Four weeks of climate data: Arctic Circle Region #4

We are now looking at the Western Hemisphere regions of the Arctic Circle for the first time. Lots of open water, very little land, all of it as far from the North Pole as you can get and stay in the Arctic Circle.

We think of Alaska as a huge ice box. It's Fort Lauderdale at Spring Break compared to most other Arctic regions.

Not surprisingly, the only grid points that have strong coverage are in the southern part of the Arctic Circle.

In the Winter months, there was a big jump in the 1970s, a static period until the turn of the century and then a small warming trend recently. I would say this is warming but definitely not getting warmer faster.

In the Spring months, the big jump is in the 1980s and 1980s, the era that had cool Winters. Go figure. I'd still argue a warming trend of sorts, definitely not an increasing warming trend.

Summer has that upward step pattern in all three measurements, record highs, record lows and median for the Consistent Oceanic Niña Intervals. Definite vote for warming, definite vote against it getting warmer at a faster rate.

The Fall data also argues for a warming region and makes an argument for the warming trend increasing. It helps win the first argument, it's definitely a warming region, but it loses the second one, the rate of increase isn't getting faster here over most the seasons.

So this region has to be counted as warming but not increasingly so.

Warming regions: 4-0
Increasing trend regions: 2-2

Tomorrow, we finish the Arctic data with the region dominated by the Queen Elizabeth Islands and the final region, encompassing the lion's share of Greenland.

There are lions in Greenland? I swear, nobody tells me anything.