I’ve been given a report on glaciers and sea ice in the Arctic that I want to share with readers. There’s some compelling evidence of glacier melting and open water in the Arctic sea in this report that I haven’t seen before.
There are also worrisome reports of significant temperature increases, with anomalies of several degrees. Also in the report is the mention of ice free open sea of almost 2 million square kilometers, which is termed as “unprecendented in the history of the Arctic”.
It is shocking to read. I urge readers to have a look at some of the excerpts I’ve posted.
First a map. Spitsbergen is part of Svalbard, which is part of Norway.
From the page 471 above, except for the date, this language seems familiar:
Well, we all know what a warm year 1934 was.
Here’s a mention of some strong temperature anomalies, as much as 10 degrees.
Here we see some significant reduction in Arctic sea ice across broad areas:
Wind seems to be a factor in flushing out the Arctic basin.
Signs that the “warming is not terminating”. Oh, that has to be bad.
Here’s the book:
All of these reports about sea ice and melt seems familiar, except the date, which is 1943.
There’s also a fascinating discussion about linkages between sunspots and precipitation on pages starting on page 460.
You can view the entire book here at archive.org
Oh and here’s that mention of “unprecendented in the history of the Arctic” open water from page 470:
The more things change, the more they stay the same. It seems from history that the Arctic ice is always going up or down. We can’t assume that our recent 2007 record sea ice minimum is something unique in the history of the Arctic ice.
And of course we’ve heard historical reports of a melting Arctic before, such as this one:
November 2nd, 1922. Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.
Big hat tip to Richard North of the E.U. Referendum, who alerted me to this book.
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I really fancy skinny dipping in that beutifull heart shaped bathing pool in the photo, I`d better hurry before it ices over again.
So, one important question is how the Spitzbergen of the 1920-30s compares with today’s temperatures and ice levels.
OT but SM’s defense of Mann might puzzle some at CA posting. However it makes life harder for an AGW re propriety of SM.
Al Gore’s Weather (AGW) :
O’s Katrina: Quagmire/Disaster/Abyssmal ignOrance.
O’not-slick:
“Oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills,” Mr. Obama insisted on April 2, two days after he announced he would allow drilling in the Atlantic Ocean from Virginia to Florida and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. “They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs; they came from the refineries on shore.”
…-
“Oil spill threatens to sink Obama’s energy plan”
“Political damage will be hard to contain, not least because the slick could shatter the President’s shaky compromise on offshore drilling”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/oil-spill-threatens-to-sink-obamas-energy-plan/article1554337/
Toby
I think the “m” stands for miles not metres.
mountainprotector says:
May 2, 2010 at 9:45 pm
This is great! If we can say it is attributed to “wind” then we should stop the insanity of building “wind” farms, right?
If anything, it means we must start harnessing the wind – and taking steps to make sure it can’t escape and run amok in the Arctic! I know people say that free-range wind is happier wind, but I think you’ll find that you can’t tell the difference between farmed wind and “wild” wind. 🙂
The AO is a 90yr cycle. With a low pressure Arctic vortex, warmer saltier Atlantic water moves up to 20deg further north, thining ice thickness by as much as 4 feet. The positive phase continues till around 2035.
Strong exceptions to this pattern will occur between 2014 and 2020, when colder N.H winters will restore seasonal ice extent. http://jisao.washington.edu/ao/
Well done – we can look forward to seeing this sitting at the bottom of piles of grey literature underpinning AR5.
In the 2nd paragraph of the imaged text, it says “According to the testimony of Wegener….” I think that’s the same crackpot who was advocating that ill-considered theory of “Continental Drift.” “Utter, damned rot!” said the president of the prestigious American Philosophical Society. Come on Anthony, that science was settled long ago. At least it was until it became unsettled. 🙂
I did not know that Wegener spent time “rocking” the glaciers, that’s something we all should know as he died, possibly of a heart attack, on the Greenland ice cap at age 50. See http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Wegener/wegener_7.php
Go Adolescent Ice, Go.
===============
One of the key tools of the AGW movement is historical illiteracy.
Looks like the Ford Model had warming impact 80 years ago. The proof was there and we didn’t see it.
Most of the warmist claims come from the fact that everything that was not shown on tv didn’t happen.
Excellent post !!!
vukcevic says:
May 3, 2010 at 2:38 am
It seems that things work like this: Sun-Ionosphere-Winds-Currents
http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/earthmag.html
The sunlight not only makes the air conduct, it also heats it causing thermo-tidal winds. These winds combine with the tidal winds caused by the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon and drive the ionospheric dynamo. This dynamo generates currents as the conducting ionosphere is driven through the Earth’s magnetic field. These current systems form two closed loops: an anti-clockwise vortex in the northern hemisphere and a clockwise vortex ..
Then, “follow the electromagnetic fields”, there is a relation:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GeoMagField.gif
However now the gulf is cold, so…
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
1938 — after 50 years of apparent warming Callendar attributes it to CO2 and says its a good thing. Most folks say you cant show that, and anyway its probably just the up cycle.
(50s, 60s & 70s — the warming stalls)
1988 – After 1o years of apparent warming, Hansen wins the day with his sweety Congress testimony.
(Early 1990s — the warming stalls)
1998, – After 5 years of apparent warming, the 2nd (doctored) IPCC assessment decaring AGW ‘fingerprint’ and Kyoto protocol, warmists are on a high during the el nino of the century
(Early 2000s — warming stalls again)
2011 – After 3 years of apparent warming….[what next]?
Actally, I am starting to think that if 2010 is a new warmest year on record (with no La Nina expected, thats must be on the cards, yes?) it will be really interesting to see if the alarmists start talking temperature records again. It might be too dangerous for them because it will draw attention to all those years that weren’t records.
@ur momisugly Toby, who said: “Where this book talks about retreat of glaciers in terms of metres, current descriptions are about retreat in terms of kilometres or more.”
Come on Toby-baby. You actually believe that scientists all those years ago were wasting time worrying over fluctuations in ice of a few METRES? Use some common sense or go back to your Greenpeace.org site (as per your link) where common sense isn’t a requirement.
“Catastrophic retreat” of Al Gore’s Weather (AGW) :
Lost in the “operational architecture on climate change”.
…-
“UN: No comprehensive climate deal this year
(AP) – 1 hour ago
KOENIGSWINTER, Germany — The United Nations chief negotiator on climate change says there will not be a comprehensive deal to fight global warming this year.
Yvo de Boer told reporters in Germany on Monday the next U.N. climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico, in December will provide a “first answer” on greenhouse gases “but it will not provide an answer that is good enough.”
The U.N. climate chief says a good outcome of Cancun would be decisions on an “operational architecture on climate change” with an actual treaty coming later.
He says he expects such an international climate treaty before the end of 2012, but even that will “not be the definitive answer to the climate change challenge.”
De Boer said earlier this year he will resign July 1.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i9TuMrvrknh-ZXwqmZ2N-48kff3wD9FFARRO4
Wattsupwiththat heart shaped lake? Have you noticed it? It seems Spitzbergen is in love, that is why the heat is on…
toby says:
May 3, 2010 at 1:40 am
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/glaciers-melt-before-our-eyes
“The glaciers in the Kongsfjorden area, where we documented the landscape during our voyage, began an almost continuous retreat around 1900. Blomstrandbreen has retreated around two kilometres in the last 80 years. Since 1960, the average retreat of the glacier has been about 35 metres per year, and even higher in the last decade.”
toby, you can’t simply use one glacier as a proxy for what is going on. Some glaciers are, in fact expanding. The point is, there is nothing at all unusual happening there.
Try this
“Blomstrandbreen might now be retreating, but on the west side of Svalbard is Friddjovbreen glacier which has advanced more than a mile in the past seven years – one of dozens of glaciers to do so.”
“Wider studies published in the Journal of Paleolimnology show that large sudden swings in temperature appear to be a consistent feature of the climate in this region, with temperatures rising and falling by as much as 2 degrees C in only a decade. Professor Humlum’s records on Svalbard show that the biggest changes took place in the 1920s, well before even the IPCC believe that man-made global warming influences could have been felt. More importantly, records show that since mild warming in the 1950s and 1960s, temperatures have been falling. Remember that the Polar Regions should see early and rapid warming since these times if man-made global warming theory is correct. They don’t, and it isn’t.”
berniel says:
We had too long a minimum, so chances are…as K.Abdusamatov predicts:
http://www.giurfa.com/abdu2009.pdf
it will be just the contrary.
The ClK ion washout ratio from the Lomonosovfonna ice core in Svalbard (the island group that includes Spitsbergen) reported in JGR (2006) by Aslak Grinsted et al indicates that ice melt during the period 1130-1200 was comparable to that of the 1930s, while the NaMg ratio indicates that 1130-1200 had much more melt than even the 20th c. See discussion on CA thread “Svalbaard’s Lost Decades”, at http://climateaudit.org/2009/08/17/svalbards-lost-decades/
Grinsted comments that the dating is less certain for the first century of this core, and hence it was not used in his 2009 Climate Dynamics paper “Unprecedented low twentieth century winter ice extent in the western Nordic seas since AD 1200”. However, he is looking for a precision of 5 years in order to synchronize with a treering series in the second paper, so that it still could be plenty accurate for most purposes.
Anthony, you sly devil, you. And excellent work from a Soviet scientist? Nah, only those in the U.S. will be faithful to the scientific method, right. FWIW, I think all those “scientists” who have published knowlingly inaccurate or purposefully misleading scientific data or scientific history ought to be fired. The next administration should look very carefully at those who have received grant money and who have been performing (and continue to perform) like our stereotype of Soviet government-controlled (communist-controlled) scientists. Many heads should roll, I think. Plus they should be required to refund the grants — that action might take care of their generous retirement income.
Also, Tonyb (May 3, 2010 at 12:16 am), always the detailed and accurate historian. Many thanks.
Jacobshavn Glacier from 1850.
http://www.archive.org/details/SVS-3630
Plus ça change isn’t really right. There’s a big difference: Back then the scientists were in touch with reality and logic while the ordinary people were ignorant and superstitious. Today the scientists are ignorant and superstitious while the ordinary people are in touch with reality.