New paper using Oxygen 18 isotope tracking finds the Arctic temperatures peaked before 1950, and have been stable to declining since. Natural variability is cited as the cause.
A new paper published in Climate of the Past reconstructs temperatures over the past 1100 years from Eastern Arctic ice cores. The dating was done by Oxygen 18 isotope dating and the O18 data shows the highest Eastern Arctic temperatures of the 20th century occurred in the 1920’s-1940’s. The data shows that after that peak, there was a cooling or a warming ‘pause’ over the remainder of the 20th century.
The peak in the 1920’s likely explains this classic WUWT post showing observations from 1922:
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Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.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.
The Hockey Schtick writes:
Fig. 5a below shows a double peak in O18 proxy temperatures in the 1920’s and 1940’s followed by cooling to the ice age scare of the 1970’s, and temperatures in 2000 below those of the peaks in the 1920’s-1940’s. Five compilations of meteorological data of the Eastern Arctic in Fig 5b show good agreement to the proxy data.
This is the opposite pattern to what would be expected if man-made greenhouse gases were the cause, as even alarmists claim the increase in greenhouse gases has only had a significant effect since 1950. Instead, this new paper demonstrates Eastern Arctic temperatures peaked in the early 20th century, followed by a declining trend to the end of the record in 2000.
=================================================================
Of course, just like the surface temperature record, the long term trend is up, but clearly there is also a pause since the double peak, and that’s hard to explain in the face of a linear increase of (some claim exponential) GHG emissions.
The paper:
=================================================================
Proxy temperature reconstruction from the paper in graph A, followed by other meteorological data and compilations of the Eastern Arctic.
doi:10.5194/cp-9-2379-2013
T. Opel, D. Fritzsche, and H. Meyer
Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Research Unit Potsdam, Telegrafenberg A43, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
Abstract:
Understanding recent Arctic climate change requires detailed information on past changes, in particular on a regional scale. The extension of the depth–age relation of the Akademii Nauk (AN) ice core from Severnaya Zemlya (SZ) to the last 1100 yr provides new perspectives on past climate fluctuations in the Barents and Kara seas region. Here, we present the easternmost high-resolution ice-core climate proxy records (δ18O and sodium) from the Arctic. Multi-annual AN δ18O data as near-surface air-temperature proxies reveal major temperature changes over the last millennium, including the absolute minimum around 1800 and the unprecedented warming to a double-peak maximum in the early 20th century. The long-term cooling trend in δ18O is related to a decline in summer insolation but also to the growth of the AN ice cap as indicated by decreasing sodium concentrations. Neither a pronounced Medieval Climate Anomaly nor a Little Ice Age are detectable in the AN δ18O record. In contrast, there is evidence of several abrupt warming and cooling events, such as in the 15th and 16th centuries, partly accompanied by corresponding changes in sodium concentrations. These abrupt changes are assumed to be related to sea-ice cover variability in the Barents and Kara seas region, which might be caused by shifts in atmospheric circulation patterns. Our results indicate a significant impact of internal [natural] climate variability on Arctic climate change in the last millennium.
================================================================
[Note: this original post was written during my workday and making a comparison to the Cowtan and Way paper, and like sometimes happens during my day, I got interrupted, and then got off on a tangent that wasn’t correct. To correct my mistake, I’ve republished this post sans that tangent. Later I’ll get back to my original idea when I have more time. – Anthony]
Undoubtedly those spikes in the 1920’s and late 1930’s to early 1940’s:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/1d09a-arcticreconstruction.jpg
had strong and/or lengthy negative NAO episodes:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/north_atlantic/nao_mon.txt
That graph unfortunately ends in 1998, whereas we can safely assume that Arctic amplification and surface air temperature rate acceleration kicked in after that.
REPLY: simply because you say it does? Show/prove it “Gunther” – Anthony
This paper is devastating to the whole AGW issue. Instead of seeing a rise, we now have a 60+ year pause, at least in the Arctic which is supposed to be the canary in the AGW coal mine. The pause is easily twice as long as any increase that caused the kerfuffle in the first place. In simple terms, there is no there there. We have a planet ignoring the carbon based units that inhabit it.
Here is temperature data from the region discussed in the paper up to present: http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/locations/71.53N-70.99E
Note what happens after 2000 (not shown in the graph in the paper).
REPLY: on your linked page it says for that location:
Weather Stations within 100 km
Active Stations: 0
Former Stations: 1
and
Weather Stations within 500 km
Active Stations: 10
Former Stations: 19
So my question is, how much of the recent data is from active stations, and when did the loss of stations occur? What may be happening is that the stations that are left have a warm bias. – Anthony
Anthony,
The paper you are citing uses two individual station records for its validation. If you look at the whole arctic record (the bottom panel in the figure), its not particularly controversial.
If you want more stations, look at larger regions.
Here is the whole Arkhangel region (167 active, 145 former): http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/arkhangel'sk
Or the nearby Yamal region (6 active, 3 former, 50 within 500 km): http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/yamal-nenets
Or Svalbard region: http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/svalbard-and-jan-mayen
Or northern Greenland: http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/locations/82.79N-32.14W
Pretty much anywhere you look in the arctic, the land warming post-2000 is pretty remarkable.
REPLY: Still, I’d like to know what individual station records are active and which ones are not – and when. One thing I’ve noted studying Arctic stations is that they all tend to be isolated pockets of humanity, which require warmth. Warmth that of course becomes local waste heat. Do you have a mechanism to show what records make up your regionalized temperature potpourri and when they were made inactive? – Anthony
And it looks like my original post on this article has disappeared, wish I could remember what I said – lol.
You mean this one Zeke?
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/22177
May be an outlier there but the data sure looks spotty in recent years. What is the “Expected Monthly Means” and “Regional Expectation”? How do you ‘expect’ a temperature or is this expecting a trend and that is the difference?
Dawson City, Yukon.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/share/clip?f=d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427em6otjnrlk
Zeke Hausfather, yeah, right, so probably the current warm period in the arctic is a little warmer than the one in the early 20th century. But that pesky early 20th century Arctic warming is nevertheless a huge problem for those that desperately want the Arctic to be the canary in the AGW mine. Like, for instance, Tamino, who got so p***ed that he black listed me permanently when I used that warm period to question his toying around with Bayes theorem here.
Then here I go again. 🙂
Warmists tend to like avoiding the fact that Arctic sea ice also ‘reacts’ with water temperature, wind / currents. You’d think it’s like Bali up there. 🙂
Here are a few more examples from the 1920s to 1940s showing how the time travelling co2 villain had caused such man made havoc on our steady Arctic temps.
It’s unprecedented and worse than we thought!
“Of course, just like the surface temperature record, the long term trend is up, but clearly there is also a pause since the double peak, and that’s hard to explain in the face of a linear increase of (some claim exponential) GHG emissions.”
The authors say that a lot of this was local:
“In the AN δ18O record, the ETCW exhibits a double-peak shape with two distinct maxima 10 around 1921/1922 and 1937/1938 (Fig. 4), indicating two major warming pulses. This specific ETCW pattern and particularly the strong warming around 1920 are to our knowledge only detected in very few regional SAT time series (i.e. Svalbard, Vardø and Archangelsk; Fig. 4) and represent, thus, a peculiarity of the Barents and Kara seas region. AN ice core maximum δ18O values during the ETCW were not reached again in the 20th century and, moreover, represent the highest of the entire AN ice core record.
The core was drilled 1999-2001, so there’s not much coverage of recent warming.
Neither a pronounced Medieval Climate Anomaly nor a Little Ice Age are detectable
I really hate the phrase Medieval Climate Anomaly.
@Ric Werme
The Medieval climate anomaly was a strongly colder deviation from the 8000 year long term cooling trend so it is probably correct to call it anomalous. We are very lucky it didn’t stay down.
Seek
According to Phil jones the two warmest consecutive decades in Greenland were the 1930’s and 1940’s.
It will be 2020 before we know whether the current warming is just a flash in the pan or something more significant.
Tonyb
Using the term “Medieval Climate Anomaly” is an attempt by the warmist crowd to belittle the impact of sever hundred years when the climate was warmer than it is today. Using the term “anomaly” implies a brief, transient event — something not really worth mentioning.
From now on Nick Stokes will leave LOCAL papers and go with only global. Will you do this Nick??? PS tell your Warmists to do the same please and leave weather events like the Phillipnes typhoon alone. Can you do this? I could go on but I hope you see the problem you have created for yourself? Now look below. Now wash your hands, they are red due to cherry stains.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/19/new-paper-arctic-temperatures-peaked-before-1950-declining-since/#comment-1479428
But what about Greenland? It really is worse than we thought.. Can it get any worse than this? We must act now!!!!
And here goes the last presumed hotspot, after Antartic and tropical troposhere never showed any ambition of warming as projected.
Climate models now do not only fail quantitatively but also qualitatively – and everywhere.
” In the recent past, however, a major warming event in Icelandic and Greenland waters between 1920 and 1940 was extensively documented (e.g. Sæmundsson, 1932; Ahlmann, 1948; Lysgaard, 1948).”
From http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/7/1360.full
I once asked Dana from the Guardian whether we would still be in the Little Ice Age if it was not for man – he basically said YES?!!!!
Think about it: The River Thames freezing over multiple times, death and famine, failed harvest, huge storms etc. Yet we have never had it so good. Why is it that co2 is always a heathen gas? Why do most plants hate the stuff? Why does it cause toxic greening in our biosphere? Why is the climate so normal? Can someone help me please?
This warming certainly agrees with the recollections of a retired Russian Arctic ice pilot I interviewed aboard an icebreaker some time ago. They hopefully thought it would continue, but then the cold set in again. Just one of many reasons for “skepticism”.
The double peak in temperature history (far more than arctic alone) is also seen in other data including instrumental readings when such haven’t been heavily rewritten/”adjusted,” as in http://img176.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=81829_expanded_overview_122_424lo.jpg . If done right and honestly, proxy reconstructions are one way to get past rewriting of data, like a tree ring one extending up through the entire 20th century (instead of cutting off part-way) likewise matched the actual double-peak history.
What should be top priority is the investigation into what is causing such amplified warming in the Arctic. Answering that question should be able provide some help in separating recent natural warming from man made warming.
Geothermal heat? Ocean currents? I mentioned black carbon/soot in a previous post as a possibility for recent warming but that was not a factor before 1950.
Changes in the earth’s magnetic poles/fields?
It is crystal clear that strong regional warming has been happening(with pauses) dating back well before CO2 was high enough to be a factor. This effect, focused uniquely, regionally and with changes/pauses? that are timed/caused by an unknown force(s), should allow us to eventually pinpoint the source/cause.
Really why do we care what the artic does? It is mostly sea ice which will have little effect on sea levels regardless of the state it is in. With less ice, navigation will become easier and less risky.
It really is not important enough to waste any time or resources on.
I’ve been to a few rodeos now and I think the dO18 isotope proxy is the only reliable temperature proxy there is.
Forget the tree rings, the coral rings, some other chemistry-based proxies – dO18 is reasonably accurate on very short timelines, medium-term timelines and way, way back into the deep, deep history of Earth’s climate. Having said that, it is also need to be converted to temperature using the proper local-based formula. Too often, the formula for mid-latitude oceans or the global average is used by “climate scientists” to distort the history but there are definitive local situation formula.
And I say, forget Berkeley Earth. Their method is flawed and you can compare BEST’s data to some station you know is accurate and BEST is way off in terms of the overall trends over time. They might get the short-term up and downs right, but then there is a breakpoint that changes the negative trend or some oscillation into a large rising trend. Theory versus reality and I think there is upward trend bias built-in.
The Arctic does appear to be warmer in the 1920s and 1940s. There were few stations back then (and the NCDC and GISS have distorted the data in the current databases) so it is not as recognized as it should be. It cooled off from 1950 to the late 1970s as well.
Did the Inuit invent kayaks and whaling boats and travel up and down the Northwest Passage and make it to Greenland or not. Obviously they did. The conditions could not have been much colder than today if you go back 1,000 years for example or there would be no such thing as a kayak. Prima Facie.