New paper using Oxygen 18 isotope tracking finds the Arctic temperatures peaked before 1950, and have been stable to declining since. Natural variability is cited as the cause.
A new paper published in Climate of the Past reconstructs temperatures over the past 1100 years from Eastern Arctic ice cores. The dating was done by Oxygen 18 isotope dating and the O18 data shows the highest Eastern Arctic temperatures of the 20th century occurred in the 1920’s-1940’s. The data shows that after that peak, there was a cooling or a warming ‘pause’ over the remainder of the 20th century.
The peak in the 1920’s likely explains this classic WUWT post showing observations from 1922:
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
The Hockey Schtick writes:
Fig. 5a below shows a double peak in O18 proxy temperatures in the 1920’s and 1940’s followed by cooling to the ice age scare of the 1970’s, and temperatures in 2000 below those of the peaks in the 1920’s-1940’s. Five compilations of meteorological data of the Eastern Arctic in Fig 5b show good agreement to the proxy data.
This is the opposite pattern to what would be expected if man-made greenhouse gases were the cause, as even alarmists claim the increase in greenhouse gases has only had a significant effect since 1950. Instead, this new paper demonstrates Eastern Arctic temperatures peaked in the early 20th century, followed by a declining trend to the end of the record in 2000.
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Of course, just like the surface temperature record, the long term trend is up, but clearly there is also a pause since the double peak, and that’s hard to explain in the face of a linear increase of (some claim exponential) GHG emissions.
The paper:
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Proxy temperature reconstruction from the paper in graph A, followed by other meteorological data and compilations of the Eastern Arctic.
doi:10.5194/cp-9-2379-2013
T. Opel, D. Fritzsche, and H. Meyer
Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Research Unit Potsdam, Telegrafenberg A43, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
Abstract:
Understanding recent Arctic climate change requires detailed information on past changes, in particular on a regional scale. The extension of the depth–age relation of the Akademii Nauk (AN) ice core from Severnaya Zemlya (SZ) to the last 1100 yr provides new perspectives on past climate fluctuations in the Barents and Kara seas region. Here, we present the easternmost high-resolution ice-core climate proxy records (δ18O and sodium) from the Arctic. Multi-annual AN δ18O data as near-surface air-temperature proxies reveal major temperature changes over the last millennium, including the absolute minimum around 1800 and the unprecedented warming to a double-peak maximum in the early 20th century. The long-term cooling trend in δ18O is related to a decline in summer insolation but also to the growth of the AN ice cap as indicated by decreasing sodium concentrations. Neither a pronounced Medieval Climate Anomaly nor a Little Ice Age are detectable in the AN δ18O record. In contrast, there is evidence of several abrupt warming and cooling events, such as in the 15th and 16th centuries, partly accompanied by corresponding changes in sodium concentrations. These abrupt changes are assumed to be related to sea-ice cover variability in the Barents and Kara seas region, which might be caused by shifts in atmospheric circulation patterns. Our results indicate a significant impact of internal [natural] climate variability on Arctic climate change in the last millennium.
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[Note: this original post was written during my workday and making a comparison to the Cowtan and Way paper, and like sometimes happens during my day, I got interrupted, and then got off on a tangent that wasn’t correct. To correct my mistake, I’ve republished this post sans that tangent. Later I’ll get back to my original idea when I have more time. – Anthony]
Nick Stokes writes “The authors say that a lot of this was local”
And yet the assumption is that there are minimal “local effects” and that its valid to smear the recent warming completely over the Arctic region. At the end of the day if we have no measurements then we have no measurements. We can do stuff like hybrid kridging to have a guess…but its a guess. Its not scientific evidence. Just like models are a guess and not scientific evidence.
When did we move away from actual science? When did we move away from proper reproducible facts representing science and hypotheses being posibilities… to hypotheses being “facts” ?
It used to be that hypotheses were the starting points. Now they’re becoming the endpoints.
We shouldn’t be building science on layers of hypotheses.
There several other studies to support the conclusion Arctic temperatures have not risen since the 50s.
The greatest loss of Arctic sea ice has been due to warm water intrusions in the Barents and Kara (Figure 1 http://landscapesandcycles.net/antarctic-sea-ice–climate-change-indicator.html)
The behavior of the glaciers on islands in that region provide further support to this paper’s conclusion of no warming since the 50s. Researchers wrote, “Recession of tidewater calving glaciers on north Novaya Zemlya in the first half of the twentieth century was relatively rapid (.300 m yr-1), consistent with post-‘Little Ice Age’ warming documented by a 122-year instrumental record from Malye Karmakuly. The glaciers completed 75 to 100% of the net twentieth-century retreat by 1952. Between1964 and 1993 half of the studied glaciers were stable; the remainder retreated modest distances of ,2.5 km.” read 796. Zeeberg, J. and Forman, S. (2001) Changes in glacier extent on north Novaya Zemlya in the twentieth century. The Holocene, vol 11, p. 161–175.
Tree ring and instrumental data from northern Scandinavia are also in agreement with the warmest peaks in 40s.
http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/78022663_scaled_680x593.png
read Esper, J. et al. (2012) Variability and extremes of northern Scandinavian summer temperatures over the past two millennia. Global and Planetary Change 88–89 (2012) 1–9.
Much of any warming is due to ventilation of heat from ice free waters. HOwever over ice covered western Arctic Ocean and based 27000 dropsondes and drifting Russian ice stations researchers reported “In particular, we do not observe the large surface warming trends predicted by models; indeed, we detect significant surface cooling trends over the western Arctic Ocean during winter and autumn. actually showed a cooling trend in the 80s and 90s” Kahl, J., et al., (1993) Absence of evidence for greenhouse warming over the Arctic Ocean in the past 40 years. Nature 361, 335 – 337.
Not much observational data to support warming since the 50s!
Excuse typo. The phrase “actually showed a cooling trend in the 80s and 90s” is mistakenly inside the quotes and was not intended to be there and not part of the author’s quote.
Maybe the present Arctic conditions are not quite so “unprecedented” after all? Looks like they may need a virtual Thor’s hammer to flatten out (adjust) that pesky 1920s-1940s warm period from the proxy record.
With Christmas music already playing on the radios now, I hear “White Christmas”. When I read this, perhaps the song could be proxy for 1940’s too.
According to Dr Otto Pettersson quoted by Rachel Carson in the very last part of her book…The living sea…..’in 1919 the coal shipping season from the west spitzbergen ports increased from 3 to 7 months’….a fairly dramatic change
Since Rachel Carson’s book is full of junk science
and since 1919 coincides with the end of WWI (which may have: 1) made shipping lanes safer; 2) freed up ships for freight) here is a more reliable source for the same info. (nicely cited by Gopal Panicker at 8:02pm today):
Dr. Ole Humlum in “A Geographical-Historical Outline of Svalbard” here:
http://www.unis.no/35_STAFF/staff_webpages/geology/ole_humlum/SvalbardOutline.htm
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Not that your post wasn’t likely correct, Gopal Panicker (is that your real name, btw? — I haven’t encountered it before; just wondering — lol, whenever I see your name, I always think “Global Panic-er” and think for half a second you’re a hysterical pro-AGW person), just that Rachel Carson was SUCH a moron that I wanted to back up your good assertion with a more reliable source. My quick search using Bing did not find that Dr. Pettersson quote anywhere else or I would have cited that source (if it had been a reliable source), here.
This paper is devastating to the whole AGW issue. … We have a planet ignoring the carbon based units that inhabit it.
(Phil Jourdan at 12:52pm on 11/19/13)
Hear, hear! That bore repeating boldly! #(:))
I expect my following comment to be cut, but I am sick of the way the alarmists seem to be able to allow themselves to use whatever dodgy fraudulent adjustment, cherry picking of dates and data torturing technique that they see fit to support their repeatedly falsified hypothesis, and yet, unjustifiably still be taken somewhat seriously as scientists.
In short and to be very crude, If I measured my penis the way climate alarmists measure global temperatures, I could claim to have a 15 inch long monster between my legs.
They are flat out lying.
Memory aid: install Lazarus add-on, and set the retention periods to a nice long stretch (I use 100s of weeks for temp files). You will never lose or ‘forget’ a post again. Saves every entry in real time as you type.
“Climate Science” 101, if history conflicts with the computer model; erase history.
Trust us, we are scientists.
What price “lukewarming” now?
Ken Hall says (November 20, 2013 at 2:58 am): “In short and to be very crude, If I measured my penis the way climate alarmists measure global temperatures, I could claim to have a 15 inch long monster between my legs.”
Big deal. If “climate alarmists” measured Angelina Jolie, they’d get the same result.
The 1922 Spitsbergen event has been shown to be localized.
http://www.globalcoral.org/LONG%20TERM%20ARCTIC%20ICE%20TRENDS%20AND%20GLOBAL%20WARMING.1.pdf
Your guru looks like the Unabomber. He thinks like him, too. He’s a notorious alarmist.
What you should probably do is get out a paper or maybe open paint, and sketch the properties of the reflective insulation that deflected a fifth energy away from sensors on a planet,
and making the temp rise.
When you’re done with that sketch out for yourself how, with that 20% E in missing,
the icy frigid fluid gas bath the globe’s immersed in, made temps on e.v.e.r.y. s.i.n.g.l.e.
heat s.e.n.s.o.r.
on the p.l.a.n.e.t.
Rise yet again.
You’re in here telling me you know the difference between warmer or not, and I’m telling you, the atmosphere’s a cold, thermally conductive bath that can’t heat the earth no matter what it does.
Cold thermally conductive baths, can’t raise temps on something more than if it were in vacuum.
You say the atmosphere’s a giant heater,
I remind you, that you can’t even explain premise one: prove the atmosphere’s not actually a reflective coolant bath.
You’ll flunk that.
You’ll flunk the second one: show us all some example of a cold gas bath making temperatures rise above the temps without the cold gas bath, in vacuum.
You’ll flunk that too, and we haven’t cracked a book yet.
Add that onto the fact the gas you claim is responsible for ‘heating’
CO2- with water –
is actually the one responsible for reflecting away that 20% E in that you claim
magically
made every heat sensor on the planet show
more energy arriving,
than when 20% more energy
was arriving.
P.S. You need to remind your Unabomber looking guru he can go ahead and update his ice charts. He never saw it coming because he’s just a magic gas scammer but there’s a lot of ice up there.
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Jack Dale says:
November 21, 2013 at 3:35 pm
“It’s really magic gas, the amosphere’s a giant heater, not a reflective frigid thermally conductive bath dragging temperatures down anytime earth’s immersed in it, which is always.”
Steven,
if you have two bodies of different equilibirum heat, but each partly regulated by the other, warming the cooler body will cause the warmer body to warm, all else being equal. Different layers of the biosphere have widely different temperatures, despite being thermally connected. Change the equilibrium temperature in one layer and the whole system has to adjust – unless there is a perfect thermal insulator between layers.
@ur momisugly barry, your statement is only correct if at least the warmer body has some form of external energy source attatched (or both bodies do), a mere heat bath won’t do. If the warmer body actually warms and the temperature rises that rise in the temperature came from the energy from the external source, not from the cooler body. The now warmer cooler body merely caused the warmer body to not lose as much energy to itself, conductively or radiatively, or even convectively. Without external energy flowing in to the warmer body, a cooler body can never cause the temperature of a warmer body to rise so you cannot say the cooler body warmed the warmer body, at best it made the warmer body cool more slowly.
Now on your side, I do see buried in a few words that you are saying the warmer body does have an external energy source, you said 1) both are at equilibrium 2) one is cooler than the other. By that definition there is heat flowing from the warmer to the cooler and the warmer is being replenished with the lost energy from somewhere else, an external energy source.
Too many say things of this subject without being perfectly clear. Steven R Vada seems to be speaking of an un-powered system, leaving out the solar constant input, and you are speaking of a powered system without spelling that out very clearly that it may take someone versed in thermodynamics to pick that underneath the words.
@ur momisugly Steven R Vada, listen to barry and consider what he is saying, due to the solar energy input the atmosphere can alter the surface’s temperature, either way, up or down, for it affects how much can escape through it. Fortunately that amount allowed to leave, in co2’s case, is tied to the infrared optical thickness and that is not changing as co2 concentration has raised since the 50s so any warming we have is from somewhere else, albedo (clouds) or solar variances in some manner, possibly even emissivity of the surface (land use), bad temperature records, all of the above.
wayne,
It is more correct to say it your way – that the wamer body loses less heat, but I think that is less easy to grasp for average punters with no physics background. Just say that there is a (relatively) fixed stratification to temperature layers, and that changing the temperature of one means the others must adjust – unless there is a perfect thermal insulator between them.
A good intuitive analogy is car engine overheating. No matter the temperature of the day, a car’s engine always runs hotter than the ambient air. But most people who’ve been around a few decades know that cars tend to overheat on hot days more than cold – so the temperature of the relatively colder air affects the temperature of the much hotter engine.
We’re not really in disagreement about the physics, just say it differently.
But I think we disagree on this, although it’s hard to gauge from your syntax:
CO2 has risen significantly since the 1950s (and by 40% since the industrial revolution). Observational evidence of decreased brightness of IR in the CO2 spectral bands leaving the Earth’s atmosphere from stallites demonstrates that more CO2 in the atmosphere = more absorption of upwelling IR. It’s also observed from land-based sensing. Those ‘predictions’, at least, came out right.