Guest Post by Dr. Tim Ball
April 14th is the anniversary of Titanic‘s collision with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The event occurred at 41° 46′ N and 50° 14′ W, almost the most southerly location on record (Figure 1). One can’t absolve the sailors from lack of vigilance because the accident happened, but it’s important to know their situation and expectations.
Red crosses mark collisions, but also outline “Iceberg Alley”. It’s where pieces of ice calve from the west coast of Greenland and drift south with the Labrador Current. Iceberg numbers and extent are determined by changing climate, which affects glacier dynamics, water and air temperatures, and ocean currents. Figure 2 shows the Labrador Current flowing to a confrontation with the North Atlantic Drift. When the Gulf Stream is off the New England coast, it’s driven east by the prevailing westerly winds. The boundary between the cold, dark, bottle-green waters of the Labrador Current and the light blue, almost turquoise of the warm tropical waters is a very sharp visible boundary. I saw it many times while chasing Soviet submarines around the North Atlantic. The diagram show the cold dense water deflecting the warmer water and affecting the trajectory toward western Europe.
As far as is known using dead-reckoning navigation, Titanic was on course. Figure 2 shows the point of collision was at the southern limit of the Labrador Current. Icebergs melt as they move south and most are totally melted or very small at this latitude. Therefore it’s an area the crew wouldn’t expect icebergs, especially one large enough to sink them.
Why did such a large iceberg get that far south in 1912? Study of the weather patterns provide explanation. Media reports tell the story and are all summarized in this statement:
The 1912 United States cold wave (also called 1912 cold air outbreak) remains one of the coldest winters yet to occur over the northern United States.
January, 1912 was the coldest on record for Norfolk, NE, at -39°C and Pennsylvania State College weather station recorded -30°C on the night of January 11th. This was reinforced by a comment from a Canadian newspaper,
What made the winter of 1912 a record-breaker was not the absolute cold – 1934 was worse – but that it settled in quickly and stayed put.
So it was a prolonged cold spell, a point confirmed by another source.
It started in December 1911 and continued into late February 1912. February and March continued the unrelenting freeze. Both months were unusually cold, and March was the coldest on record for many states in the Midwest and Northeast. Parts of North Dakota saw their coldest March readings to date. Some cities saw their coldest weather that winter since the Little Ice Age. 1912 itself was a very cold year.
These conditions indicate a very deep prolonged outbreak of cold arctic air across central and eastern North America that became a “blocking” high pressure system. Persistence of the pattern resulted in severe weather or prolonged weather in other regions. All are characteristic of a Meridional Pattern of flow in the Circumpolar Vortex (Jet Stream) in Figure 3.
In England, the general weather pattern was notable because of cool wet conditions;
The almost complete absence of summer weather and the frequent rains at almost all seasons have rendered 1912 memorable. The bad weather was more noticeable by contrast with the magnificent weather of 1911.
London reported,
Dull and Wet. Mild Winter. Very Cool late Summer and Autumn.
More important,
March was a very changeable month as a series of Atlantic weather systems crossed the country.
In Regina, Saskatchewan, in central Canada the weather was equally significant.
Known as the Regina Cyclone, this storm has been rated an F4 on the Fujita Scale based on reported damage and historical photographs. To date, it is the deadliest tornadic storm in Canadian history, taking 28 lives and leaving more than 200 injured.
All this confirms that a very deep northerly flow of cold arctic air persisted over eastern North America. This would drive cold Labrador Current water further south carrying the icebergs with it. The cold air reduced above water ablation of the icebergs. Confluence of the cold arctic water and warm tropical water make the region south of Newfoundland the foggiest region in the world. Conditions in 1912 enhanced the fog forming potential that further hampered the lookouts. This was the final event in a sequence of weather conditions that resulted in a terrible maritime disaster.
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Related articles
- The role of physics in the sinking of the Titanic (naturenplanet.com)
- Did the MOON sink the Titanic? New study suggests freak tidal event caused icebergs to fill shipping lanes 100 years ago (dailymail.co.uk)
- Titanic iceberg photo up for auction (myfoxny.com)
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/13/follow-the-titanic-down-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-graphic/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/13/titanic-pictures-shipwreck-anniversiary/
Good to see you’re still active Dr Ball. – Thanks – and I hope to see more from you here on WUWT.
Interesting.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9158258/Titanic-sank-due-to-mirage-caused-by-freak-weather.html briefly describes the theory of a mirage which moved the horizon and obscured the iceberg. (Gary says: April 12, 2012 at 11:15 am is effectively saying that in this thread, “artwest” on April 12, 2012 at 11:20am identifies the TV show, which is aka Titanic’s Final Mystery and perhaps other names.)
More articles http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Small+icebergs+real+killers/6446190/story.html and cautionary comment http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_TITANIC_NEW_THEORIES?SITE=CAACS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT.
There is also a suggestion that mirage effects obscured and confused visibility of flares to other ships.
Having read the official report on the collision of a DC-10 airliner with Mt. Erubus in Antarctica I am not as skeptical as I might otherwise be. It is likely that the DC-10 flight crew did not see the mountain until quite late, as apparently the optical phenomenon can make a scene without a mountain – at least in the haze that might exist there. (The crew had been given an incorrect flight path by the flight planning office.)
While people say the ice bergs were in an unusual area, wouldn’t shipping reports indicate that, so anywhere near them the crew should slow down (especially at night)? One source says messages were sent to the Titanic, but the last one may have not been read by the crew. There seems to be contradiction about fogginess in various articles, but that may be confusion between low near the water and above the large ship, or perhaps what the lookouts apparently described as mist that the iceberg appeared out of was an artifact of the mirage.
Today the Canadian government spends money to map icebergs and make the data available to ships. Last I heard the sensor was side-looking-airborne-radar on a business jet, might just be satellite sensors today.
A popular nineteenth century novel “Futility of the Wreck of the Titan” involved the largest passenser ship, claimed unsinkable, that hit a N Atlantic iceberg and sank. Fourteen years after the novel and life immitates art, or pre-planned murder ? Next read the “Seven who were to be on the Titanic” at Wiki. J P Morgan, owner of White Star line and the Titantic, along with his radio patent thief Marconi just didn’t happen to make thier announced trip. The Lusitannia, another White Star disaster was stuffed full of war material and ordered to submarine filled waters at low speed with NO destroyer escort. At some point coincidence yields to conspiracy.
A+ to Dr. Tim Ball. Very informative article about a sorry event of history. Just facts and by the way, no modeling in order to present the reality otherwise than there is.
It is ironic that had Titanic sailed earlier in the year, as she was supposed to, there would have been few bergs. By all accounts the ice that year was exceptional.
Verity Jones says:
April 14, 2012 at 3:42 pm
It is ironic that had Titanic sailed earlier in the year, as she was supposed to, there would have been few bergs. By all accounts the ice that year was exceptional.
It’s also ironic that if the lookouts had been asleep, the ship would have hit the berg bow-on — her forward compartment would have been holed, but she would have been able to limp into New York.
The cause of the accident was Captain Smith’s weak reactions to numerous wireless messages
from ships in his path advising that ice packs and bergs were dead ahead. The California radioed that it had stopped, unable to navigate the ice pack. Smith neither slowed the ship’s speed (the obvious reaction – probably because he wanted to enter New York harbor at a certain time of day most convenient) nor were all of the warnings posted. There was no record of fog hampering visibility – the reason the berg wasn’t seen sooner was the fact that it had just turned over and was sea colored and there sea was dead calm, thus no visible wave actions against the berg. And none of the lookouts had field glasses, either. Actually, the ship would have survived had it struck the berg squarely. By turning to avoid, the Titanic side was sliced open thru the fifth compartment, dooming the ship.
Just browsing the web when I came across my work displayed in your Figure 1. Nice to see it used but would, of course, have like to have seen it duly credited. For those interested in learning more about ship iceberg collisions or the historical nature and yearly variation of sea ice and icebergs in the North Atlantic they can go to http://www.icedata.ca .
1912 was a bad year for ice conditions but not unusually so. There were years before and since when conditions were just as bad with ice as far or further south. The Titanic inquiry noted this and stated as an example that in 1903, 1904 and 1905 from about early in April to mid-June or early in July, westward-bound vessels crossed the meridian of 47° W. in lat. 41° N., that is 60 miles further south than the the course the Titanic took. Indeed, we have an ice report dated almost exactly 7 year before the sinking of the Titanic, on 16 April 1905, by the White Star Line, ss Baltic, with Capt. Smith himself in charge, of ice in 41°32’N which is more than 10 miles more southerly than his grave site.