Since we have been on the subject of Arctic expeditions this week, I thought I’d share this short essay sent to me by WUWT reader “thoughtful”. It has some interesting perspectives from a NAVY expedition called “Operation Nanook” which is supported by the newspaper clipping from the Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, MA) of October 16th, 1946. It was one of those rare times when a Northwest Passage appears to have been possible – Anthony
Looking at timelines of arctic exploration, we find that virtually nobody went there during the 30s and early 40s, despite that correlating with the warmest temperatures on record (great Depression, WW II, go figure). Attached is an account of an arctic naval expedition (Operation Nanook) that took place the summer of 1946, just after WWII. Vinther, et al (1) reports the merged JJA monthly temps were in the 7.3 to 7.4 deg C range in Greenland between 1931 and 1950. In the 1990s, it was a full degree C lower. The “norm” for Thule in JJA runs somewhere around 4 – 5 deg C (1961 to current data).
Here’s another account from the same expedition: “On 4 July 1946, Atule headed for the frozen north as a member of Operation “Nanook.” The purpose of this mission was to assist in the establishment of advanced weather stations in the Arctic regions and to aid in the planning and execution of more extensive naval operations in polar and sub-polar regions. In company with USS Norton Sound (AV-11), USCGC Northwind (WAG-282), USS Alcona (AK-157), USS Beltrami (AK-162), and USS Whitewood (AN-63), Atule was to transport supplies and passengers, conduct reconnaissance of proposed weather station sites, train personnel, and collect data on Arctic conditions.
Atule rendezvoused with Northwind and Whitewood off the southwestern coast of Greenland on 11 July 1946 and put into Melville Bight, Baffin Bay, on 20 July, while a PBM reconnoitered Thule Harbor and the approaches to the harbor. Following engine trouble the PBM had made an emergency landing; and Atule was dispatched to recover the plane, becoming the first ship of the operation to enter the harbor. Atule then conducted tests and exercises in Smith South-Kane Basin with Whitewood. During one such exercise, she reached latitude 79 degrees 11 minutes north in the Kane Basin, setting a record for the United States Navy. On 29 July, Atule departed Thule, having completed all of her scheduled projects, stopped at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and reached New London late in August to resume her former duties.”
It would be fascinating to visit the naval archives and see ships logs from this expedition. One wonders what the sea ice extent was then. I do note that the Kane Basin was at least partially iced over on August 10, 2007 — the nearest data I’ve got to July for the recent 2007 minimum (and probably represents less ice than July).
Reference
(1) Extending Greenland temperature records into the late eighteenth
century B. M. Vinther,1 K. K. Andersen,1 P. D. Jones,2 K. R. Briffa,2 and J. Cappelen3
Received 24 October 2005; revised 11 January 2006; accepted 28 February 2006; published 6 June 2006.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 111, D11105, doi: 10.1029/2005JD006810, 2006 )
You know this whole Catlin thing could easily be addressed if Anthony would contact the air charter service and see if they flew any flights to these guys. Can they land on the ice in the dark is now the question. Has the sun risen high enough to land a twin otter on the ice like their web page says? I haven’t calculated it but I would think for the spring equinox is around March 20 when the sun finally comes up for how long. The resupply plane would only have a short time with enough light to land. Interesting. We need to know when the resupply flight was?
Sorry Anthony wrong topic. Forgive me.
No!
http://www.longrangeweather.com/images/gtemps.gif
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
In 1944, the Canadian RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) vessel St. Roch returned to Vancouver by way of Lancaster Sound and the Northwest Passage route in just 86 days. Previously, from 1940 to1942, it had traveled the passage from west to east via a more southerly route leaving Vancouver in June 1940 and, after spending 2 winters frozen in the Arctic ice, arrived in Halifax 11 October, 1942.
St Roch was only the second vessel, after Amundsen (1903 – 1906), to traverse the passage and the first to navigate the passage in west to east.
Your Atule pic is not working, but here is one of her during Operation Nanook from Wikimedia Commons:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Atule_in_1946_during_arctic_studies.jpg
REPLY: It appears the NAVY archive doesn’t serve images unless accompanied by the web page request, so I’ve used your image link thanks. – A
Why thank you, Anthony. I swore I could remember seeing pictures of US subs surfacing at the North Pole when I was a kid in the late 50’s. Turns out that ice wasn’t all that thick back then. Didn’t seem to bother the subs.
Seems like i remember some famous SKeptic like Fred Singer being on one of these 1940’s Polar missions…
Anyone know?..
Oh how the past keeps coming back to haunt some people’s fantasies. Such inconvenient details.
AKD (19:51:14) :
Your Atule pic is not working, but here is one of her during Operation Nanook from Wikimedia Commons:
Come on you know didn’t happened. That pix was staged on the moon. LOL
Robert Bateman (20:09:29) : picture of subs —
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
scroll down – postcard sort of image
Search on the names of the ships and you can find official photos.
“”Summing up the Arctic expedition today, Captain Cruzen said that “most important, it served to dispel the mental hazard people have about the Arctic regions. Most people have obtained this mental hazard from story books which are written to sell. …””
We do indeed have a mental hazard problem today and from similar sources.
Actually –
The Soviets did a lot of exploring in the 1930s.
It’s been diaried here –
http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/was-there-less-arctic-ice-in-1932/
And the relevant NYT article from 1931 –
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60911F73A5513738DDDAC0894DA415B828FF1D3&scp=9&sq=pole+circumnavigation&st=p
The following year the Soviets attempted the Northeast Passage and got all the way to the Chukchi Sea before their ship got stuck in sea ice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheliuskin_(ship)
Here is a map of the north west passages.
http://www.athropolis.com/map9.htm
There is more than one way across. Roald Amundsen is the first creditted with the passage in a ship.
From this site.
“2. ROALD AMUNDSEN: First Navigation by Ship
1905: In mid August, Amundsen sailed from Gjøahaven (today: Gjoa Haven, Nunavut) in the vessel Gjøa. On August 26 they encountered a ship bearing down on them from the west, and with that they were through the passage. From Amundsen’s diary:
The North West Passage was done. My boyhood dream – at that moment it was accomplished. A strange feeling welled up in my throat; I was somewhat over-strained and worn – it was weakness in me – but I felt tears in my eyes. ‘Vessel in sight’ … Vessel in sight.
“
Also from
ttp://www.athropolis.com/map9.htm
4. ST. ROCH: Northern Deep-Water Route (East-West)
1944: The St. Roch was the first ship to travel the Northwest Passage through the northern, deep-water route and the first to sail the Passage in both directions.
I don’t think there is anything strange about the levels of ice in the Arctic at the moment.
well, it looks like round two of the ” go to the pole ” for the sake of an agenda is about to begin in a month. see the link above.
one of the state goals ( and this is a literal cut and paste ) :
To document the impact of global climate change on the Arctic region and its potential impact on the coastal communities of both North and South America , . . .
this jaunt is being brought to you by the Pacific Science Center, in Seattle . i can’t wait for the spin to begin .
well, sorry, my html is a bit rusty, but here is the link in plain text :
http://sailorsforthesea.org/ata/index.html
is it the href tag, with the link in double quotes ?
steptoe fan (22:38:55). This is the script you need, but note I have used [ ] in place of so it remains visible for your reference.
[a href=”http://sailorsforthesea.org/ata/index.html”]Sailors of the sea[/a]
Here is an interesing scientific publication that attempts to reconstruct artic sea ice extent for the 20th century period when there are gaps in the historical record before about 1950. “Hybrid’ approach means to use a combination of historical data and modelling
Can we reconstruct Arctic sea ice back to 1900 with a hybrid approach?
S. Br ¨onnimann, T. Lehmann, T. Griesser, T. Ewen, A. N. Grant, and R. Bleisch
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Z¨ urich, Switzerland
Received: 14 July 2008 – Accepted: 14 July 2008 – Published: 19 August 2008
Correspondence to: S. Br¨onnimann (broennimann@env.ethz.ch)
Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.
The complete publication is available on line.
steptoe fan (22:38:55): Aargh… the arrow brackets did disappear. Note that you use arrow brackets in place of the square brackets in my example line.
What Part of “The Northwest Passage” seems to be lost on Polar Ice Researchers and the AGW crowd?
I am just saying…
Talking about the NE Passage, Nansen’s ship, Fram did it W-to-E in 1893, I believe. They made it to the other side, then took a course due North until they got imprisoned in the ice. They hoped the drift would take them over the pole – not quite – but the ship broke free on the Western side three years later. There’s a wonderful Fram museum at Oslo. Well worth the visit. The Norwegians were the real polar explorers nobody ever mentions, preferring to drool on about things like the Franklin and Scott fiascos – and now Catlin. Will they ever learn?
Dear Anthony
I may have posted the following to you previously?
The article is from the Monthly Weather Review October 1922 where a US Cinter alia it discusses the arctic being ice being free to 81.5 degrees latitude.
The link is a bit tortuous as it does not show directly in my browser :-
http://www.climate4you.com/
Then climate/history
Then Year 1900 to 1949
Then 1922.
There are also other years and please could you give credit to the site and its creator Professor Ole Humlum.
EXTRACTS:-
THE CHANGING ARCTIC.
By GEORGE NICOLAS IFFT.
(Under date of October 10 1922 the American consul at Bergen Norway, submitted the followlng report to the State Department, Washfngion, D. C)
The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from
fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas
about S itzbergen and the eastern Arctic, all point to
a radicaf change in climatic conditions, and hitherto unheard-
of high temperatures in that part of the earth’s
surface………etc
The oceanographic observations have, however, been
even more interesting. Ice conditions were exceptional.
In fact, so little ice as never before been noted. The
expedition all but established a record, sailing as far
north as 82l degrees 29′ in ice-free water. This is the farthest
north ever reached with modern oceanographic apparatus.
The character of the waters of the great polar basin
has heretofore been practically unknown. Dr. Hoel reports
that he made a section of the Gulf Stream at 81 degrees
north latitude and took soundings to a depth of 3,100
meters. These show the Gulf Stream very warm, and it
could be traced as a surface current till beyond the 81st
parallel. The warmth of the waters makes it probable that conditions will continue for some time.
Later a section was taken of the Gulf Stream off Bear
Island and off the Isfjord, as well as a section of the cold
current that comes down along the west coast of Spitzbergen
off the south cape.
In connection with Dr. Hoel’s report,it is of interest to note the unusually warm summer in Arctic Norway and the observations of Capt. Martin Ingebrigtsen, who has sailed the eastern Arctic for 54 years past. He says
that he first noted warmer conditions in 1915, that since
that time it has steadily gotten warmer, and that to-day
the Arctic of that region is not recognizable as the same
region of 1865 to 1917.
Many old landniarks are so changed as to be unrecognisable.
Where formerly great masses of ice were found
there are now often moraines, accumuulations of earth and stones.
At many points where glaciers extended into the sea they have all entirely disappeared.
END OF EXTRACT
The site doesn’t deal with 1946 but does 1947 and discusses the retreat of glaciers in Norway and refers to Ahlman.
REPLY: yes I did a post on this last year. Thanks though, Anthony
Apologies for the typos in the introduction above
It should have read :-
The article is from the Monthly Weather Review October 1922 where a US Senator inter alia discusses the arctic being ice free to 81.5 degrees latitude.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage
“The first recorded succesful passage was that of João Martins, in 1588, 265 years pryor to the Mac-clure trip, a portuguese explorer en route to the Philipines, both discovering the passage and the Bering Straight.[8] The belief that a route lay to the far north persisted for several centuries and led to numerous expeditions into the Arctic, including the attempt by Sir John Franklin in 1845. In 1906, Roald Amundsen successfully completed a path from Greenland to Alaska in the Gjøa, achieving the first modern passing. Since that date, several fortified ships have made the journey.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridtjof_Nansen
“Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen (10 October 1861 – 13 May 1930) was a Norwegian explorer, scientist and diplomat. Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for his work as a League of Nations High Commissioner. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest personalities in the history of Norway…
“When, after more than one year in the ice it became apparent that Fram would not reach the North Pole, Nansen, accompanied by Hjalmar Johansen, continued north on foot when the Fram reached 84° 4´ N. This was a daring decision, as it meant leaving the ship not to return, and a return journey over drifting ice to the nearest known land some five hundred miles south of the point where they started. Nansen and Johansen started north on 14 March 1895 with three sledges, two kayaks and twenty-eight dogs. On 8 April 1895, they reached 86° 14´ N, the highest latitude then attained. The two men then turned around and started back, and did not find the land they expected at 83°N (it did not exist). In June 1895, they had to use their kayaks to cross open leads of water and on 24 July they came across a series of islands. Here they built a hut of moss, stones, and snow, and wintered, surviving on walrus blubber and polar bear meat. In May of the following year (1896), they started off again for Spitsbergen. After travelling for a month, not knowing where they were, they happened upon the British Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition… on Franz Josef Land.”
Amundsen sailed the Northwest Passage in the Gjøa in 1906, and took Nansen’s Fram for his successful Antarctic expedition of 1910-12.