Okay, so last week I was at my cottage just outside of Pugwash, Nova Scotia and the air temperature was hovering around 30 °C. It was hot, my blood was boiling and I was silly enough to wish for cooler weather. Wish granted I suppose.
Tonight I fly to Nuuk, Greenland via Keflavik, Iceland. The annual daily mean air temperature at the Nuuk Weather Station in West Greenland was -0.6°C in 2014. As Canadians say almost perpetually during winter time: "Cold enough for you"? Well yes, it is, thank you!
According to Wikipedia (so it must be true), the average daily mean temperature for September in Nuuk is around 3.7°C. So, I won't freeze to death but I expect the thermal underwear to come in pretty handy during the night shift on board the Atlantis.
Interestingly, despite how cold it gets in Nuuk, the temperature has been slowly on the rise since the late 1800's, with 2012 being the warmest year on record by far. In June of each year, scientists from Germany and Greenland/Denmark produce reports summarizing the atmospheric and hydrographic conditions off Western Greenland for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) Standing Committee on Fisheries Environment (STACFEN). These reports review environmental conditions of the current year in relation to longer term averages and attempt to highlight trends in the data that my be indicative of variability due to natural oscillations or human induced climate change (amongst other things). If you get a chance, go to the NAFO publications page and search through the SC Research Documents for SCR 15/002. Dr. Boris Cisewski of the Thunen Institute of Sea Fisheries in Hamburg, Germany has written a thorough summary of conditions in 2014 and it's worth a scan to give you a snap shot of current climactic conditions. The figure on the left comes from this report.
So, while your reading this paper and sipping margaritas in your shorts on the deck over looking the water, think of us as we investigate innovative ways to regain feeling in our finger tips after sampling sub-zero arctic water from a CTD rosette.
I'll provide updates over the next few days. We fly out tonight at 10 pm, and arrive in Iceland early tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!
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