But in fact the catastrophe may have been set in motion by a warm, wet year over Greenland in 1908, resulting in greater snow accumulation. Writing in the journal Weather, Grant Bigg and David Wilton of Sheffield University explain how the snow soaked through cracks in the ice sheet, encouraging excess iceberg calving over the following few years. Soberingly, global warming has increased iceberg hazard greatly in recent decades, making years like 1912 more the norm than the exception.
Yeah, but have a look at what this research actually says and you’ll understand why The Guardian is nothing more than agitprop.
Titanic Sunk During Average Iceberg Year
“more than a century of Atlantic iceberg counts reveals 1912 was an average year for dangerous floating ice.”
Old Coast Guard records are throwing cold water on a long-standing explanation for the loss of the Titanic: the suggestion that the fateful journey took place in waters bristling with icebergs, making 1912 an unlucky year to sail the North Atlantic.
Instead, more than a century of Atlantic iceberg counts reveals 1912 was an average year for dangerous floating ice. The findings also contradict a popular notion that the Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier on Greenland’s west coast birthed the Titanic’s deadly ‘berg. Instead, a computer model suggests that one of the glaciers at Greenland’s southern tip released the iceberg that hit the Titanic on April 14, 1912, drowning more than 1,500 people in the frigid ocean.
“I think the question of whether this was an unusual year has been laid to rest,” said Grant Bigg, an environmental scientist at the University of Sheffield and lead study author, adding, “1912 is not an exceptional year.”
…
According to Bigg, 1912 was a high ice year, but not exceptional compared with the surrounding decades.
In 1912, data shows that 1,038 icebergs moved south from Arctic waters, and crossed the 48th parallel. The Coast Guard records show a slightly higher number of 1,041 icebergs crossed south of 48 degrees north in 1909. Between 1901 and 1920, five years saw at least 700 icebergs drift below 48 degrees north, where they could menace ships.
And, inconveniently according to GISS, it was the third coldest year on record. And, the years following it were still quite cold.
Then there is the fact that radar has been around for about 65 years, though some folks think that ship radar might not help against global warming icebergs. They hide in the deep ocean and then surface right in front of the ships. (Thanks Roy)
Image from the bridge of the Ocean Nova Antarctica Cruise Ship
E.M.Smith says:
April 28, 2014 at 7:50 am
“… Also the ship had a new disign with one big prop in the middle and two small ones each side. Fine for fast crusing (mid-prop direct thrust line) but lousy for emergency turns (can’t run full forward one side, full back the other, as that midline prop doesn’t put in a turning moment…)”
With respect, not so. To turn at a high speed, rudder hard over, the centre propeller impinges directly on the rudder, which creates a very substantial turning moment. With one outboard prop going full ahead, and the other full astern – if it had time to reach that speed, very likely it would have nearly stopped – does take time to stop large masses of machinery – the turning effect would have been very good.
And no, the side was not slashed open. IIRC the divers did not find the side slashed open. If it had happened she would have sunk in minutes. Far more likely is the explanation that she actually ran aground on the berg. At depths there is hardly any water flow past the ice, so there is a ‘blanket’ of ice-cold water against the ice. Melting is slow. At sea level wave action continually washes over the ice and the melt water is removed, to be replaced by water a bit warmer, so melting is quicker. The result is that a shelf can develop underwater, and it is believed that she ran onto the shelf, with the effect that when balanced on the shelf there were very severe stresses on the hull which caused substantial rivet distortion and some failure. A ship I was on hit another in Singapore. The other ship was berthed on a curve in the wharf, and we hit her just abaft midships. So she was bent a bit. There was apparently little damage, but the Class Society determined that in order to inspect the damage she would have to be dry-docked, and the cargo discharged to permit this. As the cargo was removed, so the stresses on the ship were relived and she straightened up. As she did so, rivets started falling out, and eventually she was leaking like a colander. The water was pouring in as fast as the cargo was coming out. That is what I believe happened with the Titanic. She was badly strained as she rode over the ice shelf, and when Capt Smith ordered her to move ahead again, rivets started popping with the change in strain, and rivetted seams opened up. When the Second Officer was in charge of a naval vessel that had been torpedoed or mined in WW1, rather than go ahead, he ordered astern movements only and managed to bring the ship to safety (needs checking, this from memory of the relevant book). The Master of the sister ship, Britannic, which was either torpedoed or mined, put her ahead to try to reach the shore, but she sank first.
Note that very few of the passengers drowned. Apart from those who could not swim and struggled, leading to drowning, and those who had heart attacks as a result of the sudden immersion in ice cold water, most would have died of hypothermia. Massive temperature loss would have resulted in the body shutting down bit by bit, eventually brain death and heart stoppage.
Note that the rivets supposedly became brittle at temperatures of -4C. But the water would not have been that cold. Approaching it, yes, but not there.
The fire in a bunker had been there for a long time – possibly from the time she set out from Liverpool (?) to go to Southampton. Coal fires were not unknown in coal bunkers, and still are in coal heaps – witness the coal fire in Victoria – not certain if it is out yet, and I believe there are some coal fires in the eastern USA which have been burning for thousands of years.
Vince Causey
April 28, 2014 8:46 am
Well, if it was global warming back then, that’s evidence against it being man made.
One interesting theory of why the iceberg wasn’t spotted early enough, put the blame on “refraction”. Apparently, it was well known that different atmospheric temperature layers can make the horizon appear to lift up. This would completely block the light from an iceberg. Analysis of ships logs on that night does appear to suggest that refraction was abnormally high.
Maybe that was caused by global warming as well.
Gamecock
April 28, 2014 8:47 am
If the dog eats your homework, it’s not the dog’s fault: it’s just a dog.
It wasn’t the icebergs fault the Titanic hit it. All sorts of fanciful theories about the iceberg still doesn’t make it the iceberg’s fault.
Stephanie Clague
April 28, 2014 8:52 am
The loss making low circulation failing guardian? Mad as a box of frogs and dumber than dirt
Jimbo
April 28, 2014 8:53 am
Is it possible that we have better detection capabilities for ice-bergs than we had in 1912?
Global Warming Sunk the Titanic – – – no Global Warming Sunk ‘The Guardian’ – – – closer
hmmmmm . . . . ‘The Guardian’ Sunk Global Warming
That’s better.
John
Henry Clark
April 28, 2014 8:55 am
Arctic ice extent was mapped long before the satellite era. Over data available for the Northern-European Basin (77% of Arctic ocean era), the 1910s had a higher ice extent than a few years immediately beforehand and than the decades afterwards. And that was during relative cold, not relative warmth.
More icebergs might indeed occur in the near future like the next decade from now — and, incidentally, though not arctic, already this year “US temperatures through April 26 are third coldest on record, just barely behind 1899 and 1912. This week is forecast to be cold, and will likely push 2014 into the #1 spot” as noted yesterday at http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/2014-closing-in-on-coldest-start-to-the-year-in-us-history/ . But, if so, the “climate change” causing the extra ice would be cooling, not warming.
The ice extent of the 1910s can be seen in a Russian-source plot about 3/4ths of the way down in my usual http://tinyurl.com/nbnh7hq set of illustrations (which also shows how the GISS temperature in this article has been heavily adjusted, in the usual style explored at http://hidethedecline.eu , although the adjustments were more later in the century).
richard
April 28, 2014 8:56 am
tarran says:
April 28, 2014 at 7:36 am
very interesting.
LogosWrench
April 28, 2014 8:56 am
The ship did swerve but the iceberg hit It anyway. Damn you AGW!!!!!
Jimbo says:
April 28, 2014 at 9:07 am
Aren’t icebergs that far south a sign of cooling?
“The disaster occurred in a period of worldwide cooling. Looking at the National Climate Data Center database dating to 1880, for 15 consecutive years before the sinking, annual global temperatures finished below long-term averages”
Alan the Brit
April 28, 2014 9:17 am
Greg says:
April 28, 2014 at 7:49 am
“Instead, a computer model suggests that one of the glaciers at Greenland’s southern tip released the iceberg that hit the Titanic on April 14, 1912, drowning more than 1,500 people in the frigid ocean.”
Err, I think it would be more accurate to say the ship “hit” an iceberg rather than the other way around.
My thoughts exactly, although such an instance might absolve Captain & crew & the White Star Line of any responsibility, It’s a bit like me savagely butting someone in the fist with nose!
pat
April 28, 2014 9:28 am
One of the more interesting idiosyncrasies of the Guardian is that absolutely nothing in it can be believed, Nothing.
Ex-expat Colin
April 28, 2014 9:34 am
It was sunk because it wasn’t the Titanic…get it right FFS
JimS
April 28, 2014 10:00 am
AGW is sinking like the Titanic, but it will take another 10-15 years before it is totally submerged.
Gary H
April 28, 2014 10:11 am
Well whatever – 1912 was decades prior to the onset of anthropogenic global warming (mid 1900’s is the consensus view there of the IPCC and other alarmists).
Therefore, if it was global warming which caused it (not that it was), it would have been that GW which is naturally occurring, rather than anthropologically induced.
Gary Pearse
April 28, 2014 10:14 am
Yeah, they’ve abandoned the CAGW being only since 1950 when CO2 emissions increased rapidly. That pesky natural variation pushed them back to the 1880s and then, having to abandon the rearguard action to keep the LIA out of site (they are always hiding something – their kids probably never do find the easter eggs), they moved our culpability back to the 1700s. These “corrections” where the first wheels falling off the CAGW cart. Now the “pause” 17+years of no warming, has caused them to embrace odious natural variation, sun activity, AMO/PDO, Enso and whatever else they can subvert to their cause. CAGW and ocean heat are always waiting to jump out at us. The only global warming that threatened a ship was the belief in it by Turney’s Ship of Fools sporting in the Antarctic summer.
richard
April 28, 2014 10:36 am
Remarkable.
The guardian let through a link to this page in the comments section.
Mark
April 28, 2014 10:58 am
E.M.Smith says: So once the berg was spotted, they could not turn away fast enough. And once it was hit, the iron fractured instead of bending.
There’s a theory that it was the turning away was a big part of the problem. Resulting in the berg scraping along the hull. Whereas had the ship not turned away the bow would have crumpled but the ship may have stayed afloat.
Gary Pearse
April 28, 2014 11:00 am
My comment above mentioned the only ship threatened by global warming was the Ship of Fools who thought it was happening in Antarctica. This led me to Chris Turney’s website where I find 140 papers he had co-authored. Only two were published in 2014 – a nature article shrilling that the Ship of Fools was not a pleasure cruise, and ironically the second one:
“The discovery of New Zealand’s oldest shipwreck–possible evidence of further Dutch exploration of the South Pacific”
This struck me as akin to a slip of the tongue vis a vis the brain. Having written 140 papers since 2000, he has definitely quietened down. He hasn’t updated his website – still advertising the Antarctic expedition of the century. I truly feel a little sorry.
Iceberg Occurrences from the book “White Wings” by Henry Brett, fifty years of sail in the New Zealand trade, 1850 to 1900. http://www.warwickhughes.com/climate/Iceberg.htm
[1] On January 2, 1868 the 1326 ton clipper “Mermaid” arrived in Lyttelton after an 89 day passage from GB and it was reported that, ” When in the vicinity of Cape Leeuwin, Captain Rose and his officers had an anxious time avoiding 30 huge icebergs.” Are icebergs seen off Albany or Margaret River ever these days ?
Blimey!!
The captain reported seeing several icebergs off the Cape (of Good Hope) and then, “.. that from the Cape to the Crozets was a most trying time as icebergs were in sight for a distance of two thousand miles.”
Gary Hladik
April 28, 2014 11:36 am
Ex-expat Colin says (April 28, 2014 at 9:34 am): “It was sunk because it wasn’t the Titanic…get it right FFS”
That reminds me of a Titanic conspiracy “theory” I discovered only yesterday: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic_alternative_theories#Gardiner.27s_Ship_That_Never_Sank
Supposedly the White Star Line disguised Titanic’s sister ship Olympic as Titanic and sank it for the insurance. No doubt the owners turned to crime under the nefarious influence of Glooooobaaaal Waaaaarmingggggg. 🙂
http://www.accuweather.com/en/features/trend/titanic_sunk_during_average_ic/25555532
And, inconveniently according to GISS, it was the third coldest year on record. And, the years following it were still quite cold.
Then there is the fact that radar has been around for about 65 years, though some folks think that ship radar might not help against global warming icebergs. They hide in the deep ocean and then surface right in front of the ships. (Thanks Roy)
Tim Ball has a well reasoned analysis:
Titanic Anniversary: Unusual Climate + Extreme Ice Conditions = Tragic Accident
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