Two days ago I highlighted a news story from the Washington Post Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt dated from November 2nd 1922. That brought a flood of interest and some other interesting finds along with it as other readers contributed what they found on the story.
One of the most interesting finds was a study published in the Monthly Weather Review in September 1933 Titled: IS OUR CLIMATE CHANGING? A STUDY OF LONG-TIME TEMPERATURE TRENDS.
The first page of the original article is below:
Click this link for the full PDF of the article.
What is most interesting about this article is that it stems from a realization that the regular weather patterns they used to know were now acting differently. For example this form the article:
The phase of weather, or climate, that is attracting attention at the present time is not these short-period changes from warm to cool, and vice versa, for they are always present, but rather an apparent longer-time change to cool periods that seem to be less frequent and of shorter duration, and warm periods that are more pronounced and persistent.
And when you look at some of the city temperature graphs presented in the article, such as the one below, the parallels between them and some graphs presented in the present day are striking:
There is even the familiar argument and rebuttal about the Urban Heat Island effect:
It has been suggested that these tendencies to abnormally high-temperature records in recent years may be more apparent than real, in that data cited are nearly always from large cities where the thermometers may have been unduly affected by artificial influences that do not obtain in the open country. We have examined this phase of the matter and find that the suggestion is not well taken.
In the concluding remarks, the is the recognition of climate change to a warmer regime:
All of these confirm the general statement that we are in the midst of a period of abnormal warmth, which has come on more less gradually for many years.
Of course we all know what happened next, 1934 became the hottest year on record, the dust bowl and great depression occurred, followed by World War II. The climate changes again, a return to a colder phase lasting all the way until about 1978 when the “new ice age” was being discussed. Then the great PDO shift occurred and warming has been the norm since then.
There wasn’t any push then to accept blame for the change or to take action to change the climate. Many people look to the graph below though and see something other than natural variations.
The difference today is that during this warming phase, much like what led up to 1934, had a significant El Nino year of 1998, and it set off alarm bells. Because unlike in the 30’s, when this paper was written, somebody was ready to step in with a cause that they believed could be modified by action- man made CO2.
Yet as this graph recently published on ICECAP by Joe D’Aleo shows, it appears that the Pacfic Decadal Oscillation (PDO), combined with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is a good fit to the instrumental surface temperature record of the last 100 years:
We could all learn a little bit from our weather history. We could all step back a bit and look at what previously happened in our climate changes before we make a rush to judgement to try to “fix” a problem that is very likely just another natural variance on the upswing, soon to be followed by a downturn.
There are quite a number of articles on “climate change” in the past, for further reading, try looking at some of these article links submitted by readers of this forum from the New York Times newspaper archives. Just click on the date. Thanks to Tim Blair for compiling the list below from our reader submitted links as well as his own research.
• 1923:
Glaciers have disappeared and land once covered with field ice is bare.
• 1924:
Glaciers are moving from their age-old beds, pouring greater quantities of ice into the sea than recorded history has known. Broad areas of land are sinking to new levels. A number of islands have disappeared.
• 1930:
The Alpine glaciers are in full retreat. Out of 102 glaciers observed by Professor P.L. Mercanton of the University of Lausanne and his associates more than twothirds have been found to be shrinking.
• 1935:
The great glaciers of the West, last remnants of the Ice Age on continental United States, have been retreating from their strongholds in the mountains at double time since last year.
• 1947:
A mysterious warming of the climate is slowly manifesting itself in the Arctic, engendering a “serious international problem,” Dr. Hans Ahlmann, noted Swedish geophysicist, said today.
There are also many reports of the climate turning colder:
• 1895:
The question is again being discussed whether recent and long-continued observations do not point to the advent of a second glacial period, when the countries now basking in the fostering warmth of a tropical sun will ultimately give way to the perennial frost and snow of the polar regions.
• 1961:
Winters Since ‘40 Found Colder In Studies by Weather Bureau; Data Indicate, a Reversal of a Warming Trend That Began in 1881
• 1961:
After a week of discussions on the causes of climate change, an assembly of specialists from several continents seems to have reached unanimous agreement on only one point: it is getting colder.
• 1975:
Scientists Ponder Why World’s Climate Is Changing; a Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable
• 1978:
An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.
Thus nature, and the NYT, balances itself. The paper really should return to the Grandfather Index of climate judgment:
• 1934:
America is believed by Weather Bureau scientists to be on the verge of a change of climate, with a return to increasing rains and deeper snows and the colder Winters of grandfather’s day.
• 1936:
The recent severely cold weather, following, in the main, many mild Winters, has caused people throughout the country to ask: “Does this portend a return to the reputed cold Winters of ‘granddad’s day’ years ago?”
Yep; all over the US, that’s exactly what people were asking. But listen to folks from the actual Granddad’s Day era and they’ll tell you the real cold was earlier still:
• 1890:
Is our climate changing? … The older inhabitants tell us that the Winters are not as cold now as when they were young …
Also, there are fewer mastodons. Last word to the ominously-named, but perfectly sensible, Mr Scarr:
• 1924:
Some People Always Think the Climate Is Changing, But Mr. Scarr Says There Is Nothing in His Records to Justify the Notion
Question.
I realize that 20 years in the history of the earth is a incredibly
short time. Has there been any measured change in the sea level from 1989
to the present?
citizenwells:
“The second article also appears in Global and Planetary Change and was prepared by a team of French oceanographers. As their title suggests, Berge-Nguyen et al. collected thermosteric sea level data based on temperatures in the top 700 meters of the ocean, tide gauge, satellite altimetry, and ocean reanalysis data. They used a series of sophisticated multivariate statistical techniques and ultimately produced the graphic below (Figure 2). Like you, we look at this graphic and see a global increase in sea level of approximately 80 mm over the 54-year time period. The math is simple – the graph shows a rise of 1.48 mm yr−1.”
(http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/05/06/slower-sea-level-rise/#more-323)
[…] get the thriving polar bear listed as a protected species. Never mind the fact that the arctic has melted before in the last 100 years. See the news release from the Department of the Interior […]
[…] 1922, dit artikel alsmede een stuk dat dieper ingaat op het hoe en wat is te vinden op de site van: Anthony Watts iemand die zich al langer met deze kwestie bezig houdt en wat mij betreft een redelijk heldere blik […]
Perhaps of interest, the “Monthly Weather Review”:
“The Monthly weather review first began publication in July 1872. It was issued by the Office of the Chief Signal Officer from 1872 until 1891. In 1891 the duties of the Signal Office transferred to the new Weather Bureau where the Review was published until June 1966. From Aug. 1966-Oct. 1970, it was published by the United States Environmental Science Services Administration. When the Bureau became part of the newly-formed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Review was published by NOAA until the end of 1973. In 1974 publication was turned over to the American Meteorological Society which continues publishing it as a subscription. ”
[…]
“To search for articles from the Monthly weather review go to AMS Journals Online and click on the link to “Search the Journals” or the “Available Journals” link. The site provides access to issues of the Monthly weather review prior to 1974 for free; access to issues from 1974 onwards requires a subscription.”
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/data_rescue_monthly_weather_review.html
The author of the article seems to be
“William Jackson Humphreys”
“… an American physicist and atmospheric researcher.
Humphreys studied physics at Washington & Lee University in Virginia and at Johns Hopkins University, where he got his Ph.D. in 1897. He studied under H. A. Rowland, et al.
He worked in the fields of spectroscopy, atmospheric physics and meteorology. In the field of spectroscopy he found the shift of spectral lines under pressure. In atmospheric physics he found a very good model for the stratosphere in 1909. He wrote numerous books and had some teaching positions at universities. From 1905 to 1935 he worked for the U.S. Weather Bureau.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jackson_Humphreys
The link to the full text pdf of the “Monthly Weather Review” for September 1933 at the NOAA site seems to be dead tonight. The article is alternatively available here: http://web.archive.org/web/20050321064545/http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/061/mwr-061-09-0251.pdf
Thank you all for the great work.
It is reassuring to know the number of times that “the science has been settled’ and the variations in what was settled.
Thank you Thank you
Yeah… and Spencer will be proven right here shortly.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/sidebar-to-spencer-testimony-today-barbara-boxer-tosses-an-insult-implies-limbaugh-is-involved-in-spencers-testimony/
It’s amazing that they have no problem performing ad hominem on the people they disagree with!
I still worry that as the climate starts to cool:
1) They’ll continue to lie about the years being the warmest on record.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213101419.htm
When we know this is not the case at all!
2) They’ll continue to make outrageous statements that are not backed up fact or science. Like the “arctic ice dissapearing during the summer during the next 5 years”
One need only compare current sea ice to sea ice levels from 20 years ago (during the summer!) to see how ridiculous this statement is!
3) They will take credit for the cooling and use it as evidence that we need to act more prudently in preventing CO2 from “polluting” the world!
It’s a shame that news reporters don’t challenge these alarmists.
1) CO2 is not a pollutant. More CO2, means greener and richer plant life.
2) The troposphere is NOT warming, which means the warming we experienced was _not_ enhanced greenhouse warming.
3) All of the warming from the last century, more closely follows patterns in the sun and oceans, and NOT CO2 levels. As CO2 levels continued to rise from the 40’s to 80’s, Temperature did not! As CO2 levels have continued to rise from 1998, temperature has not…
Keep up the good working debunking the alarmists!
[…] Arctic will soon be an open sea” or this one from the 1933 Monthly Weather Review “IS OUR CLIMATE CHANGING? A STUDY OF LONG-TIME TEMPERATURE TRENDS.”, or this one from 1922 “Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and […]