The Norwegian island of Svalbard, (previously Spitzbergen) has been the locus of some abnormal warm monthly temperatures of late. See recent post on RealClimate by Drs Michael Mann and Phil Jones.

In mid 2000 I commented on the inhomogenous warm trend in Isfjord Radio data. There are comparisons with nearest neighbours, comments on the Jones et al 1986 station intercomparisons and even some comments by Dr Jones.

In conclusion I wrote:

On the basis of the Andenes and TromsØ differences, the wild variations and erratic warm drift in homogeneity between these stations should have been reason for Isfjord Radio to be rejected. No notes or reference to retaining Isfjord Radio as some special case, are to be found in Jones et al 1991 and its retention in the database represents a touching faith in geostatistics outliers.

Looking at the idea that ice melting could be the reason for the rapid warming in Spitzbegen 1912-1923, consider the global map of Jones 1994 temperature anomalies 1901-1996 in Karl 1998 and we see the the Svalbard (Spitzbergen) grid box warms at about 4 degrees, twice that of any other grid box on the planet.

If this rapid warming was due to ice melting, common sense tells us it must have happened somewhere else. A huge magnitude rapid warming such as this could not just occur in a 5 degree grid box. Look at the high northern latitudes on the Karl 1998 map and there are no other comparable examples despite a good scattering of stations above the Arctic Circle.

This case is a manifestation of the lapse in critical standards in climatology, which is after all a very new and ( up to the advent of the IPCC ), very small science.

Just to end up with an example from the real world of mineral exploration known well to the writer. Geochemical and geophysical data which are the mainstay of the orebody discovery process are littered with outlier values that if targeted with drilling would rapidly bankrupt any mineral exploration company. Exploration geologists every day have to deal with filtering out spurious signals from their geostatistics so that scarce exploration funding is not wasted.

In the current world of climatology, large amounts of greenhouse industry controlled taxpayer funded research grants will inevitably dull essential scientific scepticism.