Climate and bioclimate conditions in SW Greenland and eastern coast of Labrador during the International Polar Years

The idea of holding an International Polar Year (IPY) is attributed to Carl Weyprecht, who participated in the Austro-Hungarian polar expedition of 1872–74 that discovered the Franz Josef Land archipelago on August 30, 1873. The experience of this expedition led Weyprecht to conclude that scientific work during expeditions should be based on “identical measuring instruments, identical instructions and for a period of at least one year to collect as many synchronous measurements as possible”. His idea was implemented by the International Polar Commission established in 1879, which organised the 1st International Polar Year from August 1, 1882 to August 31, 1883. Subsequent IPYs were held in 1932/33, 1957/58 and 2007/08. The next IPY is planned for 2032/33. All polar years have significantly improved our knowledge of polar regions, especially the Arctic. This is particularly true of weather and climate conditions.

The aim of this study is to examine the prevailing climatic and bioclimatic conditions in SW Greenland and the eastern coast of Labrador in all the mentioned polar years, and to compare them against each other and against the modern long-term period (1986–2015). To achieve this goal, both instrumental data available in many sources (including those collected by the Moravian Brothers) and data from the twentieth-century reanalysis were used. Instrumental data were taken for SW Greenland from the weather station located at Godthab, and for the east coast of Labrador from Nain (1882/83, 1932/33 and 2007/08) and Hopedale (1957/58) stations due to the lack of data from Nain for that year. Both stations are relatively close to each other and are strongly correlated with each other in terms of climate. Climatic conditions were compared using commonly used statistics such as monthly, seasonal and yearly averages. On the other hand, analysis of the bioclimatic conditions in the study area is based on the following indices and indicators: Wind Chill Temperature (WCT), Insulation Predicted (Iclp) and day-to-day changes of air temperature and atmospheric pressure. For the calculations, sub-daily data from the measurements taken in the middle of the day (1 or 2 pm) have been used. Apparent cold and extent of frostbite risk to the human body were assessed using the WCT. This was created based on thermophysiological experiments and theoretical research in Canada and the United States relating to the influence of temperature and air movement on apparent conditions in winter. Iclp determines the thermal insulation of clothing required for a person to maintain thermal equilibrium in a given set of meteorological conditions. All biometeorological indices  were calculated using BioKlima 2.6 software (https://www.igipz.pan.pl/bioklima-crd.html).

The work was supported by the National Science Centre, Poland project No. 2020/39/B/ST10/00653.