Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
From the “weather is not climate” department, the sea ice is in early and thick in Alaska. It makes me shiver just to look at the picture. They had to use an icebreaker to get fuel to Nome.
Figure 1. The Bering Sea region in Alaska. Anchorage is at the upper right. The Aleutian peninsula and chain runs down to the lower left. Ice covers all of Bristol Bay, and extends well out from the shore to the west. Photo Source
I fished commercially up there, in the Bering Sea. I’ve lived in a container in the Peter Pan Cannery boatyard in Dillingham, and gill netted for the noble salmon in Bristol Bay, drunk too much and worked it off laughing in a blazing hot steam bath with some Yupik guys trying to roast me out the door by cranking up the heat. I’ve made great money in driving sleet arguing with the herring regarding the eventual fate of their roe in Togiak, and seen the walrus hauled ashore in their thousands on Round Island. Those fisheries kill a man or two a year, plus the usual crushed hands and feet and the like. But I haven’t fished the January Bering Sea crab fishery, the one made famous as “The Deadliest Catch”. Figure 1 shows why I don’t do that.
The Bering Sea ice this year is in early, and it’s thick. Not only that, it’s moving south fast. The crab fleet has some $8 million dollars of gear in the water, and the ice is moving south at twenty miles a day. Usually ice comes in later and thinner, and moves south at three miles a day. Boats are tied up to the Dutch Harbor docks. At St. Paul Island, out of the photo to the left, the crab boats usually sell their loads to the processor boats. It is also totally iced in. Millions of dollars have already been sunk into moving the crab boats and the processor boats and the crab pots to Dutch. If this cold continues, the season will likely be a total bust.
My point in this post? Awe, mostly, at the damaging power of cold. As a seaman, cold holds many more terrors than heat. When enough ice builds up on a boat’s superstructure, it rolls over and men die. The sun can’t do that. The Titanic wasn’t sunk by a heat wave.
The thing about ice? You can’t do a dang thing about it. You can’t blow up a glacier, or an ice sheet like you see in the Bering Sea above. You can’t melt it. The biggest, most powerful icebreaker can’t break through more than a few feet of it. When the ice moves in, the game is over.
Now me, I’m a tropical boy. My feeling is that well-behaved ice sits peacefully in my margarita glass, making those lovely cold drips run down the outside, and giving me a brain freeze when I hold the glass to my forehead.
But when ice jumps out of my glass and starts running all around painting the landscape white and solidifying the ocean and falling on my head and freezing my … begonias, well, at that point the fun’s over. I call that “water behaving badly”.
And if you want to worry about a climate related occurrence, I certainly wouldn’t worry about the dread Thermageddon™, the long-foretold and ever-receding premature heat-death of civilization.
I’d worry about water behaving badly …
Best of the cold to my friends in Alaska, stay safe on the ocean, and my regards to all,
w.
Willis:
I fished commercially up there, in the Bering Sea.
Is there anything you haven’t done?
As I sit here at my desk in my seaside condo on Maui, in my skivvies, with all windows open and the temp at 80F, my anxiety at the thought of that ice flow from Alaska hitting the island is guaranteed to keep me up all night- with frosted “Big Swell” beer the only medicine !
When you drink vodka over ice, it can give you kidney failure.
“When you drink rum over ice, it can give you liver failure.
When you drink whiskey over ice, it can give you heart problems.
When you drink gin over ice, it can give you brain problems.
Apparently, ice is really bad for you.”
I love it !!!!!!
As a point of reference, all of our field operations on the North slope (yes, I am one of those oil guys the AGWers despise) this week have been shut down because it’s too cold ; we shut down @ur momisugly -50 F; It’s been -50 to -60F with wind chills around -80F all week – bring on the global warming so we can find new oil reserves :))
Heck of a picture thereWillis, reminds me of that not too long ago picture of the last snow in the British Isles.
And the sad thing about “The deadliest catch”, what a total waste of effort. The only thing less worth wasting good eating time on, than Alaskan King Crab is San Francisco Dungeness Crab.
They simply aren’t worth the trouble trying to crack open to extract the tiny scaps of meat in them.
I got treated to lunch in a very fancy Palo Alto “seafood” restaurant the other day by someone to whom paying for lunch doesn’t hurt a bit.
They had “mussels” on the menu, so I asked the waiter what kind of mussels they were. He went back and asked the chef, who told him they were PEI mussels, aka Prince Edward Island mussles, from that other goodawful place up in the arctic, that’s always buried under miles of ice.
So I asked him if they had any New Zealand green shell mussels, and he said no, they don’t offer those because they would have to charge two dollars extra for them.
So I told him that’s the way it is; bait is always cheaper than seafood.
Clearly nobody in this place had ever laid eyes on NZ green shell mussels. Obvously that place doesn’t know beans about seafood, so in future, I’ll go to my regular place, that always has the NZ ones and always at the exact same price as the PEI bait.
And every person, I have ever shown the greenies to in that restaurant, has never again ordered PEI mussels.
Bering Sea ice area
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.2.html
About 16% increased anomaly.
Ice flips boats ? I’d be travelling south too !
20 miles an hour does seem fast ? 20 kms maybe ? or the upper limit of a 10 to 20 estimate ? maybe a blurred vision typo.
I was reading 2-3 days ago that sea ice forms quicker when it’s relatively warmer e.g. minus 20 rather than minus 30. Sorry I don’t have the link. not that I would goad a warmist, but I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned before now.
fascinating reading from my fan assisted 29 degree C ‘cave’ – it’s maybe 37C outside. of course our bodies are wonderfully adapted to heat, and I feel cool.
And in the Baltic, they’re complaining about the lack of ice and how it’s going to ruin the icebreaking season.
I meant to link Wuwters info on how to bet on Baltic ice a couple days ago.
Willis, very impressive CV.
There are a few 19 year olds who already know as much as you and are convinced AGW is real.
Keep up the good work.
re post: Willis Eschenbach says:
January 27, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Perhaps ‘agw nonsense’ knows of an official site that streams the show that he could point us to? Otherwise, Willis, if you’d like to watch it and aren’t adverse to this method, you can find links to it from unofficial sites such as:
http://watchseries.eu/episode/hardliners_s1_e1-90659.html
Note: I use firefox with popup blocker on and adblock plus installed (an add on that I highly recommend anyhow) – suspect the pages would otherwise have all sorts of ads and possible popups…
IMDb.com (Internet Movie Database) lists it as a documentary with 2 episodes. I’d suggested Deadliest Catch to you long ago in a different thread because while I don’t watch it regularly, I love it – so I’m awfully interested in seeing HardLiners too!!
Kind regards, and the best of luck to yourself, AGW Nonsense, Captain and crew of the Angelica!!
re post: Louise says: January 27, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Louise, just research “excess winter mortality” a little bit. It’s pretty clear that cold kills far more than heat. Note, excess winter mortality isn’t primarily from hypothermia etc., but from various processes – disease (flu, pneumonia), heart attacks, etc., – that aren’t well understood but are clearly linked to cold no matter where you live.
Consider also the issue of crops, growing season length, etc. Clearly warm is better there also, provided it doesn’t come with severe drought (such as the Dust Bowl in the USA in the 30’s).
Humanity’s historical records also show that during warmer times such as the Medieval Warm Period, Roman Optimum, etc., humanity fares far far better than during colder times (e.g., Little Ice Age, Dark Ages, etc.).
Obviously it’s a complicated issue, involving more than simply changes in temperature with all other constants held unchanged – but overall it certainly seems pretty clear that life overall fairs far better with a bit of added warmth rather than the reverse.
Louise, where are you? I am waiting for you to come back and counter all these evil people and this made up proof that cold kills. /sarc off.
That being said, do you get it now, Louise? COLD KILLS, PERIOD.
Willis, thanks, I appreciate it as always.
Cold kills. Warmer is better.
@Louise, it is not hard to Google such things. One easy-to-establish fact is that mortality rates after a heat wave drop for a time. The established reason is that the heat hurts those near death while hardly affecting the healthy. However, cold spells kill indiscriminately, and mortality rates rarely drop afterward. The Christmas blizzard we had a few years ago nearly took a 30-ish, hardy man and his mother because it stranded their car. He and his mother decided to walk rather than taking their chances waiting. She lost consciousness due to the cold, and he carried her. He managed to find help before he succumbed, but the doctors said barely. Both lived, but both very nearly died. Neither would have been harmed if the car stalled on a record hot day here. My point is that weather extremes primarily take the unprepared. Cold is much more efficient at overcoming us, even when we are prepared. As an aside, consider agriculture. Surely no one will advocate a cooler planet will be easier on farmers. Seems I recall hearing just a week or two ago to expect US juice prices to climb as Florida’s orange growers were getting whacked with a freeze.
Robbie says:
January 27, 2012 at 3:11 pm
UM Robbie you need to read the first line of the post “from the weather is not climate department” stating very clearly that it is talking about Alaska ice not everything and as one person asked how about the GLOBAL ice is that at near record lows too? Because just concentrating on one region is just as bad cherry picking wise as anything Willis has done here except he stated clearly for those who think that this was not referring to anything but the Bering sea and Alaska.
re: David L. Hagen says: January 27, 2012 at 1:18 pm
An awesome movie.
Louise says:
January 27, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Thanks, Louise. The difference turns out to be curious. In general, heat kills people that would have died anyway, the old and the weakened, it just kills them a bit sooner than they would have otherwise died. This is shown by a dip in the mortality rates after a heat wave. So overall a heat wave doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.
Cold, on the other hand, kills a lot of people who might not have died anyway, strong people, people caught out in the cold, people whose heating went off, and the like. This is shown by the lack of a dip in the mortality rates after a cold snap.
I don’t have the paper to hand, but that’s what the studies say.
Cold also affects the poor much more than does the heat. If you were going to be homeless year-round, would you choose Michigan or Atlanta? It gets damn toasty in Hotlanta, but I’d take that over the frozen north any day.
w.
Robbie says:
January 27, 2012 at 3:11 pm
What part of “from the ‘weather is not climate’ department” did you not get? I am talking about a single weather event. So what?
w.
Truthseeker says:
January 27, 2012 at 5:42 pm
Naw, it’s much worse than that … I’m not an accountant, I’m a known serial learner. But I can indeed “hold a job done”, as you say, that’s why people hire me. I deliver as specified, on time, on budget, every time. That’s why I never have trouble finding work.
However, I have a peculiarity. I only take jobs that have a fixed ending date. Whether it is when the roof is finished, or the end of the season, end of the contract, when the boat is launched, when the voyage is over, end of the salmon run, I have to have a date certain when I know the job is over and I can retire again.
Crazy, huh? But it’s not like you imagine. I’ve never been fired from a job in my life. I sign on for a certain time or to do a certain task, and when the job is all finished and the paperwork all filed, I retire again.
What I sell is a good night’s sleep—when you hire me, you can turn your attention to other tasks. Because what I’ve been hired to do, I will do it on time on the dime. It turns out that the kind of short-term consulting that I do is a very marketable skill, for a funny reason.
Most of the people who can get the job completed are off somewhere “hold[ing] a job done for any length of time” as you say, so they’re not free to do a short-term job. That makes my skills extra valuable, because there’s not many folks out there doing my kind of work who are available.
Best wishes regarding the friendliness disability, it’s conquerable, don’t give up hope …
w.
Derek Sorensen says:
January 27, 2012 at 6:37 pm
There are more things I haven’t done than things I have done, and life is too dang short. I just keep the gas pedal mashed to the floor, point the car at some road I’ve never taken, and hope we’ll make the turn.
With a host of furious fancies, whereof I am commander,
With a sword of fire, and a steed of air,
Through the universe I wander.
By a ghost of rags and patches, I summoned am to tourney,
Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end,
Methinks it is no journey.
Tom O’Bedlam’s Song
w.
Jeff L says:
January 27, 2012 at 6:51 pm
Mudmen Rule!
Someday I wanna go to Prudhoe … but not in January.
Stay safe, ice bites, stay well,
w.
Most of my time in Alaska was spent working on marine radar systems, frequently in the crow’s nest, undoing ice damage to the scanners. Cold, miserable stuff when water goes bad. An S-band scanner on an oil tanker in Valdez one day, 5 more on Crowley tugs the next – ice makes no exceptions.
Those ships and boats can’t not have radar, though, so they made it worth my while and I worked very hard to be sure the radars still worked at the next scheduled service. Talking with a captain of a boat with empty crab pots on it because the radar failed is not a conversation you want to have, and you won’t have it twice.
From Kodiak to Cold Bay to Barrow, to the beautiful ice village of Valdez, wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Watching the sun rise in Barrow is a special experience given that it takes place over a matter of weeks. At 66 its a life I won’t live again but its a life I think of fondly.
Many of the boats have deck heaters – for the deck, not the crew. Spent more than a few hours with a Louisville Slugger in hand clearing ice from the rigging, gunnels, railings, and spools helping to level the keel following the ice storms that blow through. If you are a lazy Jack and don’t keep up with it you will go over. Your best friend is the cloths dryer in the laundry room – 30 minutes aloft, 10 minutes tumble dry for the head cover, coat, and gloves. Boots too if nobody’s looking.
I did also enjoy doing the same work in Acapulco and Pearl Harbor, though. You have less need to fear the elements, as you have pointed out. Louise should spend 6 months out on the line to get a better appreciation for the cold and how it impacts heat sources like people. If you go over the side in arctic waters you will likely join the food chain. Not so much if you’re wading the blue waters of Moorea or Malaita.
Willis:
Yup. Ice can be downright dangerous, even in some unexpected ways.
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=sensodyne_commercial.wmv%20sensodyne_commercial.wmv&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CEkQtwIwAw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DXPJSgWTi2MQ&ei=Hp8jT-ijCqqziQK7lIyFCA&usg=AFQjCNHv4DqTtMcROeWgk_zs88ngo_uZPw&sig2=p9Z1vt7bVbyFSlAqDF3O1A&cad=rja
gosh – ice breakers can’t break through one foot of ice? What are you trying to say? A sailing yacht can do that. Looking up ice breakers at Wiki reveals that they can plow through ice 2.5 meters (that is 10 feet) thick at 10 knots / 19Km/h.
“The Titanic wasn’t sunk by a heat wave.”
True, true.
There is a clear relation between SST and ice cover. Cold, cold ocean around Alaska.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom_new.gif
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_bm_extent.png
Matt says:
January 28, 2012 at 12:29 am
Matt, you said ice breakers can’t break through one foot of ice. I never said that.
I had said that icebreakers could only break through “a few feet” of ice. The largest icebreaker the US has in operation is the Healy. Per Wiki:
It’s not the biggest icebreaker out there, but my point stands. There is lots of ice out there that the largest icebreaker can’t break.
Can a sailing yacht break through one foot of ice? No. Absolutely, positively no. Have you ever sailed in a yacht? I’ve got thousands and thousands of sea miles under my keel, my friend. Any sailing yacht (other than one specially designed and strengthened) would be committing suicide, a foot thick ice sheet will slice through a boat hull like butter. Ice is amazingly tough.
In addition, it’s curious but a thin layer of ice can be more danger to a boat than a thick layer. The thin layer can cut through, while the boat might just bounce off a thicker layer.
w.
An interesting article that offers a perspective for those who (almost)unbelievably can’t grok stone-cold and how it affects all life forms.
I’d like to see a sailboat, any sailboat, capable of breaking one foot of ice and survive intact. I live along the Great Lakes and the long history of boats(ships) much sturdier than sailing vessels sinking in Winter times from ice and storms seems to disprove sailboat icebreakers…but, that’s only anecdotal evidence.
Funny times we live in when so much innate knowledge is no long innate and that, along with common sense, the all so obvious and provable fact that cold is much more stressful and uninhabitable and the resulting mortality than warmth, isn’t obvious to everyone. Maybe those who can’t grasp the concept of killing cold should move off of their balmy islands for awhile and go to Alaska or anywhere seriously cold, just to learn a perspective that seems to have been forgotten at some point in the far distant past. Our ancestors knew better and didn’t need someone to Google-up proof for them.