Jökull - 01.12.1969, Qupperneq 68

This will slow down the outflow of ice through
the Denmark Strait and consequently increase
the ice drift to the north coast of Iceland.
These conditions will make shipping almost
Fig. 3. April 22, 1967. The first APT picture
received in Iceland gave us a jolt. The main
ice-pack is much closer to Iceland than we
had anticipated from other reports. However
changeable wind direction over this area kept
the ice-pack away from the coast so it never be-
came a serious hindrance to shipping. This ice-
pack on other hand cooled the surface waters
very much ancl pavecl the road, so to speak, for
the ice-pack in 1968. The strange cloud forma-
tions that curve around Icelancl from the north
coast, east and then southward along the east
coast are probably due to the fact, that a cold
and heavy airmass tends to flow around an
obstacle rather than over it. This will cause a
convergence and condensation in the airmass.
64 JÖKULL 19. ÁR
impossible along the north coast and the cool-
ing effect is considerable, probably causing
dearth of herring in these waters the following
summer.
It is the last catagory that will be discussed
in the following:
Tlre question that we must ask ourselves is:
Why are there such great variations in the
extension of the arctic icepack? This icepack
covers most of the Arctic ancl extends towards
Alaska and Siberia ancl also southward to Ice-
land.
The popular narrative of the Ivan Papanin
expedition is that the camp was built on a floe
at the North Pole and the floe began to drift
immediately. This was late in May 1937. It
Fig. 4. March 18, 1968. The ice-pack is appro-
aching the north coast. The cloud formation
shows that very strong northerly tvinds are
blowing over this area.