Greenland Weather

Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, the Greenland Sea, the Arctic Ocean and the Baffin Bay, Greenland has a unique climate that is shaped by a wide number of weather patterns. The majority of the country is covered by an ace sheet which measures over 1.7 million square kilometers relative to a total land mass of just over 2.1 million square miles - resulting in just over 400,000 square kilometers of habitable land. Of that area, only a small proportion is currently inhabited, and nearly all of the cities are situated on the Western coast of the island, which is largely free of ice; the other major section of the country that is free of ice cover is the Northeast National Park.

The climate of Greenland is a key element of recent climate change studies, and researchers are actively monitoring the structure of the ice sheet. Due to its largely uninhibited nature, the ice sheet contains layers of data that allow researchers to analyze climate patterns dating back thousands of years. In particular, scientists seeking to understand global warming have been monitoring both the current conditions of the ice sheet, as well as the patterns from the past to better understand the effects and velocity of climate change. Within the ice sheet, scientists have also discovered DNA specimens dating back hundreds of thousands of years to an era when they country had a much different climate, covered with forest.

The habitable, coastal regions of the Island have average temperatures close to ranging from -4 to -25 degrees Celsius. Although the temperature can vary it is widely influenced by coastal patterns, which keep the weather largely below freezing, although temperatures remain higher than the Archipelagos of Canada. Visitors to the Island are well advised to pack warmly. While temperatures can exceed freezing in the summer, obtaining temperatures above 0 degrees Celsius is relatively rare, although it is becoming increasingly common, especially in the southwestern regions of the Island.