Global Warming Science - www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming

Arctic Ozone Scare

[last update: 2011/03/16]

Alarmists Blame Arctic Ozone Loss on Global Warming

[http://www.tgdaily.com/sustainability-features/54663-arctic-facing-record-ozone-loss]

That’s a new take on the Arctic – colder winters due to “climate change” (AKA “global warming”).

Arctic Winter

The following figure shows the average winter temperature anomaly of all 56 Arctic grids in the Hadley CRUTEM3 database with data (i.e. all 5x5 degree grids north of 65 N), for the average of January – March.

(Plotted at http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/climate.aspx)

Obviously Arctic winters have not been getting colder during the global warming area (in fact, the Arctic is just about the only part of the world with significant warming).

The following figure shows the same as above but with the data shifted back 64 years in red (and down 0.5 degrees). This shows the similarity of the repeating approx. 64 year cycle in the Arctic.

(See http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/SixtyYearCycle.htm for more info on the 60 year climate cycle.)

Arctic Ozone and ENSO

The Arctic ozone goes through an annual cycle (due to the absence of sun in winter) and reaches its low point in March (end of winter).

The following figure shows the Arctic ozone in March for 1979 – 2007 (left) [http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/29/64/14/PDF/acp-8-251-2008.pdf] and (right) comparing that to the multivariate El Nino / Southern Oscillation Index (Multivariate ENSO Index - MEI) with ozone lagged by one year (i.e. ENSO leads by one year). The MEI plot is from [http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/].

Comparing the ozone trend (above left) with the temperature trend shown in the previous section indicates ozone has been decreasing while winter temperatures have been increasing, contrary to what the alarmist article states.

They also neglect to mention that 2010 / 2011 ENSO has been strongly negative, associated with decreasing March ozone.

(See http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/Ozone.htm#arctic for more info on Arctic ozone depletion and annual cycle.)