While we are on the subject of the APS and their consideration of their stance on climate, this statement came to me today via Philip Bratby in comments. I thought it presicent and worthwhile sharing, since once again there is great concern in the alarmosphere about the levels of Arctic sea ice this summer.
‘It will, without doubt, have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice, has been during the last two years greatly abated. This affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened, and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them, not only interesting to the advancement of science, but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.’
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817, Minutes of Council, Volume 8. pp.149-153, Royal Society, London. 20th November, 1817.(from) http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
If that quote seems familiar to you, it is because it was previously published here on WUWT as part of a larger article on Historic Variation in Arctic Sea Ice.
That quote was also in a letter sent to the current president of the Royal Society, Lord Rees, on 18 July 2009.
The full text of the letter penned by R.C.E. Wyndham to Lord Rees is available here as a PDF. While I do not agree with some things said in the letter, it is worth a read for the humorous writing style. I doubt very much that Lord Rees will respond.
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Douglas DC (08:00:39) : “I read many years ago-during the great Ice Age scare,#that it was postulated that the Arctic was Ice-free,#giving a source of water vapor for the great ice sheets.#Also the colder it got,#(which wasn’t much) the#more the polar ice retreated.- Feeding the Ice sheets.-Anyone ever hear of this,#I can’t cite the source as i don’t recall where I read it. I think it was Scientific American,#about 1975…”
More likely, it’s the other way around. Water evaporating outside the Arctic circle is the source for Arctic sea ice. When the temperatures elsewhere around the globe plunged, less water vapor made its way northward to form ice. Thus the cold winters of the Dalton caused the polar ice to eventually diminish.
The source of Arctic sea ice is Arctic waters, not water vapor. Sea ice forms from salt water but as it freezes, the salty brine is expelled leaving only fresh water ice behind. You can even drink from ice melt pools that have not made contact or been splashed with sea water.
Tim Ball (09:27:12) :
When we planned the conference we realized global temperatures were already dropping at the end of the 18th century and there was a coincidence with the Dalton Minimum.
Except that the temperature decline began in the ~1780s which was almost 20 years before the start of the 2 weak Dalton cycles.
By the way, that salty brine is very dense (IE heavy) and below the normal freeze point of regular sea water. It sinks like a stone and is thought to be the energy source of at least some of our oceanic circulation belt at the bottom of the ocean.
Another little factoid, the surface temp of Arctic sea water must be below about 28 degrees F or below -1 degrees C in order to freeze. Or there abouts. The salt makes it so.
“Interesting….in 1977 hansen was talking ice age, not global warming.”
Yes, I was educated when the next Ice Age was said to be just around the corner.
“You need to study physics more to discover why Co2 absolutely cannot “force” this “catastrophic climate change” aka Al Gore and the IPCC . I suggest you read the many posts of some of the posties here to discover that. When you do you will be enlightened.”
I already am “enlightened”, if that means I don’t buy the Al Gore scare mongering. I was asking if anyone had a short list of reasons it is all bunk to show the undecided or the brain washed. I realize some will never be convinced until there are ice storms in Havana, Cuba but I do have reason to believe that most buy the scare mongering due to thinking it is the “consensus of science” or something like that.
Pamela Gray (10:43:52) :
Another little factoid, evaporation still happens in the Arctic, with a fog of ice crystals blowing around the surface that looks like smoke. Gotta love Deadliest Catch. 🙂
I find myself agreeing with Dodgy Geezer, Lloyd and Don S.
The pompous buffoons who govern us in the UK will carry on in their deep groove so long as the sycophantic bubble of ‘hangers on’ protect them from the reality of the public. The freedom of the individual in Britain has never been advanced by being polite to the buffoons; and never by the sycophantic bubble. They haven’t even the courtesy to laugh at us. They just ignore us.
This government has created 3000 new criminal offences since it came to office. Are we really so evil? The Irish people voted, in a referendum, to reject the Lisbon Treaty. They have been told to vote again (and get it right this time, or else).
I can find very few now among the general public here who believe AGW. It is largely the buffoons and hangers-on, if they do believe it. We have to make it clear to them, if possible verbally, that we will not accept their “post-normal science*” or whatever jargon they invent to cover their lying. They believe we are children who can’t be trusted with the truth, and like all “do-gooders,” THEY are the only people allowed to decide what “good” is.
As such they will hide behind their “professional” smoke screen of pomposity, if possible forever, but at least until they are made to do otherwise.
* used by Prof Mike Hulme, University of East Anglia (where else?)
I, too, would like to know more about R.C.E.Wyndham. There is someone of that name connected to The Sage Group, and he has Oxford connections as evidenced by this amusing and pointed letter to Lord Butler, posted on GreenieWatch, 31.8.08:
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2008/04/warming-island-another-global-warming.html (second entry)
This quote origin from my own homepage’s ‘Miljofragan – “Klimathotet” (Eng. Environmental question – “Climate threat”. I have used Google to translate a part regarding the Arctic History…
“Historical data:
The true story of Greenland’s history, when Greenland was green and exported dried fish, butter (!) and hard cheese to the Nordic Countries, directly contradicts the computer models of the Viking Period until 1551 conditions in the Arctic areas!
Therefore, there is reason to look at the history of the Arctic Arctic history, which includes the time the Nordic Greenlanders lived in Greenland.
More than 3,000 permanent residents lived there during that time. Last written documentation of the contact between Greenlanders and the Catholic Church goes until 1551, when I am talking not only about the papal letter. According to a contemporary document which I will present in my work: Greenland and the Greenlanders with subtitle the ‘missing’ people, [they were emergency rescued to what we now call North America’s mainland in 1435 according to two contemporary sources]
In mid 14th century, Greenlanders still was living in the west district, so there were large meadows and trees as well(!) on Greenland and open water up to eg Ruin Island. To the Ruin Island the Greenlanders sailed, if deliberate or accidental is uncertain, but the artifacts found, and maps up to 1490’s, shows that the climate in that part of the Arctic used to be warmer than now.
There is a farm that already around 1350 was abandoned due to permafrost, which struck during the so-called. Little Ice Age. The farm known as The Farm in the sand (abbreviated GUS) was not been possible to dig out until the last 20 years of the 1900s when parts of the farm re-saved from the permafrost layer. “Most of the Viking expansion took place during what scientist refer to as the dimatic optimum of the Medieval Warm Period dated ca, A.D. 800 to 1200 (Jones 1986: McGovern 1991); a general term for warm periods that reached chere optimum at different times
across the North Atlantic (Groves and Switsur 1991). During this time the niean annual temperature for southem Greenland was 1 to 3°C higher than today. page 40 Julie Megan Ross, Paleoethnobotanical Investigation of Garden Under Sandet,
a Waterlogged Norse Farm Site. Western Settlement. Greenland (Kaiaallit Nunaata), University of Alberta, Department of Anthropology Edmonton. Alberta Fa11 1997 ” end of quote from Norah4you page Environment-“Climate Change”
I don’t know why Rees is worried about climate change – only a few years ago he thought we were all going to die in nanoparticle goo. He is, if I may use an Americanism, a bit goofy.
Tim Ball
In my article (that is linked to at the top of this page) I quoted the letter to The Admiralty from the Royal Society in full-this included a central part that is often missed out.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/
Joseph Banks knew the Lords of the Admiralty well and the letter may have been presented personally to them by him- after being minuted as ‘official’ policy of the Royal Society. Whether or not the letter was physically sent, the details contained in it would have been discussed at a high level prior to it becoming ‘public’ so as to obtain advance agreement for the actions Joseph Banks wanted. This would probably have been during a convivial meeting at the Admiralty itself or at one of the London Clubs where a great deal of the ‘official’ life of Great Britain was carried out.
The Admiralty certainly acted on the information that came via Scoresby and through Joseph Banks, so the content of the letter was undoubtedly known.
As I previously mentioned, Scoresby was buried very close to where I live and my home town of Teignmouth contained some of the whaling fleet who gave the alert concerning melting arctic ice some 20 years prior to the letter of 1817. The British Navy was too busy fighting a series of wars to do anything about it at that time. Interestingly my own village has a sea wall that was erected in 1814 (it has a dated plaque) built to stop the encroachment of rising sea water. If there had been arctic (and glacier melt) during the period from around 1800 onwards, presumably this sea wall and arctic ice melt are connected.
Tonyb
John: (10:37:49)
I didn’t say the Dalton, weak or otherwise, was the cause, I simply said there appeared to be a coincidence and that is what we wanted to investigate. I also said end of the 18th century which would encompass from 1780. Other issues were how much amplification of the cooling trend, whatever the cause, was provided by Tambora’s eruption; what effect would it have had if there was a warming trend; how long after the eruption was the signal still detectable. The objective was to provide a broader context and consider all possible causes. One of the papers presented was titled “Climatic effects of the 1783 Laki Eruption” which was known to have considerable impact especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Indeed, Benjamin Franklin saw the event as he transited between the US and France and later commented ‘….when the effect of the sun’s rays to heat the earth in these northern regions should have been greater, there existed a constant fog over all Europe, and a great part of North America…’ Although high latitude volcanoes do not usually have the impact of those at the equator Laki erupted for at least 10 months. I have suggested elsewhere that it caused the harvest failures and food shortages (as Franklin also predicted) that ultimately became the catalyst for the Storming of the Bastille the event that began the French Revolution .
norah4you (12:14:22)
I am not sure from visiting your website if you are familiar with the work of A.E.J.Olgivie on the climate of Iceland. A summary of her work is available in the book “Climate Since A.D.1500” as a chapter titled, “Documentary Evidence for changes in the Climate of Iceland, A.D. 1500 to 1800.” The article provides bibliography to all her other work plus many other sources. I had the privilege of being a reviewer of her chapter as well as other in the book.
Tim Ball (13:54:10) :
John: (10:37:49)
I didn’t say the Dalton, weak or otherwise, was the cause, I simply said there appeared to be a coincidence and that is what we wanted to investigate.
Fair enough, but there are too many readers of this blog who jump on the merest hint of a solar link and start issuing ludicrous predictions about imminent cooling. I think they’re wrong, but worse than that they are backing themselves (and other sceptics) into a corner.
PS were you one of the contributors to the channel 4 programme.
Skeptic Tank (03:55:57) :
No, it’s self-imposed abstinence of cap & trade.
Even then, it’s not self imposed. It is imposed on those of us who want to have ‘future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations’.
Just gone reading The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H.W. Brands. That is the way people talked in those days. Spotted the century in the quote within seconds. Even rowdy people like Andrew Jackson spoke that way. In those days insults were usually heavily laced with terms such as poltroon, and ended up with someone having a duel.
Andrew Jackson carried at least two wounds from duels, the lead in the bullets contributed to his chronic poor health and irritable personality. There are some indications he may have simply been suffering from persistent bowel problems when he would have people hanged, shot, or imprisoned with no regard for habeas corpus.
Branch also wrote a book on Andrew Jackson.
Both are good reads and you will be surprised how little things have changed.
Benjamin Franklin was a true believer in open discussions, even when they got a little out of hand. When he was attacked by a prominent barrister in what was known as the cockpit, he determined at that moment he could no longer view himself as a citizen of Great Britain. He decided at that point to support separation of the US from Great Britain.
His reason?
He was not even permitted to voice complaints about mistreatment at the hands of the authorities. In fact, by petitioning the government, he was deemed traitorous. He was not allowed to voice his opinion, or serve as an agent for the colonies to express their’s.
Sound familiar?
TIm Ball,
I am. I discussed in a year or two ago in a group not sure if it was in sci.archaeology or soc.history.medieval, I think it was in a subordinate clause.
What’s your point.
The Climate in for example Iceland after 1500 is due to some eruptions back in 1341 and one or two later on. The last one in 1700’s Don’t have the exact date in mind but I have it in one of my history index for Greenland and Iceland. (Mostly from annals).
norah4you (15:39:57)
My point was merely to provide the courtesy of asking if you were aware of Ann Ogilvie’s work.
I don’t agree with your other comments. The impact of volcanic eruptions is 8 to 10 years at most.
Well Tim Ball,
You aren’t a scholar of history that I can tell. Had you been you would have known from medieval sources as well as from archaeologic reports that you assumption for 8 to 10 years are as far from the truth as your assumptions in some other questions are!
Anyhow the late eruption in 1700’s caused more death in Europe than the Spanish flu due to the toxic stoff spread changing the color of air not for more than a year, but the impact on climate hold for more than 80 years. It was a scince program about that one in one of the big channels the other month. The first one 1341 not only made Iceland lose land due to the big eruption exploding more than one vulcano also a large island between Greenland and Iceland disapeared. This series of eruptions 1341 over to early 1342 had direct impacts on the prolonged time of the so called Little Ice Age as well as on the agriculture situation, look for pollenreports in archaeologic reports and also on the fauna. In the later case you better look for the different types of lices found during excavations.
But you still haven’t presented your point. I am willing to discuss any valid argument for period 1500-1800 not only in Iceland but in the Arctic over all.
In between I guess you better read The Roman Church in Norse Greenland, editor G F Bigelow, ”The Norse of the North Atlantic, Acta Archaeologica 61(1991) page 142-150 Köpenhamn as well as Rousell A, Farms and churches in the Medieval Norse settlement of Greenland, Meddelelser of Grönland 86(1).
as well as the old “Speculum Regale”
You see reality always wins in the long run over faked/corrected/interpolated/assumed figures of the past centuries temperatures. If you don’t know the period 980 to 1435, then you don’t know what you need to know in order to understand the temperatures of the past.
John Finn (09:09:30) :
rbateman (06:09:49) :
John Finn (04:07:03) :
“That would be the a portion of the crazy way it works. A slighty warmer Arctic may let a few ships through in the Northwest Passage, but the Arctic is still a frozen inhospitable wasteland.
Well that isn’t the way it worked between 1910-1940, 1940-1975 and 1975 to date. In each of those periods when the earth was warming the arctic warmed 4 times as much as anywhere else and when it was cooling the arctic was cooled 4 times as much as anywhere else.”
What is this “it” you keep referring to? Did science understand that “it” in 1817?
“A lot of what follows in the slipstream of proposed CO2 reduction is good in itself such as cleaner coal powered power plants, …”
It’s inexpensive, and has been / is being done, to have coal plants that generate few particulates and pollutants, by adding scrubbers. Removing CO2 emissions is a separate and expensive matter.
Smokey (06:50:33) :
“Craig Allen (05:55:42) :
For how many years would the Arctic ice have to trend down before it would be considered to not be a short term fluctuation?
If you are discussing global warming, you must include the Antarctic: click.
As you can see, global ice cover is increasing”.
That’s the real killer, that word Global!
How many wet dreams have been spilled on the word “Global”?
Global Hegemony, Global Control, Global Revolution, Global Dominance, Global Governance….Global Control?
Those who tried to acquire it…
In the end , they all got their balls frozen off.
“History in a Nutshell”
John Finn (09:09:30) :
Not so fast, there. The last 10 years have not warmed.
And this: CET shows plenty of periods that were just as cold as the Dalton Minimum – so does DeBilt. Uppsala shows a cooling trend which started after the Dalton Minimum. Crop failure and starvation were not unique to the early 19th century.
Central England is regional, the Dalton spread to much further and wider than Merry old England, finding Europe and China. And I already gave you the references some time back.
And besides that, starvation in Europe & England were averted by trade with countries that had surplus, so it didn’t happen. The climate part surely did, and it did not confine itself to England.
Nobody is backing skepticism in a corner by quoting Grand Minimum in literary history. What happened and was written about across the Earth is not an alarmist prediction, it is what folks observed to take place.
I won’t accept that talking about the role of the Sun as noted in the past is doing harm to skepticism.
Minimalising and Regionalising it surely would be.
Ron de Haan (18:09:34) :
We will never be rid of those whose ambition to rule the world knows no bounds. This latest ruse of a common enemy in the form of Climate being no exception.
I agree with Lindzen on the senseless weaking of the West. Those whose scruples do not include human rights will be eager to take advantage.
How quickly it is forgotten what a terrible mess was found in the Eastern bloc and satellite states as the Party consumed and spilled with great fervor.
All this for a warming in the climate that has vanished.
Remember the Skate. 1959 and the ice was fine.