Arctic Warms Seals Vanish Icebergs melt

Headline from

The Washington Post
November 2nd, 1922.

Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.

(The newspaper article was located in the Library of Congress archives by James Lockwood.)


I have taken the trouble to type out the archive report which was the basis for the above headline because it is so interesting in view of the present hysteria concerning contemporary arctic sea ice melt


November, 1922. MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW

THE CHANGING ARCTIC
BY George Nicolas Ifft

(under date of October 10, 1922, the American Consul in Norway submitted the following report to the State Department, Washington, D.C.)

The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas about Spitzbergen and the eastern Arctic, all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, and hitherto unheard of high temperatures in that part of the earth’s surface.

In August, 1922, the Norwegian Department of Commerce sent an expedition to Spitzbergen and Bear island under the leadership of Dr Adolf Hoel, lecturer on geology at the University of Christiana. Its purpose was to survey and chart the lands adjacent to the Norwegian mines on those islands, take soundings of the adjacent waters, and make other oceanographic investigations.

Dr Hoel, who has just returned, reports the location of hitherto unknown coal dposits on the eastern shors of Advent Bay - deposits of vast extent and superior quality. This is regarded as of first importance, as so far most of the coal mined by the Norwegian companies on those islands has not been of the best quality.

The oceanographic observations have, however, been even more interesting. Ice conditions were exceptional. In fact, so little ice has never before been noted. The expedition all but established a record, saling as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes in ice-free water. This is the farthest north ever reached with modern oceanographic apparatus.

The character of the waters of the great polar basin has heretofor been practically unknown. Dr Hoel reports that he made a section of the Gulf Stream at 81 degrees north latitude and took soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters. These show the Gulf Stream very warm, and it could be traced as a surface current till beyond the 81st parallel. The warmth of the waters makes it probable that the favorable ice conditions will continue for some time.

Later a section was taken of the Gulf Stream off Bear Island and off the Isfjord, as well as a section of the cold current that comes down along the west coast of Spitbergen off the south cape.

In connection with Dr Hoel’s report, it is of interest to note the unusually warm summer in Arctic Norway and the observations of Capt. Martin Ingebrigtsen, who has sailed the eastern Arctic for 54 years past. He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1918, that since that time it has steadily gotten warmer, and that today the Arctic of that region is not recognizable as the same Arctic region of 1868 to 1917.

Many old landmarks are so changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now often morraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea they have entirely disappeared.

The change in the temperature, says Capt. Ingebrigtsen, has also brought about great change in the flora and fauna of the Arctic. This summer he sought for white fish in Spitsbergen waters. Formerly great shoals of them were found here. This year he saw none, although he visited all the old fishing grounds.

There were few seal in Spitzbergen waters this year, the catch being far under the average. This, however, did not surprise the captain. He pointed out that formerly the waters about Spitzbergen held an even summer temperature of about 3 degrees Celsius; this year recorded temperatures of about 15 dgrees Celsius, and last year the ocean did not freeze over even on the north coast of Spitzbergen.

With the disappearance of white fish and seal has come other life in these waters. This year herring in great shoals were found along the west coast of Spitzbergen, all the way from the fry to the veritable great herring. Shoals of smelt were also met with.

ooooo

Isn’t the internet wonderful - giving people like me access to this fabulous historical archive? It is like going back in time. What a privilege to retype this old story here for modern readers to appreciate. I hope you do appreciate it and draw the appropriate conclusions from it.

NB This warming, which was also experienced in Greenland, lasted from 1918 to C1939.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.c....y_wx_review.png

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Map of the Arctic Ocean, perhaps more accurately described as the "Great Polar Basin" in the above report. Also shows the lines of latitude. Spitzbergen is described as the Svalbard Archipelago these days.

Being almost landlocked, the Arctic Ocean is a rather special case, as oceans go, I guess.

An anecdote I recently heard about Svalbard. There are more polar bears (2000) there than humans and you can carry a gun to protect yourself from them. So much for the endangered species.

"Firearms for protection against polar bears
Firearm permits for protection against polar bears may be issued to persons that fulfil the general applicant requirements. Permits are normally issued for rifles of calibre .308W/30-06 or 12-gauge shotguns or corresponding. Single-hand firearm permits are generally not issued for protection against polar bears.
Permits are conditional: Valid only for protection against polar bears on Svalbard."
http://www.sysselmannen.no/hovedEnkel.aspx?m=58146&amid=2828912

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Hmmm.

This doesn't look like the 10ft thick ice the silly Pen Hadrow expedition told us used to be the norm for the arctic. This is a photo of a US Atomic sub surfacing at the North Pole c 1958

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Nor this



It’s 1958. That’s the North Pole. There’s no ice. Gore and his global warming brethren have repeatedly told us that the ice has never been as thin in the arctic as it is today, but this photo tells another story. It’s pretty clear that in 1958 the arctic was…well…pretty clear.
Not only did the the Skate surface in virtually ice-free water at the North Pole, but the weather was mild enough that crewmen went out to chip a bit of ice off the sub’s hull.

One crew member aboard the USS Skate which surfaced at the North Pole in 1959 and numerous other locations during Arctic cruises in 1958 and 1959 said:

"the Skate found open water both in the summer and following winter. We surfaced near the North Pole in the winter through thin ice less than 2 feet thick. The ice moves from Alaska to Iceland and the wind and tides causes open water as the ice breaks up. The Ice at the polar ice cap is an average of 6-8 feet thick, but with the wind and tides the ice will crack and open into large polynyas (areas of open water), these areas will refreeze over with thin ice. We had sonar equipment that would find these open or thin areas to come up through, thus limiting any damage to the submarine. The ice would also close in and cover these areas crushing together making large ice ridges both above and below the water. We came up through a very large opening in 1958 that was 1/2 mile long and 200 yards wide. The wind came up and closed the opening within 2 hours. On both trips we were able to find open water. We were not able to surface through ice thicker than 3 feet."

http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm

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Nor this in 1962

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Nor this

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Then again in 1999 there was ice at the North Pole

Looks to me as if arctic ice is pretty variable and not at all an infallible indicator of AGW.

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"The Russians have been using the Northeast Passage for seventy years.

The records from whaling ships in the arctic record years of almost no ice. I don’t know where you live but if you visit Vancouver, BC and go to their Maritime Museum, they have preserved the ship the St. Roch that routinely made the Northwest Passage during the 20s and 30s.

A couple times it got caught in the ice and had to overwinter but generally, it sailed from Vancouver (British Columbia) to Halifax (Nova Scotia) in one season. And that was while it was stopping at villages and doing work (she was an R.C.M.P. patrol boat) — her voyages were not some mad dash trying to set a record.

The ice comes and it goes."

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Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Balance

E. Hanna1, J. Box, P. Huybrechts
Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, UK
Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University, USA
Departement Geografie, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium


http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/report07/essay_hanna.html


Summary
"Recent relatively high summer temperatures (1995-2005) are associated with increased net ice loss over Greenland. Recent warm events are about the same magnitude, if not smaller, than those of the early 20th century warm period (1918-1947). 2006 was not as warm as other recent years such as 2003 or 2005. Physical response mechanisms, such as hydraulic acceleration of the ice sheet from continued warming, remain incompletely understood."


.."Over the past century, years in Greenland that register as abnormally warm, 1929, 1932, 1941, 1947, and 1960 are outstanding, having temperatures warmer than observed recently."

.......

John L. Daly's plots of non-urban surface station temperature graphs from all round the Arctic Basin. A real eye-opener! NO "unprecendented" warming over more than a century.



http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/Arctic.htm

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NASA EXAMINES ARCTIC SEA ICE CHANGES LEADING TO RECORD LOW IN 2007

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html

.....The scientists observed less perennial ice cover in March 2007 than ever before, with the thick ice confined to the Arctic Ocean north of Canada. Consequently, the Arctic Ocean was dominated by thinner seasonal ice that melts faster. This ice is more easily compressed and responds more quickly to being pushed out of the Arctic by winds. Those thinner seasonal ice conditions facilitated the ice loss, leading to this year's record low amount of total Arctic sea ice.

Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.

"The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century," Nghiem said....

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The work of ice-breakers by the nations bordering the arctic ocean in keeping shipping lines open may also be implicated in the break up of arctic sea-ice and the ease with which the wind canflush it out of the Polar Basin southwards where it melts.

Changes in Arctic sea-ice, like every other aspect of climate, is an enormously complex interaction of many variables. To try to pin it all on AGW is naive. Perhaps the effect of the ice-breaker is the nearest to an unequivocal "anthropogenic signal" we can find in the arctic.

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Quote from Hubert Lamb, (founder of the CRU) “Climate Present, Past, and Future,” vol. 2 page 516:

“There was a period of severe ice on the SE coast of Greenland even in the spring of 1938 owing to the exceptional rapidity of the outflow of ice from near the North Pole (fig. 7.4 vol. 1). The late summer of that year saw the most extensive open water ever known north of the coast of Asia.”

It seems as though someone was measuring the ice in 1938.

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Thanks to WUWT for this delve into conveniently forgotten archives. This book was written in 1943. So what's new?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/02/ca....gen/#more-19179

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If the earth were as smooth as only an expert plasterer could render it (pun alert!) it would be entirely covered by
ocean several miles deep!

Bear that in mind if you have any doubt that this is a watery planet and that water is by far its most important
constituent part.

In searching for the average depth of the oceans I came across first this website which I imagine is aimed at school children.
www.enchantedlearnin...
It contains some interesting information. What struck me most was that the Arctic is BY FAR the shallowest of the oceans
which I imagine is not unconnected with its propensity to freeze. It is also by far the smallest in extent,
more accurately described in the past as “The Great Polar Basin”.

Average depth in feet ........................ Area in Million Sq Miles

Pacific ....... 15,215 ..................................... 64 million
Atlantic ...... 12,881 ..................................... 33 million
Indian .........13,002 ..................................... 28 million
Southern .... 15,000 ....................................... 8 million
Arctic .......... 3,953 ....................................... 5 million

00000000

Almost 200 years ago, the President of the Royal Society wrote this to the admiralty :

“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.

(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”