In Iceland, existing weather statistics ‘do not apply’ – Study

By the Climate Centre

Climate change made last month’s record-breaking heat in Iceland and Greenland 3°C hotter, World Weather Attribution scientists say in a study published last week.

On 15 May, the Egilsstadir airport weather station in Iceland recorded 26.6°C – a new national record for the month; on 19 May, the Ittoqqortoormiit station in eastern Greenland reported 14.3°C – far above average.

Early and unfamiliar spring heat threatens people in Iceland with health issues and thinning sea-ice the livelihoods of communities in Greenland (pictured), the scientists add.

Halldor Björnsson, Climate Group Leader at the Icelandic Met Office, said: “In recent years my colleagues and I … have noticed unusual weather-extremes, such as rainfall events that far exceed in duration and amount, anything expected based on prior data. In short the old statistics do not apply.

“This event is the largest May heatwave we have seen, even in weather stations going back more than a century. As an example, temperature records were broken in Stykkisholmur where there is reliable data for 174 years.

The Arctic region has warmed more than twice as fast as the global average: as sea ice vanishes, it is replaced by an expanding dark ocean water that absorbs sunlight instead of reflecting it – a phenomenon called Arctic amplification.

‘Temperature records were broken in Stykkisholmur where there’s reliable data
going back 174 years’

Caroline Drost Jensen, a climatologist at the Danish Meteorological Institute, said: “Record-breaking temperatures across Greenland and Iceland are a stark reminder that our climate is warming faster than ever before.

“This study highlights the consequences of rising temperatures in Arctic countries and why it is so important to make continuous monitoring.”

The researchers say unfamiliar warnings of sunburn and softened roads in Iceland highlight how cold countries are beginning to experience new risks that can catch people off guard.

In Greenland, where Inuit indigenous communities make up 90 per cent of the population,
thinning ice is creating unstable conditions that cut access to traditional hunting grounds.

Greenland loses an average of 43 billion tonnes of ice a year, and a growing body of evidence suggests that continued warming could push it past a tipping point where the melting of the ice sheet becomes irreversible.

The WWA study was conducted by researchers from universities and meteorological agencies in Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the US.

An unusually balmy day in west Greenland, affecting people and ecosystems and further aggravating ice melt. (Library photo: Knud Falk/Climate Centre)