Climate of Iceland

The island lies in the path of the North Atlantic Current, which makes its climate more temperate than would be expected for its latitude just south of the Arctic Circle.

The midnight sun can be experienced in summer on the island of Grímsey off the north coast; the remainder of the country, since it lies just south of the polar circle, experiences a twilight period during which the sun sets briefly, but still has around two weeks of continuous daylight during the summer.

The Icelandic winter is relatively mild for its latitude, owing to maritime influence and proximity to the warm currents of the North Atlantic Gyre.

[5] Iceland, especially inland and during winter, is frequently subject to abrupt and dramatic changes in weather that can sharply reduce visibility, as well as rapidly increasing wind speed and precipitation, and shift temperature.

These storms are very frequent in the early summer in the arid highland areas north of the Vatnajökull glacier.

[7] Thunderstorms are extremely rare for any specific location in Iceland, with fewer than five storms per year in the southern part of the island.

They can be caused by warm air masses coming up from Europe, or deep lows from the southwest in wintertime.

[25] Iceland’s main energy sources are geothermal and hydropower, with fossil fuels mostly utilized in the transport sector.

The models also predict that glaciers could lose sixty percent of their volume if global temperatures rise by 2°C.

Melting of Iceland’s glaciers could raise sea levels by a centimeter,[32] which could lead to erosion and flooding worldwide.

[34] Geologists estimate that Okjökull covered about 6 square miles in the late 1800s,[35] but slowly shrank until it officially lost its glacier status in 2014.

[39] At the funeral, one high school student read a poem and a commemorative plaque, titled "A letter to the future,"[40] was placed on a boulder.