Jökull - 01.07.2003, Side 43

Morphoclimates and morphodynamics of the northern Swedish Lapland and east Iceland
Figure 6. Magnitude-frequency analyses of daily minimum temperatures below -15ÆC at Latnjajaure. –
Tíðni-þröskuldsgreining á fjölda daga þar sem lágmarkshiti fer niður fyrir -15ÆC í Latnjajaure.
regime, the discharge regime in Latnjavagge is ni-
val, with runoff being limited to the period from
middle/end of May until October-November. During
the winter frost phase from October-November until
April-May, Latnjavagge does not reveal a significant
activity of geomorphological processes.
Austdalur
In order to gain knowledge about changes of the tem-
perature regime with changing altitude a.s.l., air tem-
perature data from the Dalatangi meteorological sta-
tion (9.0 m a.s.l.) were converted to the altitudes of
300 m a.s.l., 600 m a.s.l., and 900 m a.s.l. (Beylich
1999a). The mean vertical temperature gradient
which was used for that was defined as 0.6 K/100
m for the months November-April and 0.5 K/100 m
for the months May-October (see Schunke and Stingl
1973; Liebricht 1983).
The annual mean temperature at Dalatangi is
3.6ÆC (1960–1996). The highest annual mean during
this period was 4.9ÆC in 1960 and the lowest 1.9ÆC in
1979. A very low annual mean temperature of 2.3ÆC
was also recorded in 1968. The low annual means
and the resulting variations of the annual mean tem-
peratures are mainly due to drift-ice transported by
the East Greenland and the East Iceland current to the
East coast of Iceland. According to Schunke (1979)
and Liebricht (1983), drift-ice lying in front of the
coasts causes a considerable strengthening of the frost
regime.
The mean temperatures of the warmest and cold-
est months are 8.6ÆC and -1.2ÆC, respectively, with an
annual variation of 9.8ÆC. The warmest month is nor-
mally August. February is the coldest month of the
year. Altogether, the environment displays an ET cli-
mate according to Köppen (1936). According to the
classification introduced by Troll and Paffen (1964),
the climate is subpolar-high oceanic.
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