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Ammassalik temperature records.” However, they state that “the average rate of warming was
considerably higher within the 1920-1930 decade than within the 1995-2005 decade.” In fact,
they report that the earlier warming rate was 50% greater than the most recent one. And in
discussing this fact, they say that “an important question is to what extent can the current
(1995-2005) temperature increase in Greenland coastal regions be interpreted as evidence of
man-induced global warming?” In providing their own answer, they noted that “the Greenland
warming of 1920 to 1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for [a] period of warming to arise,” and that “the
observed 1995-2005 temperature increase seems to be within [the] natural variability of
Greenland climate.”
A similar study was conducted two years later by Mernild et al. (2008), who described "the
climate and observed climatic variations and trends in the Mittivakkat Glacier catchment in Low
Arctic East Greenland from 1993 to 2005 ... based on the period of detailed observations (1993-
2005) and supported by synoptic meteorological data from the nearby town of Tasiilaq
(Ammassalik) from 1898 to 2004.” This work revealed that “the Mittivakkat Glacier net mass
balance has been almost continuously negative, corresponding to an average loss of glacier
volume of 0.4% per year.” And during the past century of general mass loss, they found that
“periods of warming were observed from 1918 (the end of the Little Ice Age) to 1935 of 0.12°C
per year and 1978 to 2004 of 0.07°C per year,” with the former rate of warming being fully 70%
greater than the most recent rate of warming.
Last of all, Wood et al. (2010) constructed a two-century (1802-2009) instrumental record of
annual surface air temperature within the Atlantic-Arctic boundary region, using data obtained
from recently published (Klingbjer and Moberg, 2003; Vinther et al., 2006) and historical
(Wahlen, 1886) sources that yielded four station-based composite time series that pertain to
Southwestern Greenland, Iceland, Tornedalen (Sweden) and Arkhangel’sk (Russia). This
operation added seventy-six years to the previously available record, the credibility of which
result, in Wood et al.’s words, “is supported by ice core records, other temperature proxies,
and historical evidence.” And the U.S. and Icelandic researchers determined that their newly
extended temperature history and their analysis of it revealed “an irregular pattern of decadalscale
temperature fluctuations over the past two centuries,” of which the early twentiethcentury
warming (ETCW) event -- which they say “began about 1920 and persisted until midcentury”
-- was by far “the most striking historical example.”
In further discussing their findings, Wood et al. write that “as for the future, with no other
examples in the record quite like the ETCW, we cannot easily suggest how often -- much less
when -- such a comparably large regional climate fluctuation might be expected to appear.”
Nevertheless, they say that if past is prologue to the future, “it would be reasonable to expect
substantial regional climate fluctuations of either sign to appear from time to time,” and,
therefore, that “singular episodes of regional climate fluctuation should be anticipated in the
future,” which also implies that any rapid warming that may subsequently occur within the
Atlantic-Arctic boundary region need not be due to rising greenhouse gas concentrations, as it
could well be caused by the same unknown factor that caused the remarkable ETCW event,
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