Arctic

Recent temperatures in Svalbard

I finally tracked down on the internet what purport to be the 1991-2020 LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. for the airport at Svalbard, and produced these charts of temperatures and anomalies for the period 27 October 2024 to the 15 February 2025. As you can see the results are quite startling, with mean maximum anomalies for the whole period a massive +7.8°C above average, with only four of the one hundred and twelve days with maximum temperatures below the LTA. It’s not until you examine station data such as this, that you realise just how rapidly the Arctic is warming at present.

February 16, 2025

Arctic, Global Warming, Temperature

Recent temperatures in Svalbard Read More »

Arctic sea ice extent third lowest on record

The latest estimated Arctic sea ice extent is the third lowest for the 10th of January at 13.103 million square kilometres, thats 91.7% of the LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. and ~880,000 lower than it was this time last year. Someone has definitely left the fridge door open here.🥵

January 12, 2025

Arctic, Sea Ice Extent

Arctic sea ice extent third lowest on record Read More »

Ice free Arctic? | 7 June 2071 | Another date for your diary

I couldn’t quite believe the new research by Alexandra Jahn, of the University of Colorado that claims that the Arctic could be free of sea ice by the end of this decade 😮. In her research for free of ice read 386,000 square miles, or a million square kilometres, which isn’t exactly what I would describe as “free of sea ice”. I make the date to true zero to be the 7th of June 2071 by extrapolating a simple linear trend for the last 30 years of minima. Even then the Arctic would never be truly free of sea ice I suspect. The date to the one million square kilometres mentioned in the report at the same rate would be around the summer of 2058, which looks far more realistic than the end of this decade. 😉