Below is a graph that Danish scientists record every year. The first particular graph is from 1958. The graph at the bottom of this entry is from 2018.
DMI Danish Meteorological Institute (click here) Comparing those two graphs seems obvious to me. I am willing to guess it is not obvious to everyone.
The green line. Oh, wait a minute. I betcha folks are going, so what is this mess? Right? At the top of the graph is a TITLE. "Daily Mean Temperature for plus 80N - with ERA40 climate." 80 N is 80 North Latitude. In the image to the right is a map. Denmark can be noted on that map. What also is noted on that map is the latitude of the Arctic Circle, 66 degrees, 30 minutes north.
So, the Danish scientists have been making measurements of the climate at these high latitudes (North Pole is 90.0000° N, 135.0000° W) since 1958. That is 60 years of a unique record and this year will be the 61st year of such scientific assessments.
Now, as to the assessment part, the green line is a mean (average) over time. It is a standard to measure and compare climate change over time. The green line is applied to the graph every year in the same way. That said, the green line is assigned a name, "climate." Climate is a long term measurement and not a day to day, week to week reporting of the WEATHER. Weather is important to note because we live on a planet with a very active day to day, week to week changes in weather. BUT, CLIMATE IS A LONG TERM MEASUREMENT. The green line is climate.
The blue line across the top is titled, "melt." That is fairly straight forward. That is where the ice at these high latitudes melt. So, noting that CONSTANT in this equation of monitoring climate is to note how much ice is MAINTAINED in any given year. We all know that ice in the artic areas of Earth is what COOLS the climate. So, high fluctuations in that reality could be dangerous to life on Earth.
Now to the 'real time' information that tells scientists what is happening NOW is the red line called "mean temp., Era 40." In viewing both these graphs it is really easy to see the vast difference between the two.
The DEPARTURE from the green line is what tells the tale. The labels of this graph are obvious. Yes? The Y-axis (the left side of the graph) is Temperature recorded in Kelvin (click here for history and comparison between the Kelvin Scale and Fahrenheit and Celsius).
The line at the bottom of the graph; the X-axis: is days of the year. So, day 0 (zero) doesn't matter because there is no day 0 on the calendar used by countries on Earth. The calendar begins with Day 1 (January 1). The zero-day is important on the graph because it is also a CONSTANT in recording and assessing the information. The zero is always in the same place with the graph, hence, the red line is consistently based on the same MEASUREMENT OF TEMPERATURE.
Scientists always conduct QUALITY OF METHOD, QUALITY OF INSTRUMENTS to be sure there is a very high degree of accuracy.
So, to close this entry, the dedicated Danish scientists that have carried out these measurements can easily report there are VERY significant changes in Earth's temperatures in the highest Arctic areas of Earth. The 2018 graph has very few records that dip below the green line. That is not the case with 1958.
2018 is not an anomaly. For all the record heat years, consistently there are records that do not cross the green line or only come close to crossing it.This is a climate crisis. It is not a lie and what people are experiencing in these next few days in the American Midwest is a climate crisis. Know, that the polar vortex is displaced and meanders now at lower latitudes and not over the North Pole. It is too warm at the North Pole to support the Polar Vortex.
For those folks citing the temperature of Chicago as -12 F and temperature in Antarctica of -12 F; the real question is not that Chicago is frigidly cold, but, why is Antarctica ONLY -12F.
Think about it.
I personally thank the Danish people for their dedication to the truth and providing their scientists with the ability to monitor a very, very important aspect of Earth's nature. I thank the Danish scientists for their dedication to provide such a factual reality. I send my best regards.
27 February 2018
By Jonathan Watts
An alarming heatwave(click here) in the sunless winter Arctic is causing blizzards in Europe and forcing scientists to reconsider even their most pessimistic forecasts of climate change.
Although it could yet prove to be a freak event, the primary concern is that global warming is eroding the polar vortex, the powerful winds that once insulated the frozen north.
The north pole gets no sunlight until March, but an influx of warm air has pushed temperatures in Siberia up by as much as 35C above historical averages this month. Greenland has already experienced 61 hours above freezing in 2018 - more than three times as many hours as in any previous year.
Seasoned observers have described what is happening as “crazy,” “weird,” and “simply shocking”.
“This is an anomaly among anomalies. It is far enough outside the historical range that it is worrying – it is a suggestion that there are further surprises in store as we continue to poke the angry beast that is our climate,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “The Arctic has always been regarded as a bellwether because of the vicious circle that amplify human-caused warming in that particular region. And it is sending out a clear warning.”...
