Sunday, March 15, 2009

In The Arctic

Arctic Temperature

Credit: UNEP/GRID-Arendal
Trends in Arctic temperature, 1880-2006.

Reading assistance: The thick white line running horizontally on this chart is the average temperature for the period 1961-1990. The red curve shows the mean deviation from that average temperature based on the measurements shown in gray.

The chart shows that there have been colder periods in the Arctic and that the latest trend is warmer than the century average.

I think this illustrates pretty well the facts of the matter. What causes these variations in temperature and what consequences a lasting warming will have are still not well enough understood and we do our best to gather more information and understanding of the complex Earth system.

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