Climate of Greenland

Common card · No. 497604

Greenland's climate is a tundra climate (Köppen ET) on and near the coasts and an ice cap climate (Köppen EF) in inland areas. It typically has short, cool summers and long, moderately cold winters. Gulf Stream influences make Greenland's winter temperatures very mild for its latitude. In Nuuk, the capital, average winter temperatures are only −9 °C (16 °F). In comparison, the average winter temperatures for Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, are around −27 °C (−17 °F). Conversely, summer temperatures are very low, with an average high around 10 °C (50 °F). This is too low to sustain trees, and the land is treeless tundra. On the Greenland ice sheet, the temperature is far below freezing throughout the year, and record high temperatures have peaked only slightly above freezing. The record high temperature at Summit Camp is 2.2 °C (36.0 °F). In the far south of Greenland, there is a very small forest in the Qinngua Valley, where summer temperatures are barely high enough to sustain trees. There are...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Beck, H.E., McVicar, T.R., Vergopolan, N., Alexis, B., Lutsko, N.J., Dufour, A., Zeng, Z., Jian, X., van Dijk, A.I.J.M., Miralles, D.G., CC BY 4.0