18 October 2007
Subject: World Climate Report[1] introduced on October 16, 2007 the issue:
- Greenland Climate: Now vs. Then, Part I. Temperatures -
This site is concerned with the early arctic warming at the start of the last Century, which actually was a Spitsbergen warming commencing suddenly in winter 1918/19. Now World Climate Report is willing to demonstrate that Greenland was as warm, or warmer, than it is presently, wondering that this fact seems largely ignored by alarmist scientists. That is good news and may be also of significant assistance to the efforts of this site.
Particularly useful are the given references of Greenland temperature data. The most interesting are from a location at Greenland’s East coast named Angmagsallik, which has - according NASA – an air temperature set since 1895[2]. This might help to identify clearly where and when the extreme warming started in the Northern North Atlantic. In Part C, Section: The warming event in detail , this site concluded that the warming commenced in 1918, latest in January 1919.
The reproduces winter temperature-set for Angmagsallik, and the corresponding two graphs (for winter and annual mean around the year 1920) show clearly that the warming at East Greenland started one or two year later, as the winter/summer temperatures at Spitsbergen. Attention should be also given to the two graphs showing the minimum and maximum sea ice cover[3], which usually made Angmagsallik an inland location up to 400 kilometres away from the open sea towards the end of the winter season.
During winter the remote archipelagos Spitsbergen is for short and long-term weather making and changing a unique place. Due to the warm water from the Gulf Current a small section remains sea ice free, and that is the reason that the early warming started in winter and started here. Hopefully World Climate Report continues vigorously with elaborating the warming of Greenland, but is also able and willing to look across the Greenland Sea to Spitsbergen, considering why it all started there in winter 1918/19.
Footnotes
[1] http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/10/16/greenland-climate-now-vs-then-part-i-temperatures/
[2] http://www.unaami.noaa.gov/analyses/sat/
[3] Actually this sea ice coverage over the seasons retreated only gradually, at least by far not that much as during the last two decades, although the Arctic temperatures (and over the Northern Hemisphere) increased significantly over the next two decades, until winter 1939/40, when the Arctic temperatures had been as high as they are claimed to be now. This aspect should not be ignored in further discussions.
