Arctic temperature trends from the early nineteenth century to the present

Abstract

Temperatures were examined at 118 stations located in the Arctic and compared to observations at 50 European stations whose records averaged 200 years and in a few cases extend to the early 1700s. Nearly all stations exhibited warming trends. For each station, the temperature relative to the average value during 1961–1990 was found. The resulting temperature change averaged over the Arctic stations was plotted. For the period 1820–2014, trends were found for the January, July and annual temperatures of 1.0, 0.0 and 0.7 °C per century, respectively. Decadal variations are evident and much of the temperature increase occurred during the 1990s. Over the past century, Siberia, Alaska and Western Canada have experienced somewhat greater warming than Eastern Canada, Greenland and Northern Europe. The temperature change experienced by the Arctic stations during the last two centuries closely tracks that found for the European stations.