What would NSIDC and our media make of a photo like this if released by the NAVY today? Would we see headlines like “NORTH POLE NOW OPEN WATER”? Or maybe “Global warming melts North Pole”? Perhaps we would. sensationalism is all the rage these days. If it melts it makes headlines.
Some additional captures from the newsreel below show that the ice was pretty thin then, thin enough to assign deckhands to chip it off after surfacing.The newsreel is interesting, here is the transcript.
1958 Newsreel: USS Skate, Nuclear Sub, Is First to Surface at North Pole
ED HERLIHY, reporting:
USS Skate heads north on another epic cruise into the strange underseas realm first opened up by our nuclear submarines. Last year, the Skate and her sister-sub Nautilus both cruised under the Arctic ice to the Pole. Then, conditions were most favorable. The Skate’s job is to see if it can be done when the Arctic winter is at its worst, with high winds pushing the floes into motion and the ice as thick as twenty-five feet.
Ten times she is able to surface. Once, at the North Pole, where crewmen performed a mission of sentiment, scattering the ashes of polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins. In 1931, he was the first to attempt a submarine cruise to the Pole. Now, the Skate’s twelve-day three thousand mile voyage under the ice, shown in Defense Department films, demonstrates that missile-carrying nuclear subs could lurk under the Polar Ice Cap, safe from attack, to emerge at will, and fire off H-bomb missiles to any target on Earth.
A powerful, retaliatory weapon for America’s defense.
For example, one crew member aboard the USS Skate which surfaced at the North Pole in 1959 and numerous other locations during Arctic cruises in 1958 and 1959 said:
“the Skate found open water both in the summer and following winter. We surfaced near the North Pole in the winter through thin ice less than 2 feet thick. The ice moves from Alaska to Iceland and the wind and tides causes open water as the ice breaks up. The Ice at the polar ice cap is an average of 6-8 feet thick, but with the wind and tides the ice will crack and open into large polynyas (areas of open water), these areas will refreeze over with thin ice. We had sonar equipment that would find these open or thin areas to come up through, thus limiting any damage to the submarine. The ice would also close in and cover these areas crushing together making large ice ridges both above and below the water. We came up through a very large opening in 1958 that was 1/2 mile long and 200 yards wide. The wind came up and closed the opening within 2 hours. On both trips we were able to find open water. We were not able to surface through ice thicker than 3 feet.”
– Hester, James E., Personal email communication, December 2000
Here are some screencaps from the newsreel:
It was that way again in 1962:
And of course then there’s this famous photo:
But contrast that to 1999, just 12 years later, lots of ice:
But in 1993, it’s back to thin ice again:
The point illustrated here: the North Pole is not static, ice varies significantly. The Arctic is not static either. Variance is the norm.
There’s quite an interesting read at John Daly’s website, including a description of “the Gore Box”. Everybody should have one of those.
h/t to WUWT commenters Stephen Skinner, Crosspatch, and Glenn.
See the Skate image archive at NAVSOURCE
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Walt Stone: “I don’t think anyone can make the claim that vast stretches of the North Pole have been ice free yet…”
Less ice in Arctic ocean 6000-7000 years ago
Date: Oct 2008 Source: Science Daily
ScienceDaily — Recent mapping of a number of raised beach ridges on the north coast of Greenland suggests that the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean was greatly reduced some 6000-7000 years ago. The Arctic Ocean may have been periodically ice free.
”The climate in the northern regions has never been milder since the last Ice Age than it was about 6000-7000 years ago. We still don’t know whether the Arctic Ocean was completely ice free, but there was more open water in the area north of Greenland than there is today,” says Astrid Lyså, a geologist and researcher at the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU).
Shore features
Together with her NGU colleague, Eiliv Larsen, she has worked on the north coast of Greenland with a group of scientists from the University of Copenhagen, mapping sea-level changes and studying a number of shore features. She has also collected samples of driftwood that originated from Siberia or Alaska and had these dated, and has collected shells and microfossils from shore sediments.
”The architecture of a sandy shore depends partly on whether wave activity or pack ice has influenced its formation. Beach ridges, which are generally distinct, very long, broad features running parallel to the shoreline, form when there is wave activity and occasional storms. This requires periodically open water,” Astrid Lyså explains.
Pack-ice ridges which form when drift ice is pressed onto the seashore piling up shore sediments that lie in its path, have a completely different character. They are generally shorter, narrower and more irregular in shape.
Open sea
”The beach ridges which we have had dated to about 6000-7000 years ago were shaped by wave activity,” says Astrid Lyså. They are located at the mouth of Independence Fjord in North Greenland, on an open, flat plain facing directly onto the Arctic Ocean. Today, drift ice forms a continuous cover from the land here.
Astrid Lyså says that such old beach formations require that the sea all the way to the North Pole was periodically ice free for a long time.
”This stands in sharp contrast to the present-day situation where only ridges piled up by pack ice are being formed,” she says.
However, the scientists are very careful about drawing parallels with the present-day trend in the Arctic Ocean where the cover of sea ice seems to be decreasing.
“Changes that took place 6000-7000 years ago were controlled by other climatic forces than those which seem to dominate today,” Astrid Lyså believes.
Inuit immigration
The mapping at 82 degrees North took place in summer 2007 as part of the LongTerm project, a sub-project of the major International Polar Year project, SciencePub. The scientists also studied ruined settlements dating from the first Inuit immigration to these desolate coasts.
The first people from Alaska and Canada, called the Independence I Culture, travelled north-east as far as they could go on land as long ago as 4000-4500 years ago. The scientists have found out that drift ice had formed on the sea again in this period, which was essential for the Inuit in connection with their hunting. No beach ridges have been formed since then.
”Seals and driftwood were absolutely vital if they were to survive. They needed seals for food and clothing, and driftwood for fuel when the temperature crept towards minus 50 degrees. For us, it is inconceivable and extremely impressive,” says Eiliv Larsen, the NGU scientist and geologist.
——————————————————————————–
Adapted from materials provided by Geological Survey of Norway.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081020095850.htm
storky (12:34:49) :
@Smokey (11:31:45) :
“No one is questioning global warming.”
True, most of us here agree that there has been some warming since the little ice age. Global warming and AGW are definitely not similes.
storky: Huh? This website is almost exclusively devoted to questioning Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Yes, definitely, but we also are interested in weather and related phenomena.
smokey: “And as you can see in this chart, global sea ice extent has broken above its long term average”
storky: “Yeah . . . so . . . With so few data points contrary to the long term downward trend, what evidence is there that this blip is indicative of a new trend. Until a new trend is defined by more data, this is nothing more than noise.”
Two can play at this game. Since when is 30 years of satellite data enough to declare a long term trend? Especially when anecdotal evidence hints at a cyclical nature to Arctic ice coverage. Recent trends may be “noise” but the recent trends are “noise” that flies in the faces of ice free Arctic predictions.
Everything that was old is new again.
I don’t want to be off topic, so I hope suziam48 goes on a personal fact finding mission to the North Pole. I should also remind suzi that WordPress hosts something like 3 million blogs, so she’s got a big censorship job ahead. The size of her job is even more alarming because she can’t figure out how to contact WordPress [hint: try a search engine].
That said, Code Tech, not only did the protests fail to stop the war [Nixon stopped it, fulfilling a campaign pledge], but UN Sec-Gen Kofi Annan presided over the murders of about 500,000 Darfur civilians, and the forcible eviction of two million more. Kofi Annan did, however, issue some very stern statements concerning the situation.
For doing nothing to stop the Darfur killings, Kofi Annan was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2001. The Darfur killings continued.
However, the scientists are very careful about drawing parallels with the present-day trend in the Arctic Ocean where the cover of sea ice seems to be decreasing.
“Changes that took place 6000-7000 years ago were controlled by other climatic forces than those which seem to dominate today,” Astrid Lyså believes.
That may be one of the weakest AGW cover clauses yet.
mike t
This partially answers your question about arctic cycles.
“Historical records of sea ice change
Detailed studies have been made of possible correlations
between Viking and other early European
excursions to the High Arctic and the historical or
ice core records of climate change. The earliest
evidence of Vikings in the High Arctic is in the twelfth
century on Bache Peninsula (Schledermann 1980).
Ogalvie (1984) compared a decadal sea-ice index for
Iceland with that of earlier, less accurate work by
Koch (1945) and showed that for the earliest interval
of reliable historical records (1601–1780 A.D.), the
amount of sea ice between Greenland and Iceland
fluctuated from brief (10–30 years) lows of no or
minimal ice at intervals of about 90 years (1651–
1681 and in the 1740s). These low ice years alternated
with ~20 year periods of considerable ice in 1610–
1630, 1680–1710 and 1740–1760 (~50 year recurrence
Intervals”
As regards Hudson bay records, google ‘Polar Bear Alley’ and delve into the archives
hope this helps
Tony B
suziam 48,
So free speech for those who disagree with you must be stifled?
Dr. Hansen and Gore must be very proud of you.
Suziam48, you go ahead and prepare for warming, and I will prepare for both warming and cooling. Both have happened before, and will happen again. I am proud to say I have a very small carbon footprint, not because I believe carbon is bad in any way, but because I think it is lunacy to be wasteful, no matter what we have at our disposal. You are being rather self-righteous, if I may say so.
@Craig Moore (14:55:39) :
“A little south of the Arctic”
Cut Bank, Montana is 1200 miles south of the arctic circle, 2600 short of the pole – that’s a little?
Clearly you don’t know the difference between weather and climate. Allow me to help:
Weather
–noun
1. the state of the atmosphere with respect to wind, temperature, cloudiness, moisture, pressure, etc.
Climate
–noun
1. the composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years.
So, has the climate been getting colder over the past several years or warmer? Show us!
“Leon Brozyna (22:28:27) : Oh dear me. How ever will Al Gore handle this?”
Monckton couldn’t get in to the presence of Al Gore. Do you think this photo will?
ak (04:04:21) :
” Judging by the comments in this thread: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/18/arctic-ice-thickness-measured-from-buoys/, you guys will love the results found by the arctic ice buoys of the US Army.
http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/images/icethick.gif”
Dude, nice cherry picking, Hansen and Mann would be proud. You get 20 years of data on one and only four on the other period.
ak,
The Arctic trend you posted is indeed interesting. Up nearly 3,000,000 km2 in just two years.
Suzi,
Unlike you and the other alarmists, WordPress believes in and celebrates freedom of speech, no matter how much that speech is inconvenient, politically incorrect, or dangerous to your political agenda.
@Robert Austin (15:00:39)
“Two can play at this game. Since when is 30 years of satellite data enough to declare a long term trend?”
Relative to multiple daily data points and seasonal trends, 30 years is a long-term trend.
“Especially when anecdotal evidence hints at a cyclical nature to Arctic ice coverage.”
The plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data.
“Recent trends may be “noise” but the recent trends are “noise” that flies in the faces of ice free Arctic predictions.”
So what? Until it redefines a new trend or reinforces the current one, noise is noise.
storky (15:26:42) :
@Craig Moore (14:55:39) :
“A little south of the Arctic”
Cut Bank, Montana is 1200 miles south of the arctic circle, 2600 short of the pole – that’s a little?
Clearly you don’t know the difference between weather and climate.
=========================
First, I know where it is. I grew up in Montana.
Second, you have no idea what I know.
Third, as to the direction of temperature trends, WUWT has posted several columns with supporting data on the subject. I suggest you read them.
“alex verlinden (05:25:55) :
Wally,
this story is not from 2007, but from last year …
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/11/28/nwest-vessel.html
maybe a Canadian reader can easily pinpoint the villages or towns in the article and confirm whether this was unusual or not …”
Thanks for the link Alex. The article states this was the first commercial vessel to take the northwest passage from eastern Canada. Normally the villages get their summer supplies from the Alaska side via tug boat and barge. The ship was ice-hardened and had a ice-breaker on standby but said they encountered no ice. So it looks like in low ice summers the passage is not too difficult.
Gary Pearse (10:35:31) :
Enduser (07:04:56) :
“Wow! 1.3 versus .035. that means that the sun has 1.3/.035=35 times the global warming potential as all of the permanent greenhouse gasses put together.”
Anthony/Steve:
I’ve been trying to get everyone to stop looking up at the sun for a minute and take a look where the sun gets some assistance from the earth’s interior:
http://esrc.stfx.ca/pdf/halifaxtalk.pdf”
Gary, the document (page 3) contains hockey stick graphs only.
The time line of the graphs start in the year 1.000 until 2.000.
We see a flat lining flux and temp graph until the year 1.500 that is followed by a dramatic increase.
This is interesting because the period that shows a rise in flux includes the Maunder and the Dalton Minimum.
There should also be an indication that would point to the Midieval Warmth Period which covered the period from 800 to 1.300 AC, a period in time where temperatures were higher than today. At least the first 300 years of the graph should show higher flux/surface temp data.
Am I the only person smelling a rat here?
Regarding the Hawkbill photo: There should be a reflected image of the sun on the ice. Instead, there’s a dim pattern of specks of light scattered over an area about the size of a beach towel. If the albedo of the ice were 100%, the reflection would be exactly as bright as the sun itself. It’s not; it’s a lot dimmer. This indicates an albedo much less than 100%, probably as low as 30% or less, judging from the difference in brightness between the solar image and the ice. At zenith angles between 75° to 90°, the albedo of still water can be as high as 100%. A typical range would be 60% to 80%. The albedo of this particular ice is probably lower than the water under it! The average high latitude albedo of ice is not very different from open water, and often (as seen here) is even less.
Remember, also, that the vertical emissivity of the Arctic Ocean is about 0.993; the typically quoted emissivity of ice is only a fraction of that, about 0.20. Here, as shown in the photo, it might be as high as 0.70, still significantly below that of open water. Open water can shed heat in the Arctic winter even faster than ice. Add to that the insulating properties of ice, and the net result is that it’s extremely unlikely that the Earth will over heat due to the polar caps disappearing in some imaginary and irreversible “tipping point.”
[picture of kayaker fleeing from polar bear goes HERE]
Smokey, as I’m sure you know, that was my point. IN fact, protests etc. likely prolonged Vietnam and certainly cost lives on both sides. Protests heartened the enemy.
But that wasn’t my main point. I am ALWAYS entertained by people who see something they disagree with or that clashes with their worldview, and the first instinct is to ban it, block it, stop it, silence it, shut it down, etc.
Me? I believed in AGW. I really did. I studied a lot about it before realizing there even WAS a “debate”. I am glad I found John Daly’s site, and am more amazed every day that the sham continues, even though the wheels fell off after 1998.
Also, this thread got me started on studying the Skate, and I ended up wasting a couple of hours today browsing information about Nuclear Subs, and eventually Hanford (which is actually just a few hours drive from me). Fun stuff!
ak (14:57:30) :
ak, you’ve been bamboozled. But don’t feel bad, lots of folks have been tricked by cryosphere’s “adjusted” charts. Compare their before and after ‘adjusted’ chart with yours: click.
New York Times, February 20, 1969 article :
“Col. Joseph O. Fletcher. a retired Air Force polar specialist now with the Rand Corporation in California, has cited the presence or absence of pack ice around Iceland as an index of such trends (i.e. sunspot activity trends). From the 9th century to the 13th century almost no ice was reported there. This was the period of Norse colonization of Iceland and Greenland.”
storky (15:46:40) :
@Robert Austin (15:00:39)
“Two can play at this game. Since when is 30 years of satellite data enough to declare a long term trend?”
Relative to multiple daily data points and seasonal trends, 30 years is a long-term trend.
30 years is still a blink of an eye in climate history, saying it is a long term trend relative to a shorter trend does not validate it. Both the 30 year and recent trends tell us nothing worth knee-capping our economy over and you know this perfectly well. If we here take small pleasure from the discomfiture of those predicting imminent Arctic meltdown, well too bad.
“Especially when anecdotal evidence hints at a cyclical nature to Arctic ice coverage.”
The plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data.
That is just a snark, not a rebuttal. Sorry, “scientists” do not appear to have dedicated their time to reconstructing historical Arctic ice coverage to the same degree as they devoted to teasing climactic data from proxies. Incredible statistical gymnastics were applied to produce the “hockey stick” but no similar efforts have been applied to historical Arctic ice coverage. So what is left is anecdotal evidence which is not quantitative or definitive but it may be a hint that you are on the wrong track.
“Recent trends may be “noise” but the recent trends are “noise” that flies in the faces of ice free Arctic predictions.”
So what? Until it redefines a new trend or reinforces the current one, noise is noise.
So you feel confident in extrapolating the 30 year trend to an ice free Arctic. Yes, it is a well known fact in some circles that climate phenomena always follow a linear path to catastrophe when man is implicated. How about we just take a deep breath and wait and see what happens before we officially declare that the sky is falling.
TonyB (15:11:39)
Thanks for the leads. Original Schledermann 1980 and Ogilvie 1984 seem hard to get hold off, but I’ll keep trying. And looking for them led me to new interesting sources. I’m in touch with HBC archives on another matter and may ask if they have papers.
Your help much appreciated.
I find this to be TERRIFYING news!!. I don’t know about all of you but if the Ice caps DO melt, and water goes up all over the WORLD my Home will be submerged in the ocean!!!.Glad I don’t tend to panic too much or be an ALARMIST, like some people i know.. Science can be a “Good Thing” if it is handled properly.. I KNOW this to be true, because I am one of the few men on this planet that can call themselves a “MOLECULAR GASTRONOMIST” and do it in the TRUE sense of the word.. Nothing happens by accident..I believe that GoD and Magic(k) led me here for a reason!!. If you like food check out my brand new web Page on Newsvine.com
North Pole ice not so thick in 58-59, but it’s getting thick now.