The deaths of the five westerners was the subject of a best-selling book, Into Thin Air, and a film that depicted chaotic scenes in the "death zone" as dozens of mountaineers attempted to climb or descend the narrow summit ridge with bad weather threatening.
Dr. Mote said the unusual surface melt in Greenland's ice sheet this month coincided with a series of "ridges" of warm weather — areas of high pressure that range from the earth's surface up to the jet stream — that had been moving across Greenland since the end of May.
When the NAO is intense, a fair-weather ridge of high pressure dominates the north-central Atlantic.
Finally, in 1954, an Italian expedition consisting of five scientists (including the geologist Ardito Desio as leader), a doctor, a photographer, and 12 others, including a Pakistani, managed to conquer the Abruzzi Ridge despite the severe weather conditions.
Since ocean temperatures change very slowly, though, don't expect the ridge - or hot dry weather - to end anytime soon.
These heavy rains show that the infamous "ridiculously resilient ridge" of high pressure — the weather phenomenon that pushed storms away from California and fueled years of severe drought — has not returned this winter.
The area is usually so gusty that wind farms line ridges, but Wednesday afternoon the weather was cooperating with the 800 firefighters on the lines, producing only light breezes.
Saprolite close to the soil saprolite boundary is less weathered at the ridge than at distance from the ridge.
The group, in their 20s from London, had ventured up the mountain's north ridge despite a forecast of worsening weather.
Dr Mote said that it was in fact the latest of a series of ridges that had dominated Greenland's weather since the end of May.
