Four weeks of climate data: Arctic Circle Region #5

The final two regions of the Arctic Circle have a lot more land mass than any of the first four regions, though not quite as much population as Region #1, which encompasses polar Scandinavia and northwestern Russia. Region #5 is dominated by the Queen Elizabeth Islands, and we should expect a lot of weather stations relatively close to the North Pole.

We expected them and here they are. Each square represents a grid that get included in our regional average. The ones with thicker outlines get data from all or nearly all seasons in the time span we are considering, 1955 to 2010, years chosen because they were both years with strong La Niña currents. We split this era into four intervals based on Consistent Oceanic Niña Intervals.

First interval: 1955-1975
Second interval: 1975-1988
Third interval: 1988-1999
Fourth interval: 1999-2010

The black line at the top follows the record warm temperatures in the four intervals. It looked like a static trend or slight cooling in the last half of the 20th Century, but a big jump up in the 1999-2010, which would say warming and an increasing warming rate of warming.

The red line is the median. Again, the first three eras have a static pattern and the last time intervals shows warming and an increasing rate.

The bottom black line follows the coldest winters in each time interval. There was a warming jump between the 1975-1988 and the 1988-1999 eras, but a slight decline in the most recent. The general trend here would say warming but the rate is not increasing.
 

Every indicator for Spring says a warming trend a step up every time.  The high and low average temperature trends say an increasing rate, but the median does not.

Summer's trends are not as unanimous as Spring's in terms of warming, with little up-down-up stutter steps breaking up the median readings and the highs, but there is no compelling argument this is showing static data, it's clearly warming.  As for an increasing rate for warming, the median says yes and the other two indicators say now.

Fall data also convincingly argues for warming and the median and low trends argue strongly for an increasing rate, while the record high trend is not as clear.

Warming trend: 11 indicators say yes, 1 is uncertain. The ayes have it.

Increasing rate warming of warming: The split is much closer 7 yes to 5 no.  While there is a majority, it is not convincing, so over all seasons we cannot say the rate of warming is increasing.

Warming regions: 5-0
Increasing trend regions: 2-3

Later today, a look at last slice of the Arctic Circle, which encompasses almost of Greenland and nothing else.