For the first time, research planes have flown in the windiest region on Earth. The location – the appropriately named Cape Farewell in Greenland – generated the winds likely to have carried Viking explorers from Iceland and Greenland to North America, making them the first Europeans to discover the continent.

Ian Renfrew of the University of East Anglia in the UK, led an expedition to Cape Farewell, at the southernmost tip of Greenland, in February and March 2007. "Strong winds were ripping the tops of the waves off and hurling them downwind," he says. Flying in such conditions was "stomach-churning," he adds.

According to satellite data, winds speeds off Cape Farewell reach at least 20 metres per second (44.7 miles per hour or gale force) 16% of the year and 29% of the winter, making it the windiest spot on the planet (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-88-12-1965, pdf format).

Renfrew’s exhibition aimed to check computer simulations of the wind, and its possible role in world climate systems.

Global importance

Cape Farewell, seen here from the International Space Station, is the southernmost tip of Greenland (Image: NASA)Enlarge

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