GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 30, NO. 3, 1132, doi:10.1029/2002GL015797, 2003

Recent cooling in coastal southern Greenland and relation with the North Atlantic Oscillation

Edward Hanna
Institute of Marine Studies, University of Plymouth,
UK

John Cappelen
Danish Meteorological Institute,
Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract

[1] Analysis of new data for eight stations in coastal southern Greenland, 1958–2001, shows a significant cooling (trend-line change -1.29°C for the 44 years), as do sea-surface temperatures in the adjacent part of the Labrador Sea, in contrast to global warming (+0.53°C over the same period). The land and sea temperature series follow similar patterns and are strongly correlated but with no obvious lead/lag either way. This cooling is significantly inversely correlated with an increased phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) over the past few decades (r = -0.76), and will probably have significantly affected the mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Received 3 July 2002; revised 11 September 2002; accepted 11 September 2002; published 12 February 2003.