Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_the_Arctic

[1] https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather...

Hot weather in July in the Northern hemisphere is not unusual and does not require explanation or study. Snow in July would be unusual and would require explanation and study.

The problem is how much and how often this happens: global warning is very likely to be caused by human activity.

Future looks ugly, everybody is (maybe unconsciously) afraid and at fault. And instead of looking for a solution I use my brain 40 hours/week to solve useless problems. Those who have also money send cars in the space. What could go wrong.

The thing is the curve is moving towards higher temperatures and we get unexpected deviations more on one end than the other. And have you considered these events may be not significant - yet, because the science department is hopelessly understaffed?

The last three years have been highly above average in the arctic. This isn't "arctic has one warm day!". It's "the entire year is abnormally warm in the arctic, like the past three!"

The appropriate comparison would be the US having a whole winter which is 10-20 degrees colder than normal.

It’s like if I take the Lord’s name in vain and then get sick and you tell me this shows that I shouldn’t swear. Then you lick a handle on the subway and get sick and I tell you this shows how disease is transmitted by germs. The two may look superficially similar, but the underlying reasoning is important.

Let's say your assumption is that the things we observe happen by chance. Now, we have, say 100 years of temperature records. If only the last year just happens to be the warmest year of all observations, there would be an 1:100 probability that this was by chance.

Now, Wikipedia says: "A 2013 article published in Geophysical Research Letters has shown that temperatures in the region haven't been as high as they currently are since at least 44,000 years ago and perhaps as long as 120,000 years ago. The authors conclude that "anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases have led to unprecedented regional warmth."[12][13]"

So it is way more than one warm year in 100 years.

But to comprehend the unlikelihood that this happens by chance, consider another record. Look at this graph:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Gl...

It shows that the instrumental temperature record sind 1880 to today. You see that since 1980, every year was warmer than all the years before.

What is the probability of that for the hypothesis this happened by chance? From 1880 to 2017 are 137 years. The last 37 years have higher temperatures than all the years before. Assuming that no systematic change is happening, the probability is the same as putting the numbers from 1 to 137 into a box, drawing blindly 37 from them, and discovering that you have drawn the numbers 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, and so on, until 137. What is the probability of this?

It is given by the binominal coefficient:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combination

with n = 137, k=37, 1 : n! / (k! (n - k)!).

Using Python:

    >>> def fak(n):
    ...     if n <= 1:
    ...         return 1
    ...     return n * fak(n-1)

    >>>def binom(n,k): 
    ... return fak(n) / (fak(k) * fak(n-k))
    
    >>> n=137
    >>> k=37
    >>> binom(n,k)
    3902541575254646835963436276286280L

1 / 3902541575254646835963436276286280

Do you still think it happens by chance?

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

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

One single day hit 16 at the max. Another hit ~14. That's a very generous way of looking at our weather this winter. This has been a much snowier winter than last year as well (and some others of recent memory).

Yes it's been unusual to have the final 2 weeks of February average above 0 during the day.

Both December and January were very cold with a monthly mean temp of -5˚C (ref: http://climate.weather.gc.ca/climate_data/daily_data_e.html?...). By mid-January there were a ton of stories in the media about how cold our winter had been and various records had been set. Everyone in the city was complaining about this winter for most of it (until recently).

Example: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/fourteen-cold-h...

yes it does.

It snowed the day after it was 75˚F.

“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?

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.

There's a book discussing the business opportunities being created by global warming - "windfall" by McKenzie Funk.

Sure. Great idea. Brilliant. Why wouldn't we welcome it?

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.

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.