Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.04.2016, Síða 16

The Cold Creeps In
Iceland has harsh
winters ahead
By ARI TRAUSTI GUÐMUNDSSON Photo by ART BICNICK
When it finally set in last November, Ice-
land was seemingly headed for another
severe winter in comparison to the
years between 1998 and 2013, in a near to
perfect chilly tandem with 2014.
On the dark morning of Decem-
ber 1st, a raging snowstorm thwarted
traffic in Reykjavík. It passed across
Iceland during the afternoon and eve-
ning, well into the night. Three days
prior to the storm, a 33-year-old record
for November snow depth in Reykjavík
had been broken. The snow fell with-
out any wind, followed by two perfect-
ly calm, sunny days with nighttime
northern lights in clear skies. The uni-
form snow depth in my garden was 38
cm (freshly fallen). A week later, it was
about 50 cm. Such numbers are much
more common in the north of Iceland.
A frosty New Year
The New Year greeted Iceland with a
lull after two severe December storms.
The former storm, a deep low-pressure
system (or cyclone), affected the whole
country on December 7th and 8th. The
winds attained 30-40 m/s, depending
on landscape and time, with gusts up
to 50-70 m/s. The air was rather warm,
so rain accompanied this severe storm
of hurricane-like proportions. Some
damage was registered, especially to
a number of old buildings and small
boats in a few harbours. The latter
storm, of similar force with heavy
rain, hit eastern and northern Ice-
land on the 29th and 30th of Decem-
ber. This time, the damage was more
extensive, hammering old buildings,
harbours, roads and land. This for-
mer super-cyclone from the USA also
caused problems in Britain.
The Iceland Meteorological Office
report for 2015 tells us that last year
was the coldest one of this century, al-
beit slightly warmer than the average
year of the 1960-1991 period. The num-
ber of passing low-pressure systems
was high and the weather windy with
quite a lot of snow. The first months
of 2016 have been much calmer, with
"normal" storms and fine days in be-
tween, but still cold, especially very
late in January and through most of
February.
Glaciers: Mass gained
Telltale signs of two rather cold years
are evident in some of Iceland’s gla-
ciers. In 2014, the weather was char-
acterized by cold, stormy and snowy
winter months, especially above 400
metres in altitude, and by a chilly
summer, except very late in the north-
east of Iceland. The cold onslaught is
clearly reflected by the glacier budget
of the Hofsjökull Ice Cap in Central
Iceland. The budget year lasts from au-
tumn to autumn; the total 2014-2015
budget turned out to be positive, with
a surplus snow mass, for the first time
in 23 years. This welcome snow (from
a glacial standpoint!) will slowly meta-
morphose into new ice.
The rather harsh winter weather of
2015-2016 has turned out to be simi-
lar to last year’s, in most corners of
Iceland. If the summer weather stays
cool, the high North Atlantic region
might be heading for a somewhat
long-lasting cold spell, maybe like the
one that reigned from the late 1960s
until the mid 1990s. However, a chilly
period could well be much shorter this
time and it will definitely not affect
the general trend of global warming.
The proposed causes for the cold snap
include plausible incidents like repo-
sitioning and size variations of near-
to-permanent high-pressure systems
over Greenland and the Azores region,
a distinct drop in sea temperature due
to frequent northern winds, and slight
but influential variations of the ocean
current system.
SHARE: gpv.is/ari1
Ari Trausti Guð-
mundsson has been
active as a lecturer
and non-fiction
writer in the fields of
geology, volcanol-
ogy, astronomy,
environmental sci-
ence and mountain-
eering, with over
40 published book
titles. Educated as
a geophysicist in
Norway and Iceland,
Ari Trausti works as a
freelance consul-
tant in the fields of
geoscience, tourism
and environmental
issues as well as
writing and hosting
numerous radio and
television programs
and documentaries.
Not everything is as it
seems at the grocery
store. It has come to
light that Lambhagi’s
“spinach” is not re-
ally spinach. Rather,
it’s a very similar-
looking plant called
komatsuna, also
known as Japanese
mustard spinach. The
owner of Lambhagi said that this was
all about the limitations of the Icelan-
dic language, as the word for this plant
in Icelandic is “spínatlauf,” or “spinach
leaf.” Brush up on your botany before
the next time you go food shopping.
In response to the tragic events in
Brussels last month, Icelandic au-
thorities responded swiftly. Namely,
the Police Commissioner announced
that Keflavík International Airport
police would be more heavily armed,
given bomb-sniffing dogs, and backed
up by Special Forces. In addition, the
Commissioner issued a directive to
every police chief in the country to
check “certain individuals” against
Schengen and Interpol records. And by
that he means foreigners, apparently
unaware that the perpetrators of the
Brussels attacks were all Belgian.
Minister of Industry and Tourism
Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir recently
made headlines for her poor choice in
gifts. When she met Chicago mayor
Rahm Emanuel, she reportedly gave
him a “lopapeysa,” a traditional Icelan-
dic sweater. However, it has since come
to light that this sweater was made in
China. Whoops! The Handknitting
Association of Iceland was decidedly
unhappy with the Minister shopping
at 66°N for a lopapeysa instead of buy-
ing one handknit in Iceland. No word
on whether Chicago’s mayor was sent
a replacement.
Icelanders will be voting for their
next president in barely 10 weeks
from now, but none of the candidates
thus far have been particularly inspir-
ing. Campaigning has been all but
absent, and analysts believe Iceland’s
next president could be decided by as
little as 10% of the vote. So unless some
incredibly charismatic and unifying
public figure steps forward at some
point between now and June 25, we
may end up with a considerably more
boring president than the one we have
now. Which wouldn’t necessarily be a
bad thing.
by Paul Fontaine
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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 4 — 2016
16