Arctic Update

By Paul Homewood

 

I don’t usually report on the Arctic, as others do this well. Nevertheless, we seem to be at an important turning point for this year, so let’s look at some of stats from DMI, the Danish Meteorological Institute.

 

 

Temperatures

    

Daily mean temperature and climate north of the 80th northern parallel, as a function of the day of year.

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

   

Temperatures have been running below the mean, which is based on a baseline of 1958 –2002, since April. They are now dropping sharply, and are now at the level we would expect to see probably in another two or three weeks. As this is very much a model based dataset, it is worth repeating DMI’s warning not to take the actual temperatures too literally:-

 

“Therefore, do NOT use this measure as an actual physical mean temperature of the arctic. The ‘plus 80 North mean temperature’ graphs can be used for comparing one year to an other.”

 

So it does not automatically follow that the whole area is below freezing yet. But, comparisons against the mean are valid. (The same sort of warnings are given by other datasets, such as GISS – see their “Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature”).

 

 

 

Ice extent

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

 

Currently, extent is running well above that of recent years, and is within a standard deviation of the mean.

Sea ice extent minimums are normally reached around the 10th September, but,given the fall in temperature and barring external factors such as storms, we could well see the minimum reached earlier this year, maybe even as early as the end of August. The earliest minimum on record was the 2nd September 1987.