Using events like this to illustrate that global warming is happening is about as scientifically significant as when Trump used the recent US cold snap to imply that global warming isn't happening. I'm not saying climate change doesn't exist--it certainly does--but outlying events like this aren't by themselves particularly unusual. "Normal", after all, is at the top of a bell curve, and deviations from normal should…
Isolated abnormal events aren't significant to illustrate global warming is happening, but an increasing frequency of abnormal events is.
Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter
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Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isolated abnormal events aren't significant to illustrate global warming is happening, but an increasing frequency of abnormal events is.
Granted, but I can just picture the people posting this to Facebook citing it as definitive proof that the world is melting.
Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter
#13Didn't the same happen last year, with arctic polar region being warmer than sub-arctic latitudes? Maybe it's the new normal climate or at least semi-persistent like El Niño?
“This next batch of abnormally warm air is forecast to shoot the gap between Greenland and northern Europe through the Greenland and Barents seas. Similar circumstances occurred in December 2016, when the temperature at the North Pole last flirted with the melting point in the dark, dead of winter. Similarly large jumps in temperature were documented in November 2016 and December 2015.”
It happens every year? Therefore it's not unusual.
So that makes this, “This latest huge temperature spike in the Arctic is another striking indicator of its rapidly transforming climate.”, uh, what?
Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter
#14Was hard from the beginning to understand the severity of the situation with no units denoted.
Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter
#15Anecdotal: Here in Toronto, it's been 16˚C this past week. In February. We've had about 2 or 3 real snowfalls that stuck around for a few days before melting. As somebody who loves ice skating outside, it's really frustrating. And I love the snow. Every year it seems like the winter gets a little milder...
One single day hit 16 at the max. Another hit ~14. That's a very generous way of looking at our weather this winter. This has been a much snowier winter than last year as well (and some others of recent memory).
Yes it's been unusual to have the final 2 weeks of February average above 0 during the day.
Both December and January were very cold with a monthly mean temp of -5˚C (ref: http://climate.weather.gc.ca/climate_data/daily_data_e.html?...). By mid-January there were a ton of stories in the media about how cold our winter had been and various records had been set. Everyone in the city was complaining about this winter for most of it (until recently).
Example: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/fourteen-cold-h...
Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter
#16Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter
#17Anecdotal: Here in Toronto, it's been 16˚C this past week. In February. We've had about 2 or 3 real snowfalls that stuck around for a few days before melting. As somebody who loves ice skating outside, it's really frustrating. And I love the snow. Every year it seems like the winter gets a little milder...
Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter
#18Note that this is in Celsius - for us Americans, this is 45 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.