moving glaciers. 
• The team said they would recommend it is named “Qeqertaq Avannarleq”, which means “the northernmost island” in Greenlandic.

Importance

• The scientists said that although the new island was exposed by shifting pack ice, its appearance now was not a direct consequence of global warming, which has been shrinking Greenland’s ice sheet.
• Any hope of extending territorial claims in the Arctic depends on whether it is in fact an island or a bank that may disappear again. An island needs to remain above sea level at high tide.

According to chief researcher 

• “It meets the criteria of an island",
•  “This is currently the world’s northernmost land.” 
• Although he did warn: “These small island come and go.”

Interest in the Region

• The discovery comes as a battle is looming among Arctic nations the United States, Russia, Canada, Denmark and Norway for control of the North Pole some 700 km (435 miles) to the north and of the surrounding seabed, fishing rights and shipping routes exposed by melting ice due to climate change.
• The autonomous Danish territory of Greenland has grabbed headlines in recent years, most notably in 2019 when former US president Donald Trump said he wanted to buy the Arctic territory.
• The proposal, described as "absurd" by the Danish government, caused a diplomatic kerfuffle, but also signalled renewed American interest in the region.
• It has also been hard hit by climate change as warmer temperatures have melted its glaciers, causing alarming sea level rise.

Note: Oodaaq or Oodap Qeqertaa is a bank of gravel and silt northeast of Greenland that has been considered by some to be the most northerly point of land on Earth, though a number of other places have also been given that title since its discovery.