From Finnish Neutrality to Russian Ruins

Russia's attack on Ukraine has led to a complete transformation of Finland's foreign policy. Whereas during the Soviet era, politicians in my home country often aligned themselves with the positions of our great eastern neighbor, and even at the beginning of this millennium avoided directly criticizing the blatant injustices it committed, today they are ready to respond to Russia's actions exactly as they deserve.

We saw another example of this today when the Finnish Parliament — unanimously, note, unanimously, from the left to the right — approved the government's proposal for a complete ban on Russian real estate acquisitions. As a result, Minister Antti Häkkänen (National Coalition Party) expressed his "great joy that Parliament so comprehensively supported this proposal, whose goal is to strengthen national security. This decision sends a clear message: we will not allow Finland to be destabilized."

Meanwhile, in Ukraine itself, Russian forces have once again attacked and even made some advances, but only at great cost. In particular, Ukrainian drones have caused significant destruction among the attackers. According to Ukrainian sources, drones have been responsible for as much as 70 percent of the losses suffered by Russian forces.

According to Finnish expert Pasi Paroinen, satellite images have made it possible to assess that Russia has almost no old Soviet-era stockpiles left. It remains to be seen what Putin and his military leadership will do once the very last museum piece has been retrieved from storage and sent to be destroyed by Ukrainian drones.

The question is: should they finally give up?

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Finally, Finland Speaks the Truth Without Fear!
Putin Set a Goal — Failure Would Be an Embarrassment
Turning Points in the War in Ukraine and the West's Responsibility

Record low temperature in northern Finland

This spring has been relatively warm in Finland, as expected considering the commonly known predictions of a warming climate.

However, it is worth noting that last night in Kilpisjärvi, located in the northernmost region, the temperature reached a record low for the month of June at -7.7 degrees Celsius. This temperature was 0.7 degrees lower than the previous record set in 1962

It's important to note that this observation does not imply that climate change has been canceled. Instead, it perhaps indicates that the extent of warming is not yet very significant. One possible explanation could be that global temperatures have decreased since 2016, as indicated by satellite data.

The satellite data also aligns with measurements of the arctic sea extent, which currently show a considerable increase compared to the same time in 2012, 2016, and many other years. This hiatus has been attributed to the prolonged La Niña period and the absence of El Niño since 2016.

However, it appears that the long-awaited El Niño may be starting, which makes it extremely interesting to see whether the temperature records from the last decade will be surpassed both globally and locally in the Arctic region. Could it even be possible that next year's summer will set a new temperature record in Kilpisjärvi? 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Arctic sea ice contradicts with the climatic model predictions, but is that changing now?
Availability of coffee in a warming world
Advice to participants of the COP27 climate implementation summit

G-index challenges the theory of the global climatic change

There are many kinds of estimates describing the development of the global temperature. You may follow statistics based on adjusted temperature measurements from worldwide network of stations, satellite data or - my favorite thus far - melting of arctic sea ice. 

Here I will introduce you - my respected reader - to a G-index developed by a Finnish teacher Simo Ruoho. I know, it sounds ridiculous to compare a school teacher´s achievement to those of huge scientific organisations like NASA - and that is what I thought myself, when I heard about him for the first time some half a year ago.

Now, after following his G-index thereafter, I have become highly interested due to its accuracy. During this time its prediction of the becoming global temperature has failed only once. And no, the prediction has not been changed afterwards. 

In addition, the G-index of Mr. Ruoho has also predicted amazingly well the annual mean temperature of Finland. That is, more accurately than the prediction of the governmental Finnish Meteorologial Institute. 

These evidence are impressive enough for me to share this information in this blog. However, only the accuracy of the future predictions will show, whether he has only had good luck with his index - or whether he has made a major finding on the mechanisms of the global climatic development. 

If the latter, the global atmospheric development does not follow from the carbon dioxide and other emissions due to human actions, but is driven by the exchange of energy between the oceans and atmosphere. In other words, if G-index-based predictions will hold also in the future, the current climate theory developed to explain the warming of the global climate will become falsified. That is, shown to be wrong.

As the global climatic change has a major effect on politics in the EU and elsewhere, that would probably be the greatest scoop ever. But also a sad example of scientists losing their objectivity after the big money became available for the climatic research. 

Therefore - as a professional scientist - I am not sure, should I cross my fingers for the success or failure of Simo Ruoho´s G-index. The fact, however, is that the position of my fingers does not affect the outcome. And therefore the only thing I can do now, is to continue my follow-up of his predictions and their accuracy.  

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
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
A scoop to be kept out of daylight

Measurements of arctic temperatures and sea ice area agree with each other

Antti Lipponen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute tweeted on the arctic temperature, which - according to him - was 4.9℃ warmer than the March average between 1951-1980. He also told that it was fourth highest since March 1950, and showed the following figure.

That accords relatively well with the area of the arctic sea ice  (which should be small when the temperature has been high) in March between years 1987-2022, but differs in its early part of the data, although the area of the ice is sixth smallest since 1987. This NSIDC-data based figure is presented below.

 

I do not criticize the data presented by Lipponen or NSIDC, but want to point out that the trend line of both arctic temperature and arctic sea ice - based only on the latest years - could also be interpreted differently. Namely, the trend line based on more than a decade of the data presented by Lipponen and on nine last years of the sea ice data would point towards recent arctic cooling instead of continuous warming. 

Based on this we should ask, whether the current climate models unanimously forecasting continuous warming in the northernmost parts of the planet should be re-evaluated and better fitted to the data? Or at least, to be more cautious with our interpretations as long as the trend visible in the figures above - and similar trends in data sets for other months or whole years - will continue in becoming years. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Arctic ice sheet does not support greenhouse gases as the cause of accelerating global warming