
Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter - kevinyen
http://www.smh.com.au/world/arctic-temperatures-soar-25-degrees-above-normal-in-the-dead-of-winter-20180222-p4z1bh.html
======
briga
Using events like this to illustrate that global warming is happening is about
as scientifically significant as when Trump used the recent US cold snap to
imply that global warming isn't happening. I'm not saying climate change
doesn't exist--it certainly does--but outlying events like this aren't by
themselves particularly unusual. "Normal", after all, is at the top of a bell
curve, and deviations from normal should be expected.

~~~
brentm
At this point believing or not believing in climate change is analogous to
religion. I have trouble believing any facts or data would swing a significant
portion of either side of the debate. Denying climate change is easy. We're
not going to see places like New York City move swiftly underwater and the
problem is so abstract it's easy to call BS. Short of Trump changing his mind
and using his super power of convincing conservatives to go along with things
they otherwise never would have gone along with we will continue in this
pattern for probably our life time.

~~~
zipwitch
Climate change denialism has more in common with Flat Earth Theory than
religion of any stripe. (Which makes so many Americans buying into it all the
more frighting.)

~~~
bleachedsleet
...and flat earth theory also has a lot in common with religion.

I'm sorry, but it is impossible to be a truly intelligent person that also
believes in any religion without serious cherry picking or psychological
compartmentalization. I say this as someone that loves studying religion (I
have a degree in it), but I study it as an artform of human expression or an
oddity that once was, not as a serious pursuit of self-completion. Hopefully,
we can one day study those that deny basic climate science and geology the
same way...

~~~
tntn
I like to think of myself as intelligent, and I am religious. I'd like to gain
some insight into exactly what kind of serious cherry picking I'm doing. Could
you provide some examples of what you had in mind when you wrote your comment?

I have a hard time understanding how someone can get a degree in religion
without noticing how unfalsifiable most religions are.

I'd also be interested to hear what great new evidence has arisen since the
19th century that makes religion so foolish. Take Maxwell for example. He knew
about the age of the Earth and recognized the validity of Darwin's theory of
evolution. Yet he was by all accounts a very religious man.

~~~
svskeptic
Lets start with why you think the particular religion you practice is the one?

If you think, all are the same, then you are now moving towards existence of a
superior being and possibly creationism.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Pretty much all major religions are compatible with each other. You can move
towards a particular sect if you have specific needs. A polytheist Christian
would tend towards Catholicism, etc.

I don’t think you need to adhere closely to one single tradition in order to
be “religious” if that’s what you’re getting at.

To answer your question directly though, I was raised in a Christian church. I
adhere to some basic form of that. Humility, forgiveness, we were made in Gods
image, the original sin of the knowledge of good and evil, etc.

------
grecy
Anecdotal:

I live in Whitehorse, Yukon. For reference I drive due South to Alaska.

The weather here is nothing, and I mean nothing like it used to be. It would
reliably be -40 for all of Jan and Feb in the past. The river would freeze to
the point of holding the massive festival ON the river with cars, tents,
thousands of people ,etc.

The river has not frozen for a decade, it regularly goes above freezing in Jan
and Feb, and even some of the mighty lakes up here don't freeze enough that
you want to walk on them. The ice used to be so think my 4 ft. ice auger
wasn't long enough to let me ice fish.

~~~
thisacctforreal
We still have the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous festival, it's just on land now.

It's actually happening this weekend! It's always the last full weekend in
February, in case our city piques your interest ;)

[http://www.northofordinary.com/winter_rendezvous](http://www.northofordinary.com/winter_rendezvous)

Anecdotally, I've also heard from a couple of farmers that the wind up here is
different than it was in the '70s.

~~~
grecy
haha, I'm away right now, but I live in Whitehorse, I've been to Rendezvous
many, many times :)

My first year it didn't get above -40... daytime high temps :)

~~~
tonyarkles
Two Yukoners in the thread! I'm way further south in Regina, but it's good to
see Canadians who aren't from Vancouver or Toronto!

And as a crazy question, given that there's only a population of 25k in
Whitehorse... what's the tech scene like? :)

~~~
grecy
The tech scene is.. well.. interesting.

You can really only work for the big Telco (Northwestel, owned by Bell), or
the Yukon Government, or the city. Each have an overall IT team of something
nearing 100 people, with lots of hardware, software, BAs, PAs, etc. etc.

Each has their pros and cons, each is incestuous and everyone knows everyone.
Tons of people have worked for all three and hop back and forth as the seasons
change. Once you have been in town a couple of years everyone knows you.

There is also a couple of small development shops.

A few people have worked really hard to get a maker space going (Yukonstruct)
and from all reports it's doing great. Lots of members, lots of workshops on
programming, 3D printing, etc. etc.

The money in the North is decent, and I only pay ~20% income tax, so it's a
great place to sock away savings.

~~~
thisacctforreal
I think there's ~50-200 software developers up here between freelancers and
businesses? Of that maybe half of them are fulltime.

I know of a couple webshops that are mostly WordPress/Drupal-based, mostly
running Mac+Linux.

I think Make IT is the most serious custom software vendor, they ship some
Scala but I believe are mostly Windows-based.
[http://www.makeit.com/](http://www.makeit.com/)

FWIW NWTel is also Windows-based, but I'd wager that per capita the Yukon has
more Linux users due to the more rugged/self-sufficient/off-grid appeal.

YuKonstruct also opened a co-working office on Strickland called (co)space,
they offer desks and a few private offices, though those might be filled.
[https://cospacenorth.com/](https://cospacenorth.com/)

I just got a small office down the street from them for $300/month, but I
think most small office spaces go for $400-500.

Renting a house is $1,400+, but the vacancy rate is less than 2% for detached
houses and townhouses, IIRC. Our gov't releases handy stat booklets, and has
one for rentals, so maybe I'll get around to scanning it this week.

~~~
tonyarkles
I was just poking around the YuKonstruct site. This is incredible! I wouldn't
have expected something that awesome in such a small town. It beats the pants
off the Makerspace in Regina!

Thanks, you two, for the insight. I have idly looked at the Northwestel
careers page off-and-on for a year or two, but I'm not sure I'd make a very
good "company man".

~~~
grecy
I was with NWTel for 4 years. It's certainly a "Company man" kind of place.
Old, old, old school management from the 1960s.

But the perks of living in the North are immense. I miss it every day and know
for certain I will be back there when I'm done roaming Africa.

------
rm999
Note that this is in Celsius - for us Americans, this is 45 degrees Fahrenheit
above normal.

~~~
darrenf
25°c is 77°f, not 45.

~~~
darrenf
Oops oops yes, mea culpa. Note to self: avoid (posting to) HN after a few
drinks. Thanks to all those who corrected me.

~~~
netsharc
REDACTED: No.. not oops. He's wrong, you're right.

Ah why did you reply to your own comment instead of pressing edit. I thought
you were the grandparent poster replying to the correction. God damnit.

~~~
pharrington
The "+32" in the conversion from Celsius measures to Fahrenheit measures is to
account for the base offset differences in the absolute measures.

------
Jedi72
Thesee graphs show the mean temperature of the arctic for each day of the year
for the last 50 years, measured hy the Danish meteorological bureau:

[http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php](http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php)

Last 3 years have been truly crazy.

------
KamiCrit
Good article but I really wish they'd stick to one unit of measurement. And
the world standard measurement at that.

Was hard from the beginning to understand the severity of the situation with
no units denoted.

------
52-6F-62
Anecdotal:

Here in Toronto, it's been 16˚C this past week. In February. We've had about 2
or 3 real snowfalls that stuck around for a few days before melting.

As somebody who loves ice skating outside, it's really frustrating. And I love
the snow.

Every year it seems like the winter gets a little milder...

~~~
manmal
It seems the cold moved to central Europe, giving us -15 degrees celsius at
night in the upcoming week.

~~~
iliis
It seems that this is directly caused by the arctic temperature rise:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_stratospheric_warming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_stratospheric_warming)

Relevant quote: Following a sudden stratospheric warming, the high altitude
winds reverse to flow eastward instead of their usual westward. The eastward
winds progress down through the atmosphere and weaken the jet stream, often
giving easterly winds near the surface and resulting in dramatic reductions in
temperature in Europe.

see also (in german):
[http://www.meteoschweiz.admin.ch/home/aktuell/meteoschweiz-b...](http://www.meteoschweiz.admin.ch/home/aktuell/meteoschweiz-
blog/meteoschweiz-blog.subpage.html/de/data/blogs/2018/2/sibirische-kaelte-
kommt-.html)

------
bitL
Didn't the same happen last year, with arctic polar region being warmer than
sub-arctic latitudes? Maybe it's the new normal climate or at least semi-
persistent like El Niño?

~~~
igravious
It actually says so in the article,

“This next batch of abnormally warm air is forecast to shoot the gap between
Greenland and northern Europe through the Greenland and Barents seas. Similar
circumstances occurred in December 2016, when the temperature at the North
Pole last flirted with the melting point in the dark, dead of winter.
Similarly large jumps in temperature were documented in November 2016 and
December 2015.”

It happens every year? Therefore it's not unusual.

So that makes this, “This latest huge temperature spike in the Arctic is
another striking indicator of its rapidly transforming climate.”, uh, what?

~~~
boardwaalk
A few years of this does not make it normal.

While we're quoting the article:

> These kinds of temperature anomalies in the Arctic have become commonplace
> in winter in the past few years.

Implying they haven't been in the past.

~~~
igravious
> A few years of this does not make it normal.

I wasn't implying that.

> Implying they haven't been in the past.

Nor that.

My only intention was to agree with the original commenter that the title and
start of the article made it sound like this one event was a complete anomaly.

Later on we find out that, no, this has been happening for a while.

If it is not an anomaly then we need to know how frequently this temperature
spike happens. Multiple times during the winter? Has it been spiking only in
the last few years. How anomalous is it?

Am I not allowed ask these questions?

~~~
fyfy18
Another commenter posted a link to climate data from the Danish Meteorological
Institute for the artic region for the past 50 years:

[http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php](http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php)

For most of the dataset the winter temperatures have followed the model fairly
well (of course there are spikes), but for the last few years the winter
temperature has been significantly higher than the model.

~~~
igravious
The "of course there are spikes" is the whole reason I'm commenting in this
thread. If there are spikes (if spikes are the norm) then the article that has
been posted is not news. News is something anomalous, no?

Not news: "there's been this major spike the last few days! (oh btw, there
have always been spikes)"

Sort of news: "there's been this major spike the last few days! the severity
of the spike is fairly unprecedented, it happens once every 50 or 100 years"

Worrying news: "there's been this major spike the last few days! these have
been happening more and more frequently. they have been getting more and more
sever. increase in frequency is X%, the increase in severity is Y%. these
increases have been going on for Z years. this falls outside climate change
variability by V%.

Alarmist news: "there's been this major spike the last few days! omg, climate
change!"

That Danish data set you linked to. Have you have noticed that the numbers
jump around at the edge of the year? Check out the break between 1999 and
2000. I can see by eyeballing it that the winter temperature has been somewhat
(not significantly) more erratic (not higher) than the model which is
1958-2002. How much more erratic though? I don't want you to interpret the
data for me using your words, I want the percentage differences themselves.
I'll make up my own my mind about what words to use to describe the
variability if that's okay with you.

Here's what it says, “Calculation of the Arctic Mean Temperature The daily
mean temperature of the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel is
estimated from the average of the 00z and 12z analysis for all model grid
points inside that area. The ERA40 reanalysis data set from ECMWF, has been
applied to calculate daily mean temperatures for the period from 1958 to 2002.
From 2002 to present the operational model (at all times) from The ECMWF is
used for mean temperature calculations.”

So we're getting one number for everywhere north of the 80th parallel? What
are the 00z and 12z analysis?

The document they link to explaining the methodology leaves me with more
questions than it answers:
[http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/documentation/arctic_mean_temp_da...](http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/documentation/arctic_mean_temp_data_explanation_newest.pdf)

------
poster123
Doesn't warming of the coldest parts of the world mean there will be more
usable land? I have read that global warming could have benefits for countries
such as Russia.

~~~
zasz
There will be a net loss to global agriculture for a couple reasons:

1\. Climate change implies increased variability in weather--hotter summers,
wetter winters. Agriculture does best in a relatively stable environment. Just
look at California--extremely wet winters followed by extremely hot wildfires.
It's hard for a species to thrive in a very wide variety of conditions. Not
impossible, of course, with humanity being the crowning example of that kind
of flexibility, but it's harder for an annual grain like wheat, rice, or corn
to pull off.

2\. Less sun at northern and southern latitudes mean a shorter growing season.

There are a few other reasons I can think of for why yields will generally
drop, among them ozone pollution, but they're not related to climate change
specifically.

~~~
bsbechtel
California is one of the most agriculturally diverse and productive regions in
the world. I'm not sure what your point is, but implying agriculture struggles
in California is just plain wrong.

~~~
zasz
I apologize, that part was poorly written. What I meant is that the kind of
weather variation California's been experiencing will become the new normal,
and the worse said variation is, the worse yields will become in general.

------
yodsanklai
I see three common attitudes towards global warming. A. It's BS, there's no
such thing. B. It's happening, but it's no big deal, we'll solve this problem
thanks to growth and innovation. C. It's happening, we need to do something
about it.

A and B are instance of cognitive dissonance.

I'm in category C. I would be in favor of any measure that could help reducing
the risk even if it decreases greatly my comfort. But I don't see this
happening. Even small harmless restrictions are not taken. Try to tell people
that they should drive smaller and less powerful cars for instance.

But maybe the rational attitude to have (which is less heard) is to stop
caring as we're not going to solve this anyway. We're not going to solve our
mortality problem either and we don't worry too much about this. Future
generations will have it harder than we had (climate change, pollution and
resources depletion) but why should we worry about them (esp. if we don't have
kids)? It's not like we really care about miserable people living now.

------
r721
Related post on Arctic Sea Ice Blog:
[http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2018/02/global-sea-ice-
record...](http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2018/02/global-sea-ice-records-
broken-yet-again.html)

------
golergka
How much statistical significance can have an anomaly that lasts only 24
hours?

~~~
yequalsx
Suppose you know for a fact that this place has never experienced such an an
event like this over the last x years with x a large number. Furthermore you
have strong evidence the Earth is warming. Then this happens. Such an
observation can be significant. It depends on the situation. I don’t know if
this event qualifies. I don’t know enough but someone who studies the issue
made the tweet. To his trained eye this was noteworthy. Not proof but
noteworthy.

------
Seed-void
There is no global warming.

Deep Bore Into Antarctica Finds Freezing Ice, Not Melting as Expected |
National Geographic
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyjt5zpNAeg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyjt5zpNAeg)

At the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, scientists used a hot-water drill hose to
create a hole through the thick ice until they reached the perpetually dark
water. What they found surprised them. Christina Hulbe/University of
Otago/K061

Real weather information:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6VhLE7qAeW8NZm6PsXGGrQ/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6VhLE7qAeW8NZm6PsXGGrQ/videos)

------
meri_dian
Warmer temperatures will mean we may need to change where we farm our food and
move some cities but it's much better than things getting colder. It may even
be better than the current climate, given it may actually increase the amount
of land where food is arable.

~~~
pedalpete
Though I don't "welcome global warming", I think this is a good point of
debate.

The comparison to "getting colder" isn't really valid, as it is not the only
option.

Most people would like things to stay the same. Perhaps we should be looking
at what temperature would be the most beneficial to the planet as a whole.

If we were to create a new earth, what would be the ideal temperature, how
would we manage it, where is that in comparison to where we are now, how can
we get there.

Is it a dangerous question? probably.

~~~
pharrington
Since human cognition is based from previous cognitive state and
interpretation of sensory input, precise communication requires mapping the
communicative symbols as closely as possible to your desired semantics.

Earth itself will do just fine at any temperature that's below literally
evaporating. Various life on this planet has evolved to thrive in wildly
disparate climates, and short of complete eradication of an ecosystem,
surviving organisms both tend towards better suitability for their given
environment _and_ adapt their environment towards better suitability for them
(both with limits). We humans should be looking at what _temperature ranges_
would be the most beneficial to _human society_ as a whole. Sure, that's
incredibly self biased, but as a human, I contend that's an incredibly useful
bias to have.

~~~
oldcynic
My starting point with that question is to say humans are best suited to the
global climate under which they evolved. Muck about with that at your peril.
Try it out on the hot-spare planet first please.

Attempting to adapt the environment _will_ have unforeseen, probably serious,
consequences. I for one hope we do not try, or have no choice but to try,
geoengineering attempting to avoid catastrophe.

~~~
pharrington
I completely agree with your first point. One of the key problems is that
humans are the most adept species in billions of years at adapting the
environment. Over time, the more likely a thing is to happen, the more that
thing does happen. Adaptation is most likely to occur in the form of adding
energy, and as Applejinx noted elsewhere in this thread, adding energy to a
chaotic system increases its degree of deviation.

~~~
oldcynic
Quite, and we've never tried geoengineering on a global scale. We've had
enough problems from localised changes from agriculture or introduced species.

To your second point I've always preferred climate change as a term over
global warming as some areas will end up cooler, others more changeable.
Especially if one of the major ocean current systems slows or stops.

------
allthenews
Climate evolves over scales of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. It
is frustrating to see fellow geoscientists use some 100 years of anomalous
temperature data as absolute proof of permanent catastrophic change.

Having read parts of the official IPCC report, there are still significant
holes all the way down to the treatment of the woefully incomplete data used
to draw admittedly uncertain conclusions. The picture is nowhere near as
certain as many have been lead to believe, and it is difficult for me to take
climate change reporting seriously, because as soon as one moves past
published literature, the concept of uncertainty is abandoned for politicized
groupthink.

Now, it is not unreasonable to assume that something is happening. And, given
the chance that it is not transient, it makes sense to hedge our bets and
reduce emissions. However, even here I hesitate because of an almost total
void of literature discussing the potential benefits of a warmer earth.

Such is the curse of taboo.

~~~
bornonline1
Climate works slowly when there aren't a billion cars and other industry. A
visible analogy is the reduction of animals and plants due to human activity.

A warmer weather is an 'unknown'. We have trouble with EVERYTHING. We hardly
know anything atm with the stable environment so a whole new challenge of
future planet might be just to much. It is already to much.

