Warm Arctic Is Simply Part Of Natural Cycle

By Paul Homewood

The most iconic symbol of the global warming scare is the “melting Arctic”. But is the Arctic any warmer than back in the 1930’s and 40’s?

Certainly not in places like Akuryri, in Iceland, as GISS show.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=620040630003&dt=1&ds=1

To get a fuller picture, I have calculated 30 year average temperatures at four stations, using GISS temperature data starting in 1900 (except Jan Mayen, which begins in 1921):

Akureyri – Iceland

Godthab Nuuk – Greenland

Jan Mayen – Norway

Archangel – Russia

All stations are affected by Atlantic influences. I have worked out anomalies for each station, using a baseline of 1981-2010. The results are shown below.

In all cases there is a concerted rise in temperatures from the start of the record, peaking in the 1950’s. This is followed by a steep decline.

Temperatures are now back to, or still below in Nuuk and Akureyri’s case, earlier levels.

Atlantic influences, and in particular the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, not only affect areas fringing the ocean itself, but much further east to Siberia. For instance, Ostrov Dikson shows a similar cyclical pattern:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=222206740006&dt=1&ds=1

The effect that the AMO, shown below, has on Arctic temperatures is unmistakeable.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=0&year1=1895&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=0&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results

Based on previous cycles, the AMO maybe has another ten years before it starts its probably rapid decline. When that happens, temperatures across the Eastern Arctic will plummet.

Sources

Temperature data is from the GISS unadjusted dataset

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data_v2/