This website explains and proves that the first big warming in the arctic started at Spitsbergen in winter 1918/19, which saw a dramatic temperature rise during that winter. The rise between the winters 1915/18 and 1919/23, covering almost one decade, were astonishing seven degrees Celsius (see i.e. ANNEX A). But now it is claimed: “Warming in the arctic is likewise shown to be cyclical in nature.”

In a recent article Multidecadal Ocean Cycles and Greenland and the Arctic by Joe D'Aleo on 12 May 2008[1], the author says:
“This week we will talk about temperatures and ice in Greenland and the Arctic, topics sure to dominate the news this summer. Already recent media stories have some scientists predicting another big melt this summer. We will show how that is not at all unprecedented (happens predictably every 60 years or so) and is in fact entirely natural”, and
“We will show how that is not at all unprecedented (happens predictably every 60 years or so) and is in fact entirely natural.”

The readable and interesting paper should not go unchallenged. Joe D’Aleo concludes i.a. that: “The warm mode of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) also produces general warmth across much of the Northern Hemisphere including Greenland and the Arctic.”

Fact is that the early arctic warming was anything else but not cyclical. It was an “explosion” and not gradual shift. The extreme rise of temperatures was initially confined to Spitsbergen, and only commenced in Greenland at least one year later (see: Part C). The sea ice cover off Greenland’s coast had been reaching Iceland in April 1919 for the first time since 1911 (see: Graphs, or ANNEX ).

The research of this site, and the 2007 Conference Paper (right column) show that the early warming has nothing to do with Atlantic Oscillation, but had been entirely related to the impact of the arm of the Gulf Current that passed Spitsbergen prior entering the Arctic Ocean. Actually, the extensive sea ice cover in the North Atlantic until the month of April, prevented significantly to produce more warm air, which could have generated the extreme winter temperature rise at Spitsbergen, the remote archipelagos almost surrounded by ice up to April 1919, except a small open sea area formed like a tongue extending almost to the Arctic Ocean.