By P Gosselin on 12. March 2022
The Franklin Expedition’s greatest enemy: The Little Ice Age
By Die kalte Sonne
(Translation/editing by P. Gosselin)
The topic of “exploring the Earth’s polar regions” is topical again now. This is not only shown by spectacular expeditions such as the MOSAIC Expedition 2019, but also researchers recently discovered the Endurance, the ship of South Pole explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. The Endurance had sunk in the Antarctic Weddell Sea in 1915. The explorer and his crew managed to save themselves at the time.
Some daring explorers like him have brought science considerable gains in knowledge. Their achievement cannot be appreciated enough. (Epic survival story).
Lead poisoning
Unfortunately, the participants of the Franklin Expedition in 1845 fared quite differently. None survived the search for the Northwest Passage, and only later did the mystery of the expedition’s failure unravel. One reason for this tragic end was probably due to lead. In the mid-19th century, food tins were soldered shut with lead. Sir John Franklin took plenty of provisions with him, but some of them had been carried in cans. So members of the expedition regularly ate lead as well. The few documents that were deposited in metal tubes in prominent specially erected landscape points (e.g., stone pyramids) at that time indicate that the lead had affected the thinking of the crew. They sometimes jotted down confused things on the forms. Nor is it possible to explain the behavior of parts of the crew who apparently returned to the ships that had already been abandoned. Possibly the lead had an influence here.
Extreme cold, cannibalism
Much worse, however, was the climate in the mid-19th century, when the explorer set out to find the sea route from Europe to Asia via America. Franklin, of course, had planned to winter in the Arctic and then find the route to the Pacific during the short Arctic summer. However, the ice did not melt as expected but, contrary to the hopes of the Arctic explorers, actually grew during the summer. As a result, the ships did not make any progress even in the summer; on the contrary, they drifted with the ice in a southerly direction, i.e. opposite to their actual destination.
In 1845, very cool temperatures were noted for the British summer. It was about 2 degrees cooler than usual according to these records. The winters of 1846 and 1847 were thus even colder in England. The summer of 1845 must also have been very wet. It was the year that potato blight destroyed the crops in Ireland, causing famine. The end of Franklin’s expedition was dramatic because there is much to suggest that even cannibalism was practiced in the face of adversity.
Franklin’s unlucky timing
A good overview of the events and the discovery of the ships is given by a program of TerraX or also the podcast “Früher war mehr Verbrechen“. There, the expedition and the failure is described in great detail in a three-part broadcast.
(Image: Screenshot ZDF-Mediathek)
Franklin’s misfortune was the timing. The expedition took place at a time that is likely to be among the coldest in the last 2,000 years.
Recently, we reported here on the research of Professor Jørgen Peder Steffensen of the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark. His research was based on Greenland ice cores that can map very long periods of time. In such cores, temperatures can be read year by year. Steffensen even assumes that the end of the Little Ice Age was also the end of the coldest period of the last 10,000 years.
(Image: Screenshot Facebook)
Very different from Dr. Michael Mann’s Hockey stick
The researcher also interprets his ice cores in such a way that he assumes temperatures prevailed on Greenland during the Medieval Warm Period (around the year 1000) that were up to 1.5 degrees above today’s values. His temperature curve looks therefore clearly different from Michael Mann’s 1999 “hockey stick”, namely more like an accordion.
But around the year 1000, according to Steffensen, the temperature in Greenland was different than how Mann read it. The ice core curve comes from a much higher level. One should keep in mind, however, that Mann meant the entire northern hemisphere, while Steffensen only assumes Greenland, which is only a part of it. It would be unusual, however, if Greenland had developed completely differently from the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. But maybe simply the many poor quality verified tree ring data from Mann is a major problem?
A big difference in the curves is noticeable, though. In Mann’s case, the curve drops only moderately toward the end of the Little Ice Age. At the beginning of 1000 until the middle of the 19th century it remains quite stable with only a slight downward trend, in contrast to the ice core curves.
Factor of 5 difference
In Steffensen’s case, it goes down significantly after the year 1000 with a visible low point in the middle of the 19th century. The size of the anomaly is also very different. When it is just about 0.3 degrees Celsius at Mann, it is about 1.5 degrees at Steffensen, where it became cooler between the year 1000 and the middle of the 19th century. That would be a factor of 5!
Chart: Screenshot Wikipedia. Source: DeWikiMan, North hemispheric temperatures of the last millenium, based on Mann, Bradley, Hughes (1999), CC BY-SA 4.0
The Steffensen curve clearly fits better to the tragic events around the Franklin expedition.
Today, the middle of the 19th century not only marks the end of the Little Ice Age, it is also the beginning of the industrialization of the world and the start of systematic weather recording. These existed far before. Daniel Fahrenheit invented the mercury thermometer as early as 1714, but the recording of weather data became much more relevant in the 19th century and the measurement network became wider.
The reasons, by the way, were also wars, people did not want to be surprised anymore. During a violent storm during the Crimean War in 1854, for example, 38 French merchant ships and one warship sank. This was the birth of the national storm warning service and, if you will, of modern meteorology. We should keep this end of the Little Ice Age in mind whenever statements are made about the temperature development of the last 150 years. These started, as Steffensen says, at a very low point.
I think I figured it out. Global warming. It is not so global. ..
https://breadonthewater.co.za/2022/03/08/who-or-what-turned-up-the-heat/
Well of course it isn’t – you do get 1st prize for stating an obvious fact, however! For a start it’s hemispherical (can’t help but be this way) with mechanisms that both concentrate and disperse warmed water and warmed air so that, if you did actually have thermometers over every part of the globe, it would look very patchy, chaotic and seasonal.
Mann’s excuse for obvious evidence, like Viking farming in Greenland for instance, is that the warmth was only local. And then he tries to pretend that his tree rings were somehow proxies for global temperatures.
CO2 Science has a ton of papers pointing to a global Medieval Warm Period and a global Little Ice Age. etc. etc.
Alternately, Mann’s results are an artifact of his factor analysis program.
Mann’s results are what he wanted them to be, data be damned.
A real story from a socialist country: When computers started, the Army wanted to use them. A group of programmers got a task to develop a program, deadline: December 31. The problem had a known solution for a particular input. A commission would run the program and compare the output with known good data.
The computer was new and mostly not in a working condition. By Christmas they saw there was not enough time to debug the program. So they wrote a two-step program to accomplish the task: Read all punched cards from the card reader (input). Then print out an answer known in advance. They passed the test with flying colors.
Indeed. I think it was Trenberth who said the MWP was a problem. Mann manfully stepped forward with his hockey stick. Problem solved.
link
By failing to present evidence under his control in his lawsuit against Tim Ball, Mann revealed that he is (by adverse inference) a fraud. And so is his hockey stick.
Trees respond to increased CO2
That is what Mann’s tree ring graph shows.
Atmospheric CO2 was the restricting growth factor until the increase in human release of large quantities of CO2.
Except it didn’t. The graph showed a continuing “decline” after 1950, which he “hid” by switching to instrumental data.
That’s right.
I’m looking for a chart of the original tree ring data. It definitely shows a decline, which Mann conveniently lopped off, and then added the bogus Hockey Stick instrument-era on to the end of it.. I’ve seen the original chart in a book but haven’t found it online.
The bits he wanted to show may have indicated that increased CO2 led to increased temperature proxies, and the bits he left out to “hide the decline” showed increased CO2 leading to colder temperatures.
Mann is a cherry picking fraudster.
I have no issue with the position that trees respond positively to CO2, keeping in mind it is just one significant variable needed for growth. I don’t think anyone does. The issue is how much trees respond to small changes in temperature, which is what Mann was trying to link to the tree rings, using them as a proxy thermometer (and a global one, at that!). IMO, trying to link the growth of tree rings to any single variable is highly problematic, especially in an uncontrolled natural environment.
Data tortured by manniacal until the data ignored itself and gave manniacal whatever the little mann wanted.
Mr. Halla: Can’t recall the name, but an old time philospher said “if there was no god, man would invent one” give or take a word. Updated like so: “If there was no scary rise in temperature, Mann would invent one.” Prophetic.
As one example during the Mexican-American war the entire Taylor army bivouacked in Corpus Christi during the severe winter of 1845-46 was fed with wagon loads of freshly killed fish and turtles. This was according to a letter from General Marly, in Collins, J. W. 1884. History of the Tilefish. Report Commissioner U. S. Fish and Fisheries. 10(1882).
And then there was the infamous Donner Party during the Winter of 1846-47.
That could have happened again this year if they were camped at Donnor lake when the December snowstorm hit.
Hmm – there has to be a reason why greenies use the Industrial Revolution for a starting point for comparison to today’s temperature, while simultaneously acknowledging the effects of CO2 didn’t start until the 1940’s and 50’s.
What’s really amazing is that almost as soon as the thermometer was invented, and was widely deployed enough to start building a global temperature record, then global warming starts.
What are the odds?
When you use the Little Ice Age as your reference point then its a lot easier to get scary 1.5 degree increases……..
“They sometimes jotted down confused things on the forms. Nor is it possible to explain the behavior of parts of the crew who apparently returned to the ships that had already been abandoned. Possibly the lead had an influence here.”
I watched a documentary on this subject, 20 years ago, maybe. That was where I first saw the lead hypotheses. One of the pieces of evidence was the fact that when the crew abandoned ship, they thought it would be a good idea to drag a piano across the frozen wastes.
I don’t know about eating lead and your shipmates, but if you hum a few bars, I’ll try to play it.
As I recall, another problem with the tin cans was they were made from tin. Elemental tin has two allotropes, white and grey. White tin is stable but under extremely cold conditions, white tin can turn into a brittle, powdery grey tin. The food within a tin in this state will be exposed and spoil.
That was the problem encountered by the Scott’s Antarctic expedition they left their supplies buried on their route back to their base. However when they reached their fuel supplies they found it had leaked for the reason you mentioned.
I saw the same documentary. When I heard about men having to drag the piano, I immediately thought that a ranking officer owned that piano.
Perhaps it was the easiest way to take wood for fires. I wonder if perhaps they gutted the piano first to lighten the load.
The more interesting article at No Trick Zone is the one pointing out research showing geothermal heat providing 15% of ocean heat content. The assumption that geothermic heat is negligible in determining surface temps isn’t looking so good these days.
The further you get from the atmosphere, the less energy you get from the sun. By the time you get a couple of miles down in the crust, almost 100% of the energy available comes from geothermal.
I don’t know of a single climate model that treats geothermal heating of the oceans as a variable. I sure would like to see a chart of geothermal output across the sea floor for the last 21,000 years.
Does anybody who has even the most basic understanding of geology, believe that geothermal heating across the sea floor is invariant over time?
Compared to solar energy, geothermal is so far below the rounding error, that it isn’t included in any of the models.
You round above 15%?
You do when your models are crap.
Retired Professor Wyss W.-S. Yim has a study group looking at this issue:
Volcanism generated ocean heat waves and biodiversity
Actually the so-called “Industrial Age” began at least a century earlier in the mid-18th century when factories in urban areas got their start, and modern steel making began. Of course it was not a sudden development but followed many other developments that took place starting in the European “age of exploration” and colonial era; the development of the printing press; development of steam power; etc etc that long preceded the middle of the 19th century.
The reason that the warmunists have always claimed that the Industrial Age began in 1850 – what, was that in January of that year, or March??? – is because 1850 represents the end of the Little Ice Age, so that they can use that as the baseline for their “global warming”.
In other words, picking 1850 as a baseline date for measuring global warming is nothing but cherry picking, the oldest of fraudulent statistical analysis.
All the more fraudulent as the data shows anthropogenic co2 did really take off in any meaningful way till 1950ish.
Yup – the end of WW Two in 1945 is what triggered a vast increase in carbon emissions. That was also the end of the world wide Great Depression, the end of European colonialism which also marked the end of the age of agrarianism and the vast movement of rural populations to the cities… the age of the automobile arrived in vast numbers of vehicles and miles driven … the age of air conditioning which is the single largest use of electrical energy by the masses… the electrification of entire nations including their rural areas.
Yet that same postwar period of 1945-1980 also saw a cooling trend in global average temperatures that sparked fears of an impending “ice age”.
Go figure!
“In other words, picking 1850 as a baseline date for measuring global warming is nothing but cherry picking, the oldest of fraudulent statistical analysis.”
Starting at the end of the Little Ice Age would not really do the alarmist climate charlatans any good because the real temperature profile shows the temperatures warming out of the Little Ice Age around 1850 to a highpoint in the 1880’s, and then 2.0C of cooling from the 1880’s to the 1910’s, and then 2.0C of warming from the 1910’s to the 1930’s, and then 2.0C of cooling from the 1940’s, to the 1980’s, and then 2.0C of warming from the 1980’s to today.
The alarmist climate charlatans erased all the temperature highpoints in the record with their computers and made it appear that the temperaturs have been steadily climbing for decade after decade. This isn’t cherry-picking, this is “making things up”. This is changing the original records. This is scientific fraud.
Here’s the U.S. regional chart (Hansen 1999) showing the ups and downs of the climate, The ups and downs the alarmist climate charlatans erased using their computers.
Dr John Rae was the most dauntless and self-sufficient of Canada’s great explorers.
In 2001 Ken McGoogan wrote a well-researched book about Dr. John Rae entitled “Fatal Passage – The Untold Story of John Rae, the Arctic Adventurer Who Discovered the Fate of Franklin”. McGoogan states that Rae, among his other accomplishments, was the true discoverer of the NorthWest Passage. Rae Strait bears his name.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/24/study-shows-arctic-sea-ice-reached-lowest-point-on-modern-record-in-the-1940s-not-today/#comment-3169138
Thanks for all the comments about the rugged little RCMP ship St Roch and her intrepid crew.
I posted the following a few years ago.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/08/30/arctic-ice-claims-another-ship-this-time-with-a-sinking/#comment-2444728
The Northwest Passage, the final link of which was discovered by John Rae [of the Clan MacRae] circa 1854, was navigated several times in the 1940’s, when it was clearly WARMER THAN TODAY.
Regards, Allan
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/26/warm-spike-in-arctic-drives-alarmists-into-alarm-mode-but-theres-no-reason-for-alarm/#comment-2292832
A small wooden ship, the St. Roch, sailed through the Northwest Passage and across the high Canadian Arctic twice, in 1942 and 1944. These voyages followed soon after the global warming period that ended circa 1940. What was the ice extent and thickness then? Probably less than, or no greater than today.
https://www.vancouvermaritimemuseum.com/permanent-exhibit/st-roch-national-historic-site
THE ST. ROCH – A TRUE CANADIAN ADVENTURE.
Built in British Columbia, named after a parish in Quebec, captained by a Norwegian immigrant, crewed by farm boys from across the country, and helped by the Inuit, the St. Roch was the first vessel to sail the Northwest Passage from west to east (1940-1942), the first to complete the passage in one season (1944), and the first to circumnavigate North America.
I recently read a brief history of early Arctic exploration, including the tragic Franklin expedition, by Stephen Leacock. Leacock was a Canadian humorist, teacher and prolific writer in the early 20th century. Along with humor, he wrote some history books as well.
His book “Adventurers of the Far North A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas” is available as a public domain Kindle edition. Well worth the read if you’re interested in the age of exploration.
My hat is off to P. Gosselin for demonstrating that the best type of argument in the age of scientific corruption for convincing the majority of readers
who are not scientists, and for confronting those practicing agendized ‘science’,
is history and visual proof. From these, the innumerate reader can unerringly arrive at the correct interpretation on his own
and those who seek to mislead are helpless to argue against it!
Good science is essential in seeking out truth, but crooked scientists can dismiss good science in the eyes of the majority by marginalizing their critics as O&G shills, etc. and other ways of refusing to argue the science. The Greenland ice cores falsified many aspects of their CAGW case so they elaborated why these cores were unreliable.
My favorite: a 5000yr old tree stump on Canada’s NW Arctic shore which indicates 2°-3°C warmer globe than today (4°-
6°C at the Arctic site), which at a glance falsifies the AGW science claim that today’s T is the highest In 800,000yrs.!
I’ve argued for more of this powerful approach to confront the false scientists.
Similar posts from five and eight years ago::
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/24/another-paper-confirms-the-pause/#comment-2111570
Hi Steve,
Can you explain how ancient tree stumps got UNDER retreating glaciers?
Glaciers have retreated and advanced over geologic time due to natural causes, long before humankind started to burn fossil fuels.
Trees grew, glaciers advanced over the trees, and then the glaciers retreated, exposing the stumps. Sound reasonable?
Or do you think some “climate denier” rounded up some ancient tree stumps, lifted up the glacier, and deposited the stumps under it, just to discredit your hypothesis?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/08/receding-swiss-glaciers-incoveniently-reveal-4000-year-old-forests-and-make-it-clear-that-glacier-retreat-is-nothing-new/
I’ve sent this picture to a number of CAGW true believers.
Strangely, not one has ever replied.
Allen, yeah, but today scientists critical of the meme have been very effectively marginalized. Climateers dont fool the critical scientists, but, in terms of the electorate, numerate thinking critics are a tiny minority. History and direct visuals are both easily understood by all. I tested the Tuk tree on a 12yr old and he arrived at the correct interpretation without a problem or a doubt.
Being science-bound critics is nowadays a not an advantage. Most people and policymakers are convinced that we are the deceivers, ideological shills, would-be destroyers of the planet.
I have been trying to get someone with the ‘chops’ to write a simple book for children and adults that would allow them to find the truth themselves. Can’t seem to convince anyone of the power of this approach, even Heartland. I was going to try the essay contest but at 84 and having had an especially demanding year, I suggested it for someone to do an essay. No one interested. Your reply is typical.
Will someone please drive a stake through the heart of that multiply discredited ‘Hockey Stick’ Graph once and for all so that we no longer have to see the Zombie haunting the WWW.
This page has a series of tree ring width reconstructions from various NH locations without assumed temperature inferences.
A further thought: as I understand it time-series as at the above link would have been in effect screened out of Mann-like reconstructions during the ‘calibration process’ because they do not show a correlation with the supposed 20th Century temperature trend and therefore are not ‘good’ proxies.
Expedition sailors in graves well preserved (with their names)
This is John Torrington, the first to die. His body was exhumed and toxicology done. He indeed did have high levels of lead, but the autopsy concluded that he died of pneumonia (with lead exposure a likely aggravating factor). Since other members of the expedition lived longer and had far lower lead levels, the theory of lead poisoning from lead-sealed cans is shaky. It isn’t known what that average lead exposure was for a typical person from Britain at the time, so it isn’t known if the lead exposure of the explorers was significantly greater than the average Brit. Lead pipes were common as was Pewter (lead and tin). In any case, lead poisoning was unlikely to be the primary cause of death for any of the explorers.
He looks disturbingly life-like for someone who died some 170 years ago.
I’m just in awe of what a great scientist Mann is, to be able to know what the temperature of the whole world was within 1 degree going back 1000 years. Not only that, notice how the error bars narrow mid-1600’s to within .5 degrees. I can’t even go out and read a thermometer and get a reading with that degree of accuracy. But a great scientist like Micheal Mann can mind-meld the science in a way ordinary people can’t.
That’s so awesome, that’s like Avengers level science, now I understand how he won the Nobel prize.
As the Industrial Revolution started when it was cold, has it been considered that cold weather may stimulate technological and economic development?
When it’s warm agriculture is easy. Urbanisation is not required. Inefficiencies in agriculture can be lived with.
When it turns cold landowners look to increase profitability of land, clear out old working practices and force people to live together in cities.
More social interactions lead to more technological and economic development
The obligatory Stan Rogers:
Although Mann’s hockey stick is incorrect in the handle part with the handle being inaccurately straight, the blade part is correct.
Don, you do know that he wrote this in 1998 and the 18yr pause was already 2yrs old. This means, continuing the graph would have immediately bent the stick blade down to horizontal:
______
_______________/
Oops
___________
____________/
[Mods Please remove drawing attempt]
The pause was less than 18 years; it’s 12 years 9 months (from January 2001 to August 2013) according to HadCRUT4. HadCRUT4 indicates slightly less warming than ERA5 does, and even Ryan Maue considers ERA5 as the most accurate global temperature dataset. His second favorite is JRA-55, which also indicates more warming than HadCRUT4 does. The previous version of ERA, ERA-interim, indicates as much warming as HadCRUT4 does. So, HadCRUT4 does not overstate warming. Also, the pause was not already 2 years old in 1998, with 1998 being much warmer than both of the two previous years and also every year before those at least as far back as 1979 according to every global temperature dataset including UAH TLT v6 and RSS TLT v3. Meanwhile, more global warming happened after late 2013, and none of this counters the blade part of Mann’s hockey stick being correct.
I correct myself a little here: I found a 13 year 1 month complete lack of warming in HadCRUT4, from March 2001 to March 2014. If anyone finds a pause longer than this in HadCRUT4 or in ERA-interim or ERA5 or JRA-55, please follow up here.
https://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001.16/to:2014.17/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001.16/to:2014.17/trend
Just for bleeps and giggles, I tried my hand at some cherrypicking for longest modern period in HadCRUT3 with complete lack of upward trend in global temperature, and that’s from June 1997 to March 2014, which is 16 years 10 months:
https://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.41/to:2014.17/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.41/to:2014.17/trend
However, ERA-interim, ERA-5 and JRA-55 agree that HadCRUT3 understates global surface temperature warming and overstates effect there of ENSO event spikes by excluding the polar regions.
My understanding is that temperature reconstructions from ice cores are derived by comparing the ratio of oxygen 16 and oxygen 18 atoms in the water molecules that make up the ice. Since water molecules containing an oxygen 18 atom are heavier than those containing oxygen 16, more energy is required to evaporate them from liquid water, hence higher temperatures will increase the percentage of heavier water molecules in water vapour and the snowfall that may result from said water vapour.
If this is correct then ice core reconstructions aren’t measuring the temperature of Greenland, but the temperature where the water contained in the ice originated from. This could be almost anywhere in the North Atlantic or Arctic Ocean, meaning that ice cores are recording the average temperature over an area much larger than Greenland, and are even more likely to be representative of the Northern Hemisphere as a whole.
Is this correct, or are temperature reconstructions from ice cores based on measuring something other than the oxygen 16/18 ratio in the water molecules?
Absolutely correct.
“ Franklin’s Ill-Fated Expedition Contradicts Dr. Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick Temperature Reconstruction”.
To save time, everything contradicts the hockey stick.
And as a canadian I’m offended that the hockey stick was made the symbol of modern day Lysenkoism.
Glad it was McKittrick who took it down
Wasn’t there some suggestion that the Royal Navy in the early 1800s recorded relatively warm temperatures in the Arctic which lead to the belief that the passage could be found. But given the time to communicate and organize , by the time the expedition got there the cycle was cooling. Also the records of the Royal Navy are a gold mine which never gets used, why is that? Also the records of the Hudson’s Bay Company are also a gold mine for climate changes in a large part of Canada but never used, why not?
Because they don’t show the required answers!
Why no graph of Steffen son’s data? Kind of hard to compare without it.