Iceland reports the presence of mosquitoes as climate warms

I’m surprised they didn’t already have them. They’re a plague in central and northern Alaska due to the permafrost creating standing water.

Mosquitos are adapted to long, cold winters and they're also extremely common just over the water in Greenland. Mosquitos have had literally centuries of opportunity to colonize it. They've simply failed every time.

What I've always been told is that Icelandic winter danced around the freezing point enough that mosquitos weren't able to overwinter effectively. The larvae would hatch prematurely thinking it was spring and be killed by another freeze before they could get a foothold.

That hypothesis relies on a pretty careful climatic balance though. Clearly it's hit a point where some parts of the country can now support endemic populations. My wife swears she was attacked by them when I took her to meet my grandparents a couple years ago, which I was quite resistant to believing at the time vs the similarly annoying midges. Maybe she was right?

>The larvae would hatch prematurely thinking it was spring and be killed by another freeze before they could get a foothold.

This happens in Minnesota which can have really intense mosquito seasons. If you have a few very warm early spring days followed by a good freeze, especially if this happens a few times, you'll have a year with barely any mosquitos instead of swarms.