“The Arctic Ocean has been warming since the onset of the 20th century, decades earlier than instrument observations would suggest, according to new research.
the findings were worrisome because the early warming suggests there might be a flaw in the models scientists use to predict how the climate will change.”
The Arctic Ocean was warming decades earlier than previously thought, new research shows – CNN
This has been known for at least a century.
NOVEMBER, 1922. MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas about Spitsbergen 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.
Many old landmarks are so changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now often moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea they have entirely disappeared.
formerly the waters about Spitsbergen held an even summer temperature of about 3° Celsius; this year recorded temperatures up to 15°, and last winter the ocean did not freeze over even on the north coast of Spitsbergen.
ftp://ftp.library.noaa.gov/docs.lib/htdocs/rescue/mwr/064/mwr-064-02-c1.pdf
Most projects are ruined not so much by execution as by faulty measuring and analysis at the beginning.
Good point. We really don’t have much in the way of real historic measurements of the Arctic. What we do have are accounts that report that the Arctic climate is variable.
The roots of the variability are poorly understood or not understood at all. Evidence of my assertion is our inability to forecast Arctic conditions on a climactic time scale (30 years? Kind of arbitrary, not my number).
Due respect to the people interested in the Arctic per se, that is Geologists, Naturalists but I am not in their ranks. I’m only interested in the largely baseless assertions that somehow MannKind and the evil MannMade CO2 is somehow doing something to the Arctic.
And what the MannMade CO2 is doing to the Arctic is horrible. Taxes need to be imposed. Travel restrictions. Cover your face. Stay home. Shut up; listen to the experts.
Back to the Arctic. Observations show nothing out of the ordinary is happening there MannMade CO2 or not.
Plenty of polar bears.
Plenty of ice.
Plenty of lousy, cold weather.
Like it has been (pretty much on a human scale) forever.
I do not care about the Arctic. The remote, frozen, empty, hostile Arctic. But lies about the Arctic are being used for another motive altogether.
“Hope you guessed my name; but what’s been puzzling you is the nature of my game.” Rolling Stones song.
Something else is going on. And that something else has absolutely nothing to do with ice coverage in that remote nasty place up north.
NOT “… much in the way of real historic measurements of the Arctic …” needs finetuning. Diaries kept by whalers, fishermen and Arctic explorers provide a wealth of information about sea ice extent and other Arctic conditions going back hundreds of years. Their content validates the rest of your comment and Tony’s oft-made point that variations in the Arctic since the 1960s resemble changes during the hundreds of years prior to 1960.
The key is as you have said, thin ice and thick ice in cyclical fashion have been reported ever since people have spent time in the Arctic. Now we are better at measuring it, but that does not make the less quantitative information useless. Rather the old reports confirm a cyclic nature, as one would expect, and as one should consider first before declaring an alarming trend. But in which other way can a climate scientist make himself relevant? I mean, you can have centuries and centuries of climate sciences with nothing to say if they didn’t make something up.