Heat wave in Europe contrasts with the coldness of the Arctic sea

Exceptional temperatures have been reported during this year in many locations. During last weeks the focus has been in Europe, where exceptional temperatures were observed especially in southern part of the continent (example).  

The common theme in those news has been that the exceptional heat would have been due to the global change caused by human actions. I am not denying that, but would like to remind that previously any cold weathers have been neglected by climate scientists as climatic change is a global phenomenon and therefore local cold weathers cannot be used as evidence against global change. Therefore, it would be logical, if the same treatment would be given to warm spells. 

However, climatic science has often pointed out that the change is especially speedy in the Arctic region - actually three times as fast as the global average. Therefore I have been following the area and extent of the Arctic sea ice reported by National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

Interestingly indeed, the extent of the Arctic ice is right now more wide than in any of the last 13 years at the same date (July 23). That is in accordance with my analyses of correlation between the area of the Arctic sea ice and atmospheric carbon dioxide content: there has been no statistically significant change between them since year 2002 (the link above is in Finnish, but here is an earlier blogpost in English).

Taken together, based on the local temperatures no clear picture on the global warming can be given. However, we may question the extra rapid warming of the Arctic region - and therefore also climatic models predicting that.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
G-index challenges the theory of the global climatic change
Measurements of arctic temperatures and sea ice area agree with each other
Arctic ice sheet does not support greenhouse gases as the cause of accelerating global warming