By Paul Homewood

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/kids-play-arctic-seas-22c-19016180

We have been inundated with stories about the “Greenland heatwave” during the last month. such as the Mirror article above, that I debunked last week.

Well, we now have the monthly data in, so what really happened?

 

Let’s start with Qaanaaq (Thule), which the Mirror reporter visited during w/e 25th August. She wrote:

 

A heatwave is gripping The Arctic, melting away Greenland’s ice sheet on an unprecedented scale and threatening a global rise in sea levels – an urgent reminder of the climate crisis we are now all facing.

Kids splashing each other in the sea and locals wearing t-shirts were unheard of here in August 10 years ago.

But now, alongside teenage girls wearing skirts to school and increasing mosquitoes, it is a common occurrence for the residents of Qaanaaq, in north-west Greenland, one of the world’s most northerly cities situated 700 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

This is the frontline of climate change…..

The country is also experiencing record-breaking temperatures. In mid-June, along the eastern coast it was 9C warmer than the 1981-2010 average.

Just as western Europe has baked in a heatwave with record temperatures at the end of July, the hot air moved as far north as Greenland with the gauge hitting 22C on August 1. The average high is around 7C….

 

According to Weather Underground, however, daily maximum temperatures at Qaanaaq never got above 47F that week. The highest temperature of the month was 63F on the 1st.

KNMI confirm that the record temperature at Qaanaaq is 67F, and that a temperature of 63F was also recorded way back in 1959.

https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/gl/BGTL/date/2019-8

 

The Mirror report also notes that a temperature of 22C (72F) was set last month in Greenland, though it does not say where.

But there is nothing unusual in that at all. In Tasilaaq, for instance, the record stands at 25.3C.

 

How did August stack up against previous years?

Again according to Weather Underground, mean temperatures at the two main long running sites of Nuuk and Kulusuk (Tasilaaq/Angmassalik) averaged 47F and 44F respectively. 1981-2010 norms are 43F and 44F, so Nuuk was a bit warmer than average, whilst Tasilaaq was no warmer at all.

At nether site would you describe the weather as “heatwave”!

https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/gl/nuuk/BGGH/date/2019-7

https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/gl/kulusuk/BGKK/date/2019-8 

 

 

Both sites have temperature data going back to the 19thC, and at neither last month was the temperature unusually high:

 

 

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_find_v3.cgi?lat=64.17&lon=-51.75&ds=7&dt=1

 

In both cases, several Augusts in the 1930s and 40s have been just as warm as last month.

 

I intend to file an official complaint to the Telegraph about their particularly absurd report the other day, which both reported the heatwave nonsense in the Mirror, and also made ridiculous claims about ice melt.

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September 1, 2019 at 11:24AM