In Greenland this week, temperatures reached an all-time high: 80F.
The temperature in Ojai (in Southern California) today: 80F.
WTF?
In Greenland, the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) gently suggested that climate change might have something to do with the high temperatures.
As reported by Jason Samenow for the Washington Post:
The DMI says the warmth was not “unnatural”, but explains it fits into a long-term pattern of climate warming.
“[T]here is an indisputable gradual increase in temperature in Greenland,”DMI writes. “Along the way, any ‘warm event’ thus have a higher probability of being slightly warmer than the previous one.”
Out here in Ojai, in warm Southern California, one notable meteorologist/forecaster, Bob Bornstein of San Jose State, has published studies that show that global warming has already led to local cooling along the coast. It's too soon to disentangle this possibility from oceanic phenomena like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, but talk to Ventura County residents and they will tell you, yes, with the exception of a heat wave earlier this month, this has been a cool summer.
So! Greenland and Southern California — meterological summer twins.
Who wouldn've thunk?
Kit Stolz 
DMI has retracted this record.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/10/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-94-maniitsoq-greenland-all-time-high-temperature-rescinded/#more-91374
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Jeez…away on a vacation with the family…anyhow, the link above takes you to “a news from around the Arctic” blog with a story that leads: “If you wanted hot weather this week, you should have been in Greenland.”
At the bottom of the story it is mentioned that the 25.9C temperature was amended by the meteorological institute to 24C, which was not a record breaker.
On the other hand, the warming trend in the Arctic is undeniable, and — for many scientists — beyond alarming. Here’s the start of a recent post on the question of warming in the far north from the Arctic Sea Ice Blog:
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/07/arctic-time-bombs.html#more
“While keeping an eye on day-to-day data and speculating about whether 2013 is going to overcome the odds and break last year’s records, one tends to forget about the wider implications and what this actually is all about. A tree is incredibly interesting, but in the end it’s all about the forest.
It’s important to remember that the situation isn’t looking good in the Arctic. Not good at all. We’re witnessing things that were supposed to happen decades from now. Instead we’re looking at a change that is hard to fathom, but takes place during our lifetimes, not on a geological timescale.”
Is the story that matters the tree, or the forest? The exact number for that day in that location, or the trend?
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