Will A Warmer Greenland Impact On Ireland's Winter?


The Danish Met Office winter forecast (November-January) for Greenland, shows the whole area on average 1.3°C above normal, but the Greenland Sea from Svalbard down to Iceland over 2.0°C above normal, writes Fergal Tierney.  

Seasonal temperature outlook from Danish Met Office. Image (c) www.dmi.dk
Couple that with the Norwegian Meteorlogical Institute forecast for period December to February, which shows an even warmer situation in the Greenland Sea plus a neutral to warm situation over the Norwegian Sea and Scandinavia down to northern continental Europe, one would wonder where any sustained period of cold weather is going to originate for Ireland.  

The Norwegian Meteorlogical Institute also had temperatures in Ireland 0.5-1.0°C above normal for the period December-February.

Of course these are not absolute values, just seasonal anomalies, so we can still get some cold blasts, but as for prolonged cold? Time will tell and the coming week's weather will provide a useful indicator of the coming winter.

On the plus side though, the strong baroclinic zone along the Greenland warmth could be a good breeding ground for polar lows!

A polar low, or '"Arctic Hurricane"' is a small-scale, short-lived atmospheric low pressure system (depression) that is found over the ocean areas poleward of the main polar front in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.