Guardian Panic Over Svalbard

By Paul Homewood

h/t stewgreen

The Guardian has been working itself into a frenzy about Svalbard:

Since 1971, temperatures here have risen by 4C, five times faster than the global average. In the winter, when the changes are more marked, it has gone up by an astonishing 7C. These are increases that the rest of the world is not expected to experience until the 22nd century. They are far ahead of most computer simulations. Yet there is still more to come. On current trends, Svalbard will hit 10C of warming by 2100.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/jul/01/its-getting-warmer-wetter-wilder-the-arctic-town-heating-faster-than-anywhere

Sure enough, if we look at the temperature record at Svalbard Airport, which only has data since 1978, the temperature increase is clear, certainly a good 4C:

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/STATIONS/tmp_SV000001008_14_0_1/station.png

However, what about prior to 1977?

If we look at other nearby sites in the region in Novaya Zemlya, Iceland and Norway, we see that temperatures in the 1970s and 80s were much lower than beforehand, notably between 1920 and 1960:

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/STATIONS/tmp_222207440000_5_0_1/station.png

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/STATIONS/tmp_IC000004063_14_0_1/station.png

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/STATIONS/tmp_NOE00105477_14_0_1/station.png

In 1922, the American Meteorological Society knew all about just how warm it was in the Arctic, as they published this in their Monthly Weather Review: