Arctic Sea ice data collected by DMI 1893-1961
Guest post by Frank Lansner
I came across a number of maps showing Arctic ice extend from 1893 to 1961 collected by DMI in “Nautisk Meteorologisk Aarbog”. Each year DMI have collected information on sea ice extend so that normally each of the months April, May, June, July and August ice extend was published.
There is much more to be said about these, but this is my summary for now.
Fig 1. 1901-1910 Arctic sea ice data collected by DMI. Click to enlarge!
Sadly, just for a few years we also have March or September available, and thus we normally can’t read the Arctic ice minimum (medio September) from these maps. The August trends will have the main focus in this writing.
First of all I would like to thank “Brunnur” in Iceland for making these maps available on the net beautifully scanned. This is a gold mine and I’m sure you know this, Brunnur.
Fig 2. August 1902.
The August data in the beginning of the century normally resembles December ice area for recent years. Year after year in the period 1901-1920 we see pretty much same picture. The sea east of the Russian island Novaja Zemlja is often frozen over even in August, and there is still sea ice between Baffin Island and Greenland.
Fig 3. 1911-1920. Click to enlarge!
Fig 4. August, 1916. The December-like August ice area continues to be observed year after year, and in 1916 most of the ocean between Baffin Island and Greenland is ice filled (- even in August!).
Fig 5. 1921-30
Fig 6.
Finally in 1923 something new happens: The ice east of Svalbard and east of Novaja Zemlja is on retreat.
Fig 7.
In 1930, the retreat has gone even further: Svalbard Is ice free, and ice free waters have been observed far east of Novaja Zemlja. In addition, the Baffin bay is now almost ice free. Puzzling is, that the ice extends on the pacific side of the Arctic remains rather constant in all these years.
Fig 8.
In 1932 we see in August open ice almost all along the Russian shore. So even though we do not see the September ice minimum here, we almost have an open NE passage.
Fig 9.
After a rather icy 1934, then 1935 again in August shows an almost open NE passage and in 1935 open waters are observed not that far from the North pole.
Fig 10.
In 1937, more open waters are observed in the Pacific and East Siberian areas.
Fig 11.
1938: Unprecedented areas of open waters.
(And again, this is not the ice minimum but just the August ice area)
Fig 12. 1931-1946
Already the year after, 1939, the ice extend resembles the pre 1923 extend.
We see that a decline in Arctic ice area from around 1921 ends possibly in 1938.
Fig 13. 1947-1956
Sadly we don’t have the Arctic warm years 1940-45, but just the colder years 1946-56.
Fig 14.
In 1952, The August sea ice area once again appears like the 1900-1920 extend. If Arctic ice areas reflects temperature well, then years around 1946-54 should be as cold as before 1923. It appears that the ice cover from 1938 to 1946 has recovered quickly.
Fig 15.
Here is an August–September comparison for 1901. For most of the Siberian shores in September we see open waters as far back as 1901.
Fig 16.
Some warm Arctic years in the 1930´ies from DMI compared to recent Cryosphere Today August graphics.
It seems that ice area for 1935 and 1996 were roughly similar (and it seems that ice area for 1938 and 2000 were roughly similar etc.):
Fig 17.
However, Cryosphere Today do not show 1935 ice area similar to 1996. Instead Cryosphere has added roughly 1,9 mio km2 to the ice area 1935 compared to 1996 (- The size of Greenland is 2,1 mio km2… ).
Fig 18a. We can also illustrate the missing Cryosphere ice decline after 1921 in another way.
The Cryosphere Arctic ice area data actually suggests a little more ice in 1937 than 1921 – but as shown above DMI, suggests a strong decline after 1921.
Fig 18b – and here the ice decline 1921-38 in four stages.
Fig 19. Also in another context it appears that the ice area data on Cryosphere has added area to older data:
If we compare the Cryosphere annual sea ice extend with the IPCC SAR 1996 data, we can see that the dive in 1996 data before 1979 is not represented in Cryosphere data. The divergence is perhaps 0,9 mio km2 over just the period 1973-1979.
Fig. 20, NW Passage in DMI data.
In September 1901 we are not far from having open NW passage and in September 1907 we do have an open NW Passage. We don’t have September images later thse to have an open NW passage.
What have we learned according to DMI´s international compilation of sea ice data?
– That sea ice data has declined strongly even in the recent past before human CO2 outlet.
– That Sea ice from a level not far from the 2006 level has recovered very fast 1938-1946.
– That the Sea ice decline documented year after year in DMI maps after 1921 apparently is not shown in Cryosphere data for some reason.
We do not have the WW2 data, but the maps of 1957-61 ice areas EXIST!
These are the years where we had a strong Solar max and photos of US Navy submarine on a slushy North pole.
If ANYONE have these maps, I would be grateful to see them!
Further, this series of maps as I understand it was also published by DMI for the years 1962-72 in a series called “Oceanografiske Observationer”. Do anyone have these?
Link to Brunnurs scans of DMI maps:
http://brunnur.vedur.is/pub/trausti/Iskort/Jpg/1935/1935_08.jpg
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What a wonderful find, a real treasure trove!
What beautiful maps…I’ve sent them already to my Warmist friends, yes I do have Warmist friendsm. (Just because you’re a Warmist, doesn’t mean you’re a bad person)
Besides, I think they know that Warmism is on pretty thin ice right now!
Given the massive scale of funding for the alarmists, it is very difficult to explain how they were not aware of this.
It’s like discovering treasure maps! Congrats to all who found them and recognised their importance. I’m sure Tonyb, amongst others, will be esctatic.
Glean what we can from them before NDSC and GISS digitise and ‘adjust’ them over time so that eventually they have sea ice extending down to the Equator pre-war!
awesome! smoking cannons!
And the hits just keep on comin’ — Arctic ice historical records that can’t be “adjusted.”
Somewhere (probably centered around Progressive Climate Central), warmie heads are exploding…
It’s understandable that the work of the DMI would be disrupted by WWII and Nazi occupation, but from 1941 onwards Britain was sending supply convoys around the top of occupied Norway to the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel. Surely the military would have been carefully monitoring and recording the sea ice extent in this area at least ?
Somewhere there must be records, fully declassified by now ? Does anyone know where to start looking ?
Wow! Score one for the pile of boxes in the attic!
I note in passing that the period of similar ice extent has a 60 year offset. Rather like the PDO cycle… Could it be that we have a simple, and natural, 60 year arctic ice cycle…
Frank
This is really excellent stuff, well done. I hope you find the additional maps and write it up into a bigger article.
You may remember my article covering the period of melt prior to the one in the 1920’s/30’s which dealt with 1818-1860?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/
I think the melt area was probably around the same as the 1920’s/30’s but possibly a little more extensive. I am currently writing a follow up to that going back to the early Holocene and it is clear there are around seven major periods of melt and a number of additional short term melts.
You might find it interesting to read Arnd Bernaerts book on the period you write about ‘The Arctic heats up’ which might add some background.
Due to the length of time I am covering with my next article I deal with the period you refer to fairly briefly, but my research has thrown up a few things which you might find interesting should you decide to expand your article at some point.
The first item may or may not give clues about ice cover, but it concerns British Pathe news reel that highlights the 1952 US air base in Thule Greenland from which it was intended to bomb Russia
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/u-s-arctic-air-base-aka-thule-air-base/query/Greenland
I have managed to tie together two intriguing pieces concerning the Arctic warming from 1918-1939. The first is again British Pathe news reel which is unfortunately silent but has the intriguing title;
“To Prevent Repetition Titanic Disaster – Ice “Patrol” now finds & warns all vessels of location of Icebergs brought down by abnormal heat from Greenland Coast.” From 1922
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/ice-patrol-aka-to-prevent-repetition-titanic-disas
This relates directly to the newspaper reports of that same year of which this is a good example.
“The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.”
Note; The source report of the Washington Post article on changes in the arctic has been found in the Monthly Weather Review for November 1922.
It was originally carried here
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/changing-artic_monthly_wx_review.png
Use the above link-goes direct but may need to enlarge.
All in all yours was a great find and I hope you will continue your research as the more of us trying to fill in the pieces of the jigsaw the better. Once again. well done!
All the best
Tonyb
Hi Frank,
Here are lots of newspaper references on historical Arctic ice retreat and warming observations. It would go nicely with the graphs.
http://www.real-science.com/arctic-meltdown
Great find! I’m not surprised that the thirties weren’t that different from current times, long lasting temperature series show the same. I’m open to the idea that the CWP is a bit warmer (and the melt a bit stronger) in the Arctic than the warm period in the thirties – but not different enough to “prove CAGW”.
I got black listed from commenting on a certain Closed Mind’s blog because I questioned the unlikeliness of current Arctic condition by referring to the thirties. I then wrote “Sea Ice conditions 60-70 years ago may not have been similar to the conditions of the last 5-10 years, but temperature conditions were indeed very similar, and that was my point.” – it would be great to go back to that thread and add a reference to this thread, but since I’m black listed, I’ll have to do it here instead 🙂
On the C.T. being different: they do not show any uncertainty estimate on that graph. Probably records that far back are a bit sketchy to say the least and there may be a fair amount of guestimating going on.
If they showed uncertainty it would very likely be more than enough to allow for the two records to agree with in the margins of uncertainty.
Since most climate science now seems to have a strong element of we “know” what’s happening , so let’s correct the data, some of the infilling maybe a bit one sided.
Hi Frank,
Here are another well researched page with references historic Arctic ice.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice-tony-b/
Ahhhh.
“Here IS another well…”
Frank as well as fellow commenters,
There is a concept called volume. If you are a skiier, would you consider a mountain with 3″ of snow to be just as suitable for skiing as one with 43″? Of course not! Take 2 ice cubes of equal dimensions, put one on a warm surface, the other on a cold surface. While the surface areas of the 2 (as viewed from above) may not be much different after, say, an hour, one cube will have considerably less volume than the other. Because the surface temperature of the ocean in the arctic is warming, ice begins forming later in the fall, and thus does not form as thickly. Likewise, the volume of the permanent ice is declining over time. For a summary, see: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/335040/title/Science_%2B_the_Public__Really_bad_year_for_Arctic_sea_ice
It’s no secret that the European side of the arctic had a sharp decline of sea ice in the 1920’s, though probably less than what we experience today. This letter from 1928 illustrates how the long, warm spell after the cold 1910’s surprised scientists of those days: http://voksenlia.net/met/lyr/green_harbour.pdf
A quick translation:
“I’m sending you a report of the monthly means in Green Harbour and an explanation by meteorologist Birkeland, where he states his opinion that there must have been a change in the thermometer setup, since the climate seems to have become milder during the recent years.”
“While not denying that there can be temperature fluctuation in the arctic regions lasting such a long time as this, I’d still like to ask you whether you’re aware of any change in the thermometer setup, or in anything else that could influence the temperatures that are recorded.”
Green Harbour is in Svalbard, near today’s town of Barentsburg.
CCIS, The Chryosphere graph i compare with is not volumen.
Besides, There are also different opinions on the volume-story, (PIPS2 vs. PIOMAS) but this article is about how ice area apparently has not been portraited well by Chryosphere.
Last time I analysed PIPS2 volumes it looked like this, see fig 3:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/climate-trends-ultimo-feb-2011-221.php
Im not saying that PIPS2 is perfect at all, just saying that there is more to the volume-story than what you might think, just as there is more to the area-story as shown in this article.
The man behind Piomas has made extremely questionable “results” for Antarctica, so hold your horses on his work.
Tonyb, my hero!!
Again and again i see your impressing work, yes one could combine many of your findings with the DMI results, correct!
K.,R. Frank
Do they measure extent as 15% or more as is the usual way today or did was it solid ice, more like the value for ice area. By the way, just a small nit-pick, in this context the word is extent not extend. Good article, it should stir up a lot of interest.
CCIS
Do we have references for the volume between 1893-1961?
Frank notes the unchanging ice in the maps around the Bering Strait. My conjecture is that DMI observation around Scandanavia (into Russian shelf waters) and Greenland areas (into Canadian shelf waters) is quite good. But the furthest extent away, (ie, the Bering Strait) where (I presume) Nordic vessels seldom travelled, is likely deficient because of poor observations.
This is just a conjecture – one worth checking against field reporting practices from which (I assume) these maps have been made.
O/T, but what a joy it is to look at old maps – an art form as well as a record.
I hate to be a downer, but I already see one chart which shows ice declining from 1905 onwards, with a huge spike down in recent years. While we know that the Earth has warmed since the depths of the Little Ice Age, warmists WILL ignore that little fact, and focus on the decline, in relation to human output of CO2. For them there can be no other explanation. The fact that sea ice in the 30s is charted as having fallen to similar level, will be meaningless to them.
CCIS,
Take 2 ice cubes, spray one with black paint, put both outside on a sunny, but well below freezing day.
After 1 hour, you will have one unchanged ice cube and a puddle of frozen water around the black paint.
This illustrates the process that has occurred in recent years in the Arctic.
And CCIS, when we see photos of US navy submarine surfacing near the north pole around 1960, does that really suggest extremely thick ice back then?
And when you see ice retreat until around 1940, why would such an ice retreat be accompanied by thicker ice than seen in ice retreat with similar area like year 2000-2006 ?
But as I said, the volume topic does not explain howcome Chryosphere Today can end up not showing the decline in ice area 1921-38.
Yet another “hidethedecline” as we say on http://www.hidethedecline.eu 😉