Maslowski – Ships Cruising All Over The Arctic Soon

About Tony Heller

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93 Responses to Maslowski – Ships Cruising All Over The Arctic Soon

  1. Billy Liar says:

    Another dope setting himself up for a big fall.

  2. suyts says:

    lol, very likely…..hmmmm……
    Given the last nine years, http://www .iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/ice_ext_n.png
    (space between www and .)I’d say it isn’t very likely we’ll be ice free. In fact, given the last 4 years, http://suyts.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image_thumb.png?w=781&h=457 , I’d say it is very unlikely we’ll see an ice free arctic anytime soon.

  3. suyts says:

    Dang it!!! I was hoping to forgo the moderation by breaking my first link, but apparently I failed………grrrr.

  4. Dave N says:

    It says they need data. I’d agree with that, since what they have is obviously wrong.

    Move over, Harold Camping; Waslowski is here.

  5. suyts says:

    Ok, I’ll try it in two parts……..
    lol, very likely…..hmmmm……
    Given the last nine years, http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/ice_ext_n.png
    I’d say it isn’t very likely we’ll be ice free.

  6. Justa Joe says:

    Yeah, the SETI people thought that they’d be communicating with aliens too. They even used the “scientific” Drake equation by way of proof..

    • Ill wind blowing says:

      The Drake equation depends on the accuracy of each variable. Carl Sagan did not take into account that most stars will have highly volatile planetary systems compared to ours. This is due to:

      1. The much greater density of stars in the galactic core (relative to the spiral arms where we are located) leading to >
      2. Greater gravitational disruption of a star’s Oort cloud thereby producing much greater cometary activity which >
      3. Causes a greater frequency of cometary bombardment of life bearing planets, thus >
      4. Suppressing the evolution of higher life forms.

  7. AndyW says:

    Badly worded in my opinion. When he means ice free arctic I think he means that the Northern and North West passages are likely to be ice free so commercial shipping can happen without ice breakers. Unless he does mean completely free and ships can take the shortest route? Don’t agree with that.

    At the moment the Northern passage is breaking up quite well, I think it more than likely circumnavigation will be possible again this year for the 2nd year running.

    Andy

  8. AndyW says:

    NSIDC monthly analysis is out on their site. Interesting final paragraph

    “Arctic weather in the next few months will be a critical factor in how much ice remains at the end of the melt season. New research led by James Screen at the University of Melbourne shows that the storms that move northwards into the Arctic from the lower latitudes during summer strongly influence sea ice extent at the end of summer. Years with dramatic ice loss, such as 2007, have been associated with comparatively warm, calm, and clear conditions in summer that have encouraged ice melt. Summers with slow melt rates are opposite and tend to be stormier than average. The number of storms influences how warm, windy and cloudy the Arctic summer is.”

    So 2007 was not primarily wind driven, it was due to sun and warmth!

    Andy

    • Where do you come up with this crap?

      • AndyW says:

        Steve’s son,

        Well as it is NSIDC then the NSIDC web site. No more clues.

        It does make me laugh that WUWT and your dad has been claiming that 2007 was primarily wind driven when in fact it hardly was it seems. I’ve said all along that it was mainly the warm sunny days.

        Andy

    • Paul H says:

      So what are you saying, Andy?

      It was just due to weather?

    • Robbcab says:

      Actually Andy,

      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.

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

      Jim Hansen’s buddies over at NASA think it’s the wind.

      • Peter Ellis says:

        … and what causes the changes in atmospheric circulation patterns?

      • Robbcab says:

        Peter,
        That’s a great question. Pressure gradients… Changes in solar heating… Ozone composition…Changing phases of the AO. In short a number of things.

        What do you think it is?

    • Julienne Stroeve says:

      Andy, I would say that all those factors contributed to the 2007 minimum, but with the caveat that if the ice cover wasn’t already thin to begin with, the weather patterns of 2007 would not have been as effective at taking away the ice.

      What the Screen study does not discuss is that weather patterns that used to be associated with heavier summer ice conditions are no longer as effective at raising the ice extent because the ice is simply thinner now than it was 40 – 50 years ago. What they looked at were periods of large ice gain or large ice loss between individual Septembers and then looked at the storm patterns.
      The ice “gain”years were chosen as 1986, 1992, 1994, 1996 and 2009 (years with more than 1 standard deviation ice increase in September extent). The ice “loss” years were chosen as 1993, 1995, 1997 and 2007 based on the same metric. So as you can see, most of the years used in the analysis came from the 1990s and ice conditions today are very different. Winter 2009/2010 was a good example of “the rules are changing”. In 2009/2010, sites like WUWT were predicting back to normal summer ice conditions because of the strongly negative winter AO (a pattern which statistically help retain thick ice in the Arctic Basin), but it didn’t happen.

      There is a paper we have in press right now in Geophysical Research Letters that discusses how today more multiyear ice is being lost in the Pacific sector of the Arctic than is being exported out of Fram Strait. So the Beaufort Gyre is not replenishing the multiyear ice cover like it used to since ice transiting it in summer (even the ice at least 5 years or older) is melting out before it returns to the Canada Basin. I think this region is becoming “key” to the future evolution of the ice cover and it’s this region that Maslowski has long argued is where warm waters are melting the ice (and the reason for his predictions).

      • Latitude says:

        Well of course the ice is thinner now, than 40-50 years ago.
        40-50 years ago temperatures were lower, and have been slowly increasing ever since.
        It’s a shame we have such a very short recent measurement of Arctic ice.
        Arctic temperatures were almost exactly the same in the 1930-40’s as they are now.
        Then temperatures rapidly decreased,…..until the mid 1960’s
        ….then, how convenient, we started measuring Arctic sea ice when temperatures were the lowest and coming back up…………….

        Exactly what would anyone expect?

    • Ill wind blowing says:

      Andy; I think 2007 was due to both clearer skies and winds.

      Due to the situation getting worse we won’t need higher than normal winds to have a greater impact on the ice. That ice has been thinning so much that its lighter weight makes it easier for the winds to transport.

      I haven’t had time to read Maslowski yet. From what I hear he originally said there was a 70% chance of open Arctic (not passages) by 2013. If he actually said that, he was being dumb. All the others where saying 2020-2030 based on the following parameters:

      Ice free summers in the Arctic Ocean initially for a few days then for greater periods of time in subsequent years. Winter ice will remain for a while though it will keep shrinking in extent and thinning due to enhanced warmth from albedo change.

      (An exception will be a band of ice over the continental shelves immediately north of Alaska, Canada and Greenland due to colder waters.)

      Based on those parameters I personally predict 2018-2022. 😉

      • Mike Davis says:

        That all depends on long term regional weather patterns that can not be predicted. Based on historic records of those patterns in that region you are only off by 180 degrees as the region is under going its natural cooling phase. If solar has the same influence it did during the last periods of quiet sun what we are seeing at this time and for the last 5 years will not be repeated for more than one hundred years if that soon.
        It will require more and larger ice breakers to continue the shipping along the Eurasian coast than they are using now.
        What is referred to as the Arctic Oscillation is a long term weather pattern with a variable periodicity of 40 to 80 years that appears to average 60 years.

  9. Lance says:

    Having lived up there, and watching an icebreaker move a very flat ice flow, just so a tanker could get through to our station for our winter fuel, means they will need icebreakers most times. From our view point, we couldn’t see this ice flow, but they lerk up there, and would cause hauls to be subject to damage or worse…

    Again, this was at the summer min (late Aug) and yes, the fjords were mostly clear, but guess what, …. they still lerk in the water.

    HOWEVER, I ran my co2 computer model and it told me there is no ice up there….so it must be true…who needs evidence when you have a model…data is overrated.

  10. Julienne Stroeve says:

    Latitude, what exactly are you arguing about from what I wrote?

    • glacierman says:

      I know Latitude can and will speak for himself, but I think that what he was getting at is that it has happened before and is therefore not unprecedented. What evidence is there that supports what we are seeing has been caused by an increase in CO2 of 1.5 ppm per year?

      • Julienne Stroeve says:

        and no where in what I wrote did I mention CO2. I simply talked about what is happening in the ice cover today. The defensiveness on both sides of the issue really needs to stop.

      • glacierman says:

        Sorry for being too defensive for you, but I have not seen anyone warning of a death spiral from natural causes, or any like that, regarding the arctic ice being down, which is what we are discussing. In my opinion the discussion is dominated by AGW proponents pushing radiative forcing and feedbacks as the reason for the melting. It is the canary in the climate change mine, or so I have been told.

        I am sorry I have missed all the talk about other reasons the arctic is melting away, though I look forward to reading about them.

    • Latitude says:

      and no where in what I wrote was an argument, merely a statement of fact.
      I simply talked about what is happening in the ice cover today as compared to 70-80 years ago. The defensiveness on both sides of the issue really needs to stop.

      😉

  11. Ill wind blowing says:

    Lance:

    “Having lived up there,. . . they will need icebreakers most times. From our view point, we couldn’t see this ice flow, but they lerk up there, and would cause hauls to be subject to damage or worse…”

    Again, this was at the summer min (late Aug) and yes, the fjords were mostly clear, but guess what, …. they still lerk in the water.

    1. Lance, you “lived up there”. That’s the past tense.
    2. Ships were able to make it just fine through the NW & NW passages during a limited period. The ongoing situation guarantees more of the same and for extended periods of time with each passing year (i.e. no icebreakers needed).
    3. Not that I care about typos, I suffer from them too, but I noticed this twice. I believe “lerk” is spelled l.u.r.k.

  12. Ill wind blowing says:

    “Arctic temperatures were almost exactly the same in the 1930-40?s as they are now.
    Then temperatures rapidly decreased,…..until the mid 1960?s
    ….then, how convenient, we started measuring Arctic sea ice when temperatures were the lowest and coming back up…………….”

    What one would expect, if it is true that the situation in the Arctic was the same in 1930-1940 as it is today, is that there would definitely be a historical record of ships making it through the NW and or NE passages with the same frequency as that of the past decade.

    How convenient that Ship Captains keep detailed logs and that major city libraries keep newspaper records of the past. See below, but don’t forget

    http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.updated.jpg

    • P.J. says:

      So why does that graph end around 2007 (ie: when the ice was at a minimum)? Frankly, I don’t find the trend in that graph supporting your prediction of 2018-2022.

      • Ill wind blowing says:

        I never claimed that my predictions for 2018-2022 were based on that graph. You seem to be conflating two distinct arguments I was making in different posts.

        My prediction of ice free summers in the Arctic (based on the parameters I gave) are based on 30 years of ice extent and ice thickness satellite derived images.

        As for the end date, this chart was produced in 2008. Furthermore, it makes little difference in view of the entire 30 year trend and the fact that the factors leading to the ice melt are not going away.

    • Mike Davis says:

      The satellites in the 30s were not as reliable as today and the ice breakers were not as powerful.

      • Latitude says:

        I googled NWP 1930’s…….
        “You may not know about this, but in the 1930’s and 40’s the Northwest passage above Canada was successfully navigated a number of times by ships.

        As Mark Dickerson of the University of Calgary notes, In 1937 E. J. Gall made the transit in a small (60 foot long) wooden ship. You can see photos of it, and read about the voyage here: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cach…

        That same year, the same vessel met the SS Nascopie of the Hudson Bay Company at the furthest north outpost of Prince Regent Inlet, such was the low extent of ice at the time: http://www.hbc.com/hbcheritage/history/t… The SS Nascopie even took tourists on board for voyages around the Northwest in the 1930’s!

        Again, the University of Calgary records how in 1942, and again in 1944, the [quote] “frail and underpowered little ship” the St Roch, a wooden RCMP ship successfully navigated the passage – in 1944 it made the journey with little trouble in only 86 days! http://www.ucalgary.ca/arcticexpedition/…

      • Latitude says:

        Mike, if you google “Northwest Passage” 1930’s, there’s a ton of stuff talking about how low the ice extent was…..cruise ships taking tourists, etc
        ….must be a fluke because Julienne said:
        “even stories passed down from generation to generation from folks living in the Arctic to get a better understanding of what is causing the current decline in the sea ice cover”
        I guess just searching on the computer is not the same thing. 😉

      • Latitude says:

        We forget about the Great Depression too, no money……………….

    • Latitude says:

      I would expect that without ice breakers and oil exploration there would be a whole lot less ships….
      …wouldn’t you?…

  13. Julienne Stroeve says:

    Radiative forcing and feedbacks are part of the explanation. There is no denying the Arctic is warming, that the length of the melt season is increasing, that ocean temperatures have warmed in the region. Changes in atmospheric circulation are also playing a large role (if you do a MJJA mean of SLP for the last 4 summers, you see the Arctic Dipole Anomaly pattern very clearly for example).

    Unfortunately we only have this planet (and not a control run to compare with), so we are basically doing a blind experiment. We do know our activities are increasing atmospheric concentrations of GHGs, as well as completely changing the landscape of this planet. We do know that gases such as CO2 warm the atmosphere. We also know that there is a lot of natural variability in the climate system, which makes separating out the warming from CO2 and natural variability difficult. Since we don’t have another planet to use as a control run, the only way to try to test how gases like CO2 are influencing the climate is to run climate models that try to simulate all the physical processes happening within this complex system. Interesting that none of the climate models run with pre-industrial levels of CO2 show a decline of the sea ice cover, but as soon as you run them with the observed GHG record, every single one of them (despite the fact that each model and each model run will be in their own phase of natural climate variability) show a decline that is at least in qualitative agreement with the observational record (Maslowsky correctly points out however that the models are not predicting the ice decline as quickly as we are observing, they remain rather conservative).

    • glacierman says:

      After reading that response, I am perplexed why you scolded me for mentioning CO2.

      • Julienne Stroeve says:

        I think you missed the part where I mentioned that it’s difficult to separate out natural climate variability from CO2 induced changes…both are at work. I don’t know of any scientist studying the climate system that would argue that everything that is happening today is because of CO2 alone. It is very difficult to quantify the CO2 component in observational data since it also contains the natural variability signal. So we look to models, or paleoclimate reconstructions or even stories passed down from generation to generation from folks living in the Arctic to get a better understanding of what is causing the current decline in the sea ice cover. If you were to read many of the scientific papers on the topic however, you will note that the majority of them discuss weather patterns, not CO2.

      • glacierman says:

        I did not miss the part you reference, but it is obvious to me that the important part, the part that we come here to discuss, is: “Interesting that none of the climate models run with pre-industrial levels of CO2 show a decline of the sea ice cover, but as soon as you run them with the observed GHG record, every single one of them (despite the fact that each model and each model run will be in their own phase of natural climate variability) show a decline that is at least in qualitative agreement with the observational record (Maslowsky correctly points out however that the models are not predicting the ice decline as quickly as we are observing, they remain rather conservative).”

        So that is the subject. Without AGW we wouldn’t be here discussing this….well, maybe you would, but only in a very small circle.

        Can we quit pretending that AGW is not the issue?

    • suyts says:

      But Julienne, that’s the wrong way to conduct the experiment. If the thoughts your expressed went into producing the models, they will be unduly influenced by the assumptions made of CO2. It creates a focus, if you will, on CO2, when it isn’t demonstrated that it should be. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing CO2 wouldn’t cause warming, but if the models concentrated on CO2 or other GHG’s as causation for some or all of the warming seen, then it would miss anything else that may or may not be the cause of the warming. Yes, I understand the predicament, but models are too limited to be used in this manner.

      • Latitude says:

        James, it’s obvious that they don’t know enough about the “other things”, so they blame it on CO2 only because they can make/bend/twist/beat it into submission and have CO2 fit their computer games…..
        …only because they don’t know enough about CO2 either

        What moron would believe we know enough about climate to predict it in the first place…………

      • Mike Davis says:

        Most of the current crop of Climatologists!!!!

      • glacierman says:

        I was looking for an answer to the question above regarding if what is currently being observed is unprecedented or not, and if not, what evidence is there that CO2 is the cause. She started out by chiding me for even mentioning CO2 (stating I was being overly sensitive), then when pushed into admitting that AGW is the issue, we get the whole modeling story, which is the answer I thought she would give. So James, your comments about the models and how they are constructed is right on. Looks like confirmation bias is playing a big role and they are very sensitive about it.

      • Paul H says:

        If climate scientists now know everything about climate science, it begs the question why we need to employ them anymore.

    • John Endicott says:

      Julienne Stroeve says:
      Interesting that none of the climate models run with pre-industrial levels of CO2 show a decline of the sea ice cover, but as soon as you run them with the observed GHG record, every single one of them (despite the fact that each model and each model run will be in their own phase of natural climate variability) show a decline that is at least in qualitative agreement with the observational record

      You find it interesting that the climated models made with the assumption that CO2 is a significant factor have results that show CO2 is a significant factor. “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”

      • Latitude says:

        That’s why climate change is such a useful bogeyman — because it is non-falsifiable, at least in our lifetimes.

  14. Latitude says:

    There is no denying the Arctic is warming, that the length of the melt season is increasing, that ocean temperatures have warmed in the region.
    ==========================================================================
    Well of course they have…
    Arctic temperatures rose from ~1880 – ~1938….
    …then Arctic temperatures fell from ~1940 – ~1970
    then after temperatures fell, we began measuring Arctic ice in the early mid 1970’s………
    …then temperatures started rising back to where they were originally in ~1938
    and of course, Arctic ice went down

    http://images.intellicast.com/App_Images/Article/199_6.gif

  15. Julienne Stroeve says:

    I suppose it depends on how much you trust the models. In the models the decline is clearly linked to the temperature response from GHGs. But how well do these models resolve the observed pattern of natural variability? I don’t put 100% confidence in the model results. I think they can be useful tools, but they are not at the level to quantify for example how much of the decline is from GHGs versus natural climate variability. In a study we did a few years ago, we averaged many model runs to try to filter out the natural variability component, and that suggested that nearly half of the decline from 1979-2006 was a result of GHGs, and half from natural climate variability. And of course that interpretation will depend entirely on how well the models are even able to accurately model the GHG response.

  16. Paul H says:

    Hi Julienne

    What are your thoughts on the paper by Dmitry Divine and Chad Dick(2006) where one of their key findings stated :-

    And there is more. Divine and Dick also note that “a similar shrinkage of ice cover was observed in the 1920s–1930s, during the previous warm phase of the low-frequency oscillation, when any anthropogenic influence is believed to have still been negligible.”

    Paul

    • Julienne Stroeve says:

      actually I haven’t read that one, but thanks for pointing that one out.
      This is what their abstract says:
      Historical ice observations in the Nordic Seas from April through August are used to construct time series of ice edge position anomalies spanning the period 1750–2002. While analysis showed that interannual variability remained almost constant throughout this period, evidence was found of oscillations in ice cover with periods of about 60 to 80 years and 20 to 30 years, superimposed on a continuous negative trend. The lower frequency oscillations are more prominent in the Greenland Sea, while higher frequency oscillations are dominant in the Barents. The analysis suggests that the recent well-documented retreat of ice cover can partly be attributed to a manifestation of the positive phase of the 60–80 year variability, associated with the warming of the subpolar North Atlantic and the Arctic. The continuous retreat of ice edge position observed since the second half of the 19th century may be a recovery after significant cooling in the study area that occurred as early as the second half of the 18th century.

      • suyts says:

        Julienne, thanks for popping by. I’ve a question for you, that you may know or not know, but why have a model using GHGs to determine ice extent or mass? Why not just temps and the various oscillating events? And then let people like Hansen pontificate on the GHGs effect on temps. It would seem to me, it would be much easier to model rather than trying to determine GHG’s weights (and aerosols I assume) towards temp and then the weight of temps towards ice size.

    • Latitude says:

      Divine and Dick also note that “a similar shrinkage of ice cover was observed in the 1920s–1930s,
      =========================================================================
      Canada says their greatest ice shelf losses were in the 30’s-40’s, Russia says they were fishing for cod off the Russian Arctic for the first and last time ever, and the records from Greenland say it was worse too…………….

  17. P.J. says:

    @Ill Wind: “I never claimed that my predictions for 2018-2022 were based on that graph”.

    I never said you did. You made a prediction of ice-free Arctic summers by 2018-2022. I looked at the graph and said it doesn’t look like it supports your prediction. Just like in the post on Nazis, you are assuming things about what I said/meant that aren’t true.

  18. Mike Davis says:

    If you start a study during the recovery from an exceptional cold period in the region known as the Little Ice Age, which some claim to be a regional artifact in the region we are discussing, then we would expect the region to eventually recover to the conditions that existed early in the last millennium, MWP, or the one before, RWP.
    Evidence points to the failure of natural conditions to recover to that of those earlier times.
    Trends are experienced at all time scales but are only part of the weather patterns as a “Tipping Point has occurred throughout history and a new trend in the opposite direction has taken place. Without taking the long term patterns into account is like saying the sun will never set based on the pattern observed in the morning and that is not a scientific method.
    Where are we now in the one hundred twenty thousand year weather pattern known as the glacial interglacial cycle? According to historic records the globe is currently cooling towards the next glacial maximum and has been for more than five thousand years. Some evidence says eight thousand years of cooling since the Holocene Optimum peak. We are currently experiencing some of the coolest weather of the last ten thousand years and some worry about the ice in the Arctic region! Humors That!

  19. Ill wind blowing says:

    P.J.:
    “I looked at the graph and said it doesn’t look like it supports your prediction.”

    P.J.; I stated that my predictions were based on 30 years if Ice extent and thickness images. The chart that I provided for another purpose does not include ice thickness but it definitely shows a decline in summer ice extent starting in the 1950s from 11 down to 8. Take another look at the green trend line.

    http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.updated.jpg

    Also, ice thickness has declined from 10 ft average in 1980 down to 6ft in 2010. The thinning, as Maslowski and many others pointed out, is outpacing the shrinkage. What amuses me about this situation is the evolving nature of these arguments. By the time the Arctic is virtually ice free which time frame are skeptics going to be comparing it to?

    The ice thickness images below give a clue as to where things are going. Yes it is a death spiral but I frankly don’t care if my prediction fails to come on time. It’s going to become ice free sooner or later and the importance of that is not so much that it serves as an indicator of persistent global warming.

    http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091005_Figure5.png

  20. slimething says:

    No discussion of the AMO?
    Anyway, it is interesting to note OHC has been dropping in the Arctic for the last 3 or so years, which would seem counter intuitive if the Arctic warming is accelerating. Enthalpy anyone? The heat is going somewhere.
    http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/inodc_heat700_0-360E_65-90N_n.png

    The North Atlantic is not rising either.
    http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/inodc_heat700_-78-10E_0-75N_n.png

  21. Latitude says:

    The Bratvaag and the Isbjorn Explore Kvitoya Island

    For the next 33 years the disappearance of the Andree expedition and the fate of its three members remained a mystery and part of the cultural consciousness of Sweden and the rest of the world. Psychics, historians, and ordinary citizens produced varying theories about the fate of the three men, including the idea that Eskimos had killed them. Finally in 1930, the crew of two ships, the Bratvaag and the Isbjorn ended the speculation. Ironically, the Norwegian Bratvaag Expedition had been studying the glaciers and seas of the Svalbard chain of islands when it found the remains of the Andree Expedition on August 5, 1930.

    The summer of 1930 had been uncommonly warm and the sea was practically ice free, and on this summer day the fog over the island had thinned…

    Read more at Suite101: The Andree Expedition is Found After 33 Years Lost in the Arctic | Suite101.com http://www.suite101.com/content/the-andree-expedition-is-found-after-33-years-lost-in-the-arctic-a284747#ixzz1Oe1W6w8j

  22. Latitude says:

    November 2nd, 1922. Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt
    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.
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/

    • Mike Davis says:

      Latitude:
      They do not care about the real history as it does not fit their fantasy world! In the Chicken Little Fantasy world the arctic ice held constant before the satellites and the temperatures were stable at the level experienced during the mid seventies.
      Natural variable climate conditions that were more extreme than those we are experiencing today could not possibly have happened even though the evidence exists. I must have been that the reporters were exaggerating the situation when in fact the the exaggerations are from the Chicken Little Brigade members of the scientific community claiming some sort of catastrophe is imminent.
      Even the events of the thirties pale compared to the conditions during the MWP.
      Warming and a reduction of Summer ice extent in the Arctic region would be nice but current conditions and evidence does not support that happening any time soon. Some people realize the tipping point was some where around 1998 and due to thermal lag and heat content transport the effects are just now being seen in some regions and the cooling that is causing the extreme weather will continue until after the next warming period starts. There will be a great need for trauma consoling for the members of the Chicken Little Brigade when their fantasy falls apart as it is doing now.

  23. Mike Davis says:

    I do tend to get upset when I am paying for a researcher that appears to know less than I do about historic conditions in the Arctic that she is studying!

    • Julienne Stroeve says:

      How did you come to the conclusion that you know more about historical ice conditions than I do?

    • julienne stroeve says:

      Any claims I have about ice conditions prior to satellites are based on ship report, aircraft, submarines, station data. We are also collecting knowledge from the local people in the Arctic that have records of ice conditions passed down from generations to generations. What are you basing your historic observations on?

      • Mike Davis says:

        Geological and biological records from the region found in core samples and under glaciers. Also historic records that appear to contradict yours.
        It is easy to find facts to support your position on either side of the issue. It must be interesting chasing phantoms and fairy tales.

      • julienne stroeve says:

        Interesting Mike. I always find it interesting when folks will chose paleoclimate data that fits their view point and ignore the paleoclimate data that contradicts your viewpoint. What I am I really asking for is a link to references on papers using these paleoclimate data you feel contradict my view on past sea ice conditions in the Arctic. Your viewpoint must be based on reading results from scientists who processed the data since you yourself are not actually doing paleoclimate reconstructions, so it shouldn’t be too hard to provide the references. Thanks in advance for providing the reference links.

  24. Amino Acids in Meteorites says:

    So there is still focus on Arctic ice by global warmers who said what is happening in a local area isn’t global so it is not an indication of global warming. BUT, the ice on the Russian side is an indication of global warming. So when it looks like a local area is proving global warming it is valid. When it does not help to prove global warming then it is not valid.

    I see how it works.

  25. AndyW says:

    Latitude, it does make me chuckle when you repeat the mantra that the only reason ice is declining constantly is because the start point was where it was.

    “Well of course the ice is thinner now, than 40-50 years ago.
    40-50 years ago temperatures were lower, and have been slowly increasing ever since.”

    and

    “November 2nd, 1922. Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt
    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”

    etc

    And yet when you look at the overall picture

    http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2010.png

    both claims seem to be false if Cryosphere is meant to be believed.

    Andy

    • suyts says:

      And you make me chuckle. Ok Cryosphere said their piece what of the anecdotal evidence presented here, on this thread? How do you think Cryosphere deduced what the ice extent was in 1900?

      But the funny part is your stating that the ice is constantly melting……lol.
      Using your Cryosphere……..http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=09&fd=25&fy=2007&sm=09&sd=25&sy=2010 These are both very close to the minimums of each year……constantly?

    • Latitude says:

      I get a good laugh out of it too…
      …especially the people that keep predicting “ice free”
      First, they can’t predict anything
      Second, odds are they will eventually be right because the Arctic can’t be locked up in ice all the time

      • suyts says:

        Exactly, we’ve been hearing this for over 30 years now.(Well, over 100 if one includes other periods of hysteria.) OH MY!!!! THE ARCTIC IS MELTING THE ARCTIC IS MELTING!!!!” And, it never does. I really hope it does soon, so people can get over their obsession with a meaningless occurrence. (Other than the obvious benefits that would be derived from open shipping lanes, but that would never be permanent.)

      • Latitude says:

        The real funny part is if everything stayed the same,
        there would be no evolution
        and they wouldn’t even be here to worry themselves in a frenzy

        ..You can’t believe in evolution, and then try to keep everything the same

  26. suyts says:

    This thread makes me wonder if any alarmist ever heard of Roald Amundsen.

    • Ill wind blowing says:

      “This thread makes me wonder if any alarmist ever heard of Roald Amundsen.”

      I hate to alarm you Suyts, but it took him 3 years, wintering to do what has recently been done with ease

      I woould also hate to alarm you with deductive reasoning, but that means that the waters in the Northwest Passage have actually been clear and easily navigable on numerous occasions in the last decade compared to the barely passable mess in 1910-1912.

      Further alarming news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6995999.stm
      “The most direct shipping route from Europe to Asia is fully clear of ice for the first time since records began, the European Space Agency (Esa) says.”

      • Ill wind blowing says:

        Correction on the above post.

        Amundsen’s Northwest passage journey took place between 1903-1906.

      • Mike Davis says:

        Ill Wind:
        Sea transport through the Northeast Passage has been going on since the 40s or even earlier. The records for ESA began when they launched a satellite to observe the ice conditions to advise those using the passage.
        You seem to forget that there are ice breakers patrolling the area to assist ships that have difficulty getting through the ice floes.

      • suyts says:

        lol, Ill, read the history. Maybe then, you’ll understand why it took so long. As to your 4 y/o Space Agency quote, “First time evuh” is an awful bold statement which can’t possibly be known, and is most likely incorrect. But it does serve to illustrate one thing…………… The “death spiral” was completely overstated. The minimum has done nothing but increase since. And, it seems likely this year will be more than 2007, too.

    • It's always Marcia, Marcia says:

      Ill Wind,

      your name is Ill Prepared

  27. Ill wind blowing says:

    Moderator; my comment has been in moderation for a while.

    • Latitude says:

      I hate it when that happens…..
      Did you have more than one link in your post??
      If you did, try posting each link in a separate post

  28. GeorgeGr says:

    Ill wind. Amundsen had no charts, no sattelittes, no GPS, no daily ice reports and satellite images, no ice breakers, a slow wooden sailship (yes it also had an “auxiliary” steam engine, but was primarily sailing) with no ice breaking capabilities and was on a time consuming scientific expedition, mapping the land and taking all sorts of samples etc as they went along. I bet that Amundsen would have traversed the passage with ease and within weeks, in any or most years in 1903-1906 with our present resources and equipment available to him.

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