I may be the only person who finds this remotely interesting, but when I punched in the previous graphs from 1951-2005, I felt like I wasn’t fully addressing the Arctic melting claim, since the years in which most of the melting were claimed, specifically 2006 and 2007, were absent from the graph. That wasn’t on purpose. That was because they’re not available from environment Canada. The data set I found matches up with the Environment Canada historical data when I cross-referenced them, so it looks good to go. Here was the result:

There has definitely been above average warm years in the Arctic during the past five years, with the exception of 2004, which remains the second coldest year on record in 58 years of collected data. The last four years drop the 58-year mean temperature from an even -18 Celsius to -17.8 Celsius. With the new data set, six of the past eight years have been the warmest in Alert. 2006 becomes the new warmest temperature at -15.3 Celsius, beating the previous 1981 low of -15.9 Celsius.

2007 becomes third warmest at -16 Celsius; 2009 is fourth warmest at -16.1 Celsius; 1998, 1996, 2008, and 2005 round out the top eight. If you look at the previous graph, the trendline now becomes more noticeable.

What I do want to stress, however, is that this by no means confirms anthropogenic global warming. What it does, is show a very small data set that proves that the Arctic has been unusually warm for the past five years, in an otherwise relatively stable timeline from records dating back to 1951. Four years of warming does not a case for AGW make. But let’s punch in the numbers for summer and winter using the new data set as well, to see what turns up.

Now look at that. The new data has done nothing to disturb the 58 year trendline of declining summer temperatures. In fact, 2004-2007 temperatures in July were below the statistical average for Alert. The warmest summers appear to have occurred way back in the fifties. Adding the four years does nothing to the mean temperature of 3.5 Celsius for July, while the year widely cited as being responsible for the most warming, 2007, recorded the third coldest July in 58 years. So we’re going to have to look at the data added to the winter:

Because we’re fortunate enough to be in March, I managed to grab the data from this past February as well, adding five years to the chart. As you can see, all six of the past winters have been unusually mild in the Arctic. So, if anything, it isn’t the summer that is skewing the temperatures, but mild winters. By “mild” of course, I’m still referring to temperatures ranging from -28 Celsius to -32 Celsius. The previous 54 year average of -33.4 Celsius changes to -33.1 Celsius, a 0.3 degree warmth from the past five years. Three of the four warmest winters on record occurred in 2005, 2007, and 2008. The most recent February was 12th warmest from a 59 year data set.

Again, all this proves is that we are having milder than average winters, that we have anomalous temperature increases from the annual mean for five years in a row in the Arctic, but that there is nothing conclusive to point toward a long-term warming trend. I think this is backed up by the fact that summer temperatures continue to be around the statistical norm.

Anyway, I won’t bore you with any more statistics for a while. I promise.