Hottest Arctic Hype: ‘Nothing is actually happening that justifies the apocalyptic headlines’

By Paul Homewood

 

image

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/13/hottest-arctic-record-triggers-massive-ice-melt/amp/

There has been a concerted effort in the last few days to run the latest Arctic scare story, such as this one in the Telegraph:

The Arctic shattered heat records in the past year as unusually warm air triggered massive melting of ice and snow and a late fall freeze, US government scientists said on Tuesday.

The grim assessment came in the Arctic Report Card 2016, a peer-reviewed document by 61 scientists around the globe issued by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The NOAA report covers from October 2015 to September 2016, a period it said the Arctic’s average annual air temperature over land was the highest on record.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/13/hottest-arctic-record-triggers-massive-ice-melt/amp/

The use of the word “heat”, has become prevalent lately, all designed to put slightly warmer weather into a bad light. All I can say to the writer of this article is that, if they really think it is hot in the Arctic, let them go for a swim there.

But how warm has it been up there this year?

Atmospheric temperatures, according to UAH, are the highest since 1979, running at 1.16C above the 1981-2010 mean.

image

http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/

HADCRUT surface data, however, does not suggest any unusual warmth this year. (Figures are up to October 2016).

70-90N MonthlyAnomaly Since2000

http://www.climate4you.com/Polar%20temperatures.htm#Arctic%20monthly%20surface%20air%20temperatures%20north%20of%2070N

And looking back through the 20thC, spikes in temperature of this magnitude are not all unusual around the Arctic, as we saw during the 1920s and 30s.

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Actual temperatures per GHCN V2 as at 2011.

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

Meanwhile sea ice extent, despite growing more slowly than usual during the autumn, is now back to the level of recent years.

osisaf_nh_iceextent_daily_5years_en

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php

The Greenland ice sheet has been accumulating at way above normal rates since the summer:

accumulatedsmb

http://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/

And snow extent in the Northern Hemisphere has also been well above average this autumn, as it has been for most recent years.

nhland_season4

http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=nhland&ui_season=4

Nothing is actually happening that justifies the apocalyptic headlines  published by much of the media around the world, instigated in turn by NOAA.

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