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ARCTIC

Arctic Ocean Warming Began Already In Early 20th Century, Meaning Natural Factors
Strongly At Play, Not CO2
 22 hours ago  Charles Rotter
 107 Comments

From the NoTricksZone

By P Gosselin on 29. December 2021

In a recent paper, scientists expressed their surprise that the Arctic had started warming already back in the early 20th century, 100 years ago.
This, along with the obligatory CO2 climate warming lip service, is described in a Cambridge University press release.

Hat-tip: Die kalte Sonne

==================================

by University of Cambridge

An international group of researchers reconstructed the recent history of ocean warming at the gateway to the Arctic Ocean in a region called the Fram
Strait, between Greenland and Svalbard, and found that the Arctic Ocean has been warming for much longer than earlier records have suggested.

Natural oceanic currents

The Arctic Ocean has been getting warmer since the beginning of the 20th century—decades earlier than records suggest—due to warmer water
flowing into the delicate polar ecosystem from the Atlantic Ocean.

An international group of researchers reconstructed the recent history of ocean warming at the gateway to the Arctic Ocean in a region called the
Fram Strait, between Greenland and Svalbard.

Atlantic waters flow into the Arctic
Using the chemical signatures found in marine microorganisms, the researchers found that the Arctic Ocean began warming rapidly at the
 
beginning of the last century as warmer and saltier waters flowed in from the Atlantic—a phenomenon called Atlantification—and that this change
likely preceeded the warming documented by modern instrumental measurements. Since 1900, the ocean temperature has risen by approximately
2 degrees Celsius, while sea ice has retreated and salinity has increased.

The results, reported in the journal Science Advances, provide the first historical perspective on Atlantification of the Arctic Ocean and reveal a
connection with the North Atlantic that is much stronger than previously thought. The connection is capable of shaping Arctic climate variability,
which could have important implications for sea-ice retreat and global sea level rise as the polar ice sheets continue to melt.

Atlantification is one of the causes of warming in the Arctic, however instrumental records capable of monitoring this process, such as satellites,
only go back about 40 years.

Using the chemical signatures found in marine microorganisms, researchers have found that the Arctic Ocean began warming rapidly at the beginning
of the last century as warmer and saltier waters flowed in from the Atlantic – a phenomenon called Atlantification.

The researchers used geochemical and ecological data from ocean sediments to reconstruct the change in water column properties over the past
800 years. They precisely dated sediments using a combination of methods and looked for diagnostic signs of Atlantification, like change in
temperature and salinity.

“When we looked at the whole 800-year timescale, our temperature and salinity records look pretty constant,” said co-lead author Dr. Tesi Tommaso
from the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council in Bologna. “But all of a sudden at the start of the 20th century, you get this
marked change in temperature and salinity—it really sticks out.”

“The reason for this rapid Atlantification of at the gate of the Arctic Ocean is intriguing,” said Muschitiello. “We compared our results with the
ocean circulation at lower latitudes and found there is a strong correlation with the slowdown of dense water formation in the Labrador Sea. In a
future warming scenario, the deep circulation in this subpolar region is expected to further decrease because of the thawing of the Greenland ice
sheet. Our results imply that we might expect further Arctic Atlantification in the future because of climate change.”

The researchers say that their results also expose a possible flaw in climate models, because they do not reproduce this early Atlantification at
the beginning of the last century.

“Climate simulations generally do not reproduce this kind of warming in the Arctic Ocean, meaning there’s an incomplete understanding of the
mechanisms driving Atlantification,” said Tommaso. “We rely on these simulations to project future climate change, but the lack of any signs of an
early warming in the Arctic Ocean is a missing piece of the puzzle.”

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Tags: Arctic warming, Atlantification

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107 COMMENTS   Oldest


Tom Halla


December 29, 2021 6:07 pm

800 years should have picked up the Medieval Warm period and the LIA, so there might be a problem
with the proxies they are using to determine temperature. If if shows even temperatures until recent
decades, they might be picking up something unrelated to temperature.

19
Reply

Steve Case

 Reply to Tom Halla 


December 29, 2021 6:20 pm

“800 years should have picked up the Medieval Warm period and the LIA,…”

______________________________________________________________

Al Gores temperature chart from his movie shows that CO2 lagged temperature by about 800 years. Just
saying (-:

9
Reply

Rational Db8

 Reply to Steve Case 


December 29, 2021 11:17 pm

Hi all,

I hope you’ll forgive my off topic post but I’m hoping that someone here might be able to help me
out. A pro-AGW acquaintance of mine doesn’t understand why the AGW hypothesis has a key
fingerprint requiring the formation of a mid-tropospheric tropical hot spot for the warming to be
caused by CO2 rather than natural variation.

She’s one of those who she says based essentially on precautionary principle, e.g., golly, if the
risk is for something severe enough, we MUST take action just in case, even if the chances of the
severe outcome is very slim… Which is rather stupid reasoning as far as I’m concerned! I’ve been
trying to get her to understand that the AGW hypothesis has been scientifically falsified several
times – lack of formation of the hot spot, and the fact that both poles aren’t warming faster than
anywhere else (e.g., the Antarctic isn’t behavin’! ), for example.

I’m hoping that one of you might know of a good primer sort of article on why a mid-tropospheric
tropical hot spot must form early if the warming is due to CO2 that would help her understand the
atmospheric mechanisms involved?
Thanks in advance for your help!!
 
5
Reply

Streetcred

 Reply to Rational Db8 


December 29, 2021 11:39 pm

Unfortunately, I’m thinking that you’re not going to convince her … alarmista are wedded to
the precautionary principle … they ALL fall back to that when their cognitive dissonance
becomes too stressed.

8
Reply

Janice Moore

 Reply to Streetcred 
December 30, 2021 10:01 am

True.

“[Her] logic [will] not serve her, for [her] heart is in the lie.”

George MacDonald

1
Reply

Martin Clark

 Reply to Rational Db8 


December 30, 2021 12:10 am

The tropical hotspot thing has been covered a few times by Joanne Nova, eg

https://joannenova.com.au/2015/11/new-science-17-solving-the-mystery-of-the-missing-
hotspot/

Where I live at 19°S it should be detectable, but it hasn’t been. That is because it isn’t
there.

And I concur with Streetcred on the precautionary principle. I suspect that more humans
have been slaughtered for the precautionary principle than any other reason. It is part of
the alarmist creed, a feature rather than a simple error.

8
Reply

Redge

 Reply to Rational Db8 


December 30, 2021 1:04 am

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/16/about-that-missing-hot-spot/

https://joannenova.com.au/tag/missing-hot-spot/

Some alarmists who know a little about the fingerprint of global warming will point to
Sherwood who “found” the missing hot spot until it was revealed he was using wind shear

https://joannenova.com.au/2015/05/desperation-who-needs-thermometers-sherwood-
finds-missing-hot-spot-with-homogenized-wind-data/

I doubt you will convince her though

4
Reply

Joseph Zorzin

 Reply to Rational Db8 


December 30, 2021 2:24 am

“we MUST take action just in case, even if the chances of the severe outcome is very slim…
Which is rather stupid reasoning as far as I’m concerned!”

Especially when the supposed solution will cost hundreds of trillions of dollars.

4
Reply

Steve

 Reply to Joseph Zorzin 


December 30, 2021 10:14 am

It’s easy to counter PP-type arguments, though, just by inverting them: eg “We 
MUST avoid removing CO2 from the atmosphere, because there’s a small chance
that we could trigger a new Ice Age (Which is already overdue!!!) thereby” …
4
Reply
 

Mark BLR

 Reply to Rational Db8 


December 30, 2021 4:11 am

I’m hoping that one of you might know of a good primer sort of article on why a mid-

tropospheric tropical hot spot must form early if the warming is due to CO2 …

Not exactly what you asked for, but this seems to come from figures like the one below
from the CCSP report of 2006 (Figure 9.1 in the IPCC’s AR4 WG1 report of 2007 is very
similar).

This shows the “hindcasts” of computer models of the Earth’s atmosphere, and how much
“temperature change due to various forcings” was supposed to occur.

These models include all the “basic (climate) science”, AKA “fundamental physics”, but
when people ask about the details we get answers like “It’s all terribly complicated, don’t
you worry your pretty little head about things like that …”.

NB : I’m guessing your “pro-AGW acquaintance” would react as badly to that sort of
attitude as anyone else.

The importance of this “prediction” is when people with a Popperian / Feynmanian


approach to scientific subjects (such as myself) look at the “all forcings” panel of those
figures … and then compare them to actual empirical measurements.

As Richard Feynman put it, the reason the “tropospheric hot spot” is so important is :

If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement, is the key to

science.
It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It doesn’t make any
difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it
disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.

 Last edited 11 hours ago by Mark BLR

4
Reply

Mark BLR

 Reply to Mark BLR 


December 30, 2021 4:19 am

PS : In the interest of balance, both “intermediate” and “advanced” responses to


the above argument are available at SkS :

https://skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-intermediate.htm

Below is a copy of Figure 9.1 from AR4 for comparison with the CCSP’s version
attached to my OP.

0
Reply
To bed B
 
 Reply to Mark BLR 
December 30, 2021 11:00 am

The simple explanation is good. High evaporation and then condensation of this
water transfers a lot of heat so that the lapse rate is much less than the
subtropics. But they ignore that it’s more evaporation that is the reason for a
catastrophic greenhouse effect, while at the beginning, they dismiss it as a flaw in
measurements not making it observable.

I’m not sure that it counts as balance.

0
Reply

Jim Gorman

 Reply to Rational Db8 


December 30, 2021 4:15 am

I would point out instead that we are still living in an Ice Age with a short interglacial
period. The future holds another glaciation with a large part of North America and Europe
covered with glaciers. Think the northern half of North America being under a mile of ice.

The Precautionary Principle should apply in this case since ALL scientists agree that
sometime in the not too distant future (geologically speaking) this condition will return to
the planet Earth.

If you are going to use this principle to argue for a solution to a possible climate outcome,
then you must also consider how to prevent a 100% occurrence of another glaciation.
Raising temperatures in order to prolong the interglacial is probably the best solution.

5
Reply

Sara

 Reply to Rational Db8 


December 30, 2021 6:04 am

That’s really not so hard. Find the info on various past episodes of the planet warming and
cooling long before Hoomans arrived and/or had anything remotely or vaguely like what
we have going on today. Without Hooman influence, the warming and cooling are
obviously natural and part of the planet’s agenda, and we have ZERO control over it.

Find the prehistoric stuff. Plenty of it online, and start back with the Carboniferous period,
when giant bugs roamed the planet. No Hoomans were around back then. Then go from
there. Find some way to get her to a rock shop where she can find really ancient fossils,
such as my shrimp (Carboniferous) and emphasize how long ago that was and how warm
it was all over the planet (except for a few snowy spots).

Take her on a fossil hunt, too. Those are fun. I have a shrimp and a fossilized horsetail
weed (they are still around today!!!) and a leaf from Alethopteris, a seeded fern, all from
the Carboniferous period. There are places where you can get a permit to hunt for fossils
and take them home. I never did find a crinoid (Carboniferous period), but I’m still looking.

3
Reply

Loren C. Wilson

 Reply to Rational Db8 


December 30, 2021 6:21 am

Just ask her to write a check to cover her fraction of the cost.

3
Reply

Lil-Mike

 Reply to Rational Db8 


December 30, 2021 8:49 am

The clincher for me is NOAA sea level rise data here. You can surf around and look at
other data sets by clicking on the map, and looking at “Linear Trend.” New York and San
Francisco have very long data sets, back to 1854 (SF).

The background is this. In the theory of APWG, CO2 causes warming, warming causes
glaciers & polar ice to melt causing sea level rise. Ocean warming causes thermosteric
sea water expansion contributing to sea level rise.


According to IPCC AR5, CO2 didn’t have an impact on global temperatures until about
1950.

If that is the case, sea level rise due to APGW wouldn’t start until 1950 or later. However
NOAA data shows sea level rise going back to 1854, 100 years before the theory of APGW
 says CO2 takes effect.


Willis has some great essays white papers on how the pandemic drop in CO2 isn’t
measurable globally.

2
Reply

Ed Fox

 Reply to Rational Db8 


December 30, 2021 10:18 am

The precautionary principle relies on the false assumption that time has no cost. That we
can live forever by eliminating risk.

Don’t argue AGW. Where is the social justice in denying Africa and Asia the benefits of
industrialization that come with cheap power.

The west industrialized using low tech coal and steam as the first step. So far not one
country on earth has successfully demonstrated a different method.

The precautionary principle also argues that you should only used methods that are
known to work because of the Law of Unintended Consequences says that wind and solar
will result in as yet undiscovered problems. That they could well be dead ends because
they produce little surplus energy. There could be many other problems. No one knows.

 Last edited 5 hours ago by Ed Fox

2
Reply

AGW is Not Science

 Reply to Ed Fox 


December 30, 2021 11:47 am

Never mind the “undiscovered” problems – the KNOWN, but willfully IGNORED,
problems are more than enough to “just say no” to wind and solar farms.

0
Reply

Janice Moore

 Reply to Rational Db8 


December 30, 2021 10:55 am

(as from the author of the “Dear Annie” column — syndicated in hundreds of news outlets
(heh))

Dear Rational,

About your intellectually challenged friend:

As others have pointed out, her impaired intellectual abilities very likely will prevent her
from following your argument, no matter how powerful your facts and reasoning.

The key is for you to realize that you are not going to change her and YOU ARE NOT THE
PROBLEM. Here is a little demonstration to help you see this:

Rational One: So, you think that human CO2 emissions can cause

dangerous global warming: why?

Challenged: Because, like, oh, 99% of scientists say so.

RO: Here are dozens of peer reviewed studies debunking the claim

about 97%.

C: Okay, well most scientists say so.

RO: Actually, they don’t. And leading climate scientists such as

Richard Lindzen and Christopher Essex say CO2 has never

been proven to be a danger. Further, virtually all the computer

simulations of climate, called “climate models,” have proven to

be piles of junk, i.e., they are completely unable to output

accurate results.

C: Well, even if their models are no good, they still know from

other stuff.

RO: They have no other “stuff.” The failed models are all they

have. Not one piece of data proves that human CO2 causes

dangerous warming.
C: But, just in case they’re right, we should take precautions.
 
RO: The “precautions” will doom billions of people to the misery of

energy poverty.

C: I think they would rather be alive. If we kill the planet, they

won’t even be here.

RO: If your physician told you that she felt pretty sure that you

were likely to die from bone cancer if you don’t cut off your

legs because she recently read some articles written by

people who sell prostheses that say that bone cancer in

people your age and older is caused by leg muscle cells

reaching a tipping point and mutating into cancer and they

have models that “prove” this is highly likely to happen —


would you have your legs amputated?

C: No. But, I still think we ought to limit our carbon pollution.

Just in case.

RO: SERIOUSLY?? Those people on WUWT were RIGHT!!!

Arrrrrgh!

So, Rational, you see that your (purportedly) inadequate explanations are not the problem.
They never have been.

Since you wrote to “Dear Annie” about this, I will assume you’d like a little advice. If she
isn’t your mother, I would suggest having “plans” whenever she calls you.

Annie

 Last edited 4 hours ago by Janice Moore

1
Reply

goldminor

 Reply to Tom Halla 


December 29, 2021 7:15 pm

Eight hundred years ago would be the 1300s, or at the end of the MWP. Maybe whatever took place was
a driver in the formation of the LIA.

3
Reply

Burl Henry

 Reply to goldminor 
December 30, 2021 4:16 am

Goldminor: (and rational Db8)

The ~300 year MWP was caused by a dearth of volcanic eruptions, only 31 VEI4 or higher
eruptions occurred during that time.(10 per century).

The ~600 year LIA (1250–1850) was caused by a recurrence of volcanic activity with many VEI5
(27).There were 144 VEI4-VEI7 eruptions (18, 13, 13 ,32, 28, 38 per century)

The warming of the arctic ocean that began about 100 years ago was simply due to fewer
volcanic eruptions. (fewer dimming volcanic SO2 aerosols in our atmosphere).

Our climate is driven solely by the amount of SO2 aerosols in our atmosphere, of either volcanic
or industrial origin. CO2 has NO climatic effect.

-5
Reply

Bruce Cobb

 Reply to Burl Henry 


December 30, 2021 6:39 am

No. Aeorosols are a bit player only.

4
Reply

Burl Henry

 Reply to Bruce Cobb 
December 30, 2021 7:34 am

Bruce Cobb:
You are WRONG.
 
Earth’s temperatures are solely driven by the amount of SO2 aerosols circulating in
our atmosphere.

See:”Central England Temps Data Set: Key to understanding the cause of Climate
Change

https://www.osf.io/b2vxp/

-5
Reply

Janice Moore

 Reply to Burl Henry 


December 30, 2021 11:02 am

“Earth’s temperatures are solely driven by the amount of SO2 aerosols circulating
in our atmosphere.”

LOL

2
Reply

Smart Rock

 Reply to Tom Halla 


December 29, 2021 7:18 pm

This paper has data from the Fram Strait, off the northeast corner of Greenland. The Norse settlements
during the MWP were at the south end of the west coast of Greenland, on the Labrador Sea. So this data
set is local and doesn’t tell us much about the climate history of the rest of Greenland.

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=
-45.47,62.72,1717/loc=-49.828,60.920 shows warm(ish) water from the Atlantic

washing both sides of southern Greenland, which is probably what happened during the MWP. And
presumably this tail end of the Gulf Stream was cut off during the LIA.

3
Reply

Richard M

 Reply to Tom Halla 


December 29, 2021 7:24 pm

Another paper, Thirumalai et al 2018 shows the Atlantic warming starting about 1600. In fact, the oceans
tend to be a good predictor of atmospheric trends.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02846-4


It also shows the salinity increase as well.

 

It suggests that salinity variation could be one driver to temperature variations.

6
Reply

RickWill

 Reply to Richard M 
December 29, 2021 9:55 pm

Perihelion last occurred before the austral summer solstice in 1585. Since then, total global
insolation has been declining due to reducing orbital eccentricity but the insolation over the
Southern Hemisphere is declining due to the progressively later occurrence of perihelion while
the insolation over the northern hemisphere is increasing.

Boreal summers are getting more sunlight but boreal winters less. This will eventually lead to
accelerating glaciation of the land masses surrounding the North Atlantic.

7
Reply

commieBob

 Reply to Tom Halla 


December 29, 2021 8:05 pm

That’s true. On the other hand, 800 years ago the MWP was just about over.

By itself, this study shouldn’t be used as definitive proof of anything. It needs to be considered along with
the body of other evidence.

This study does add to the data that confirms the Early 20th Century Warming.

As has often been observed, if the climate debate were actually about science, CAGW would have been
buried in the ash pit of history a long time ago.

27
Reply

Streetcred

 Reply to commieBob 
December 29, 2021 11:42 pm

CAGW will be buried in the ‘long drop’ of history! 

1
Reply
Redge
 
 Reply to Streetcred 
December 30, 2021 1:08 am

Nope

CAGW will be quietly ushered away, websites will be deleted/changed, and alarmists will
deny they ever said such a thing would happen before moving on to the next global issue
that can only be solved by them taking away your money and right to an unfettered life.

13
Reply

philincalifornia

 Reply to Redge 
December 30, 2021 1:29 am

Yep, screen capture everything you can. The leftard liars and parasites will figure
out a way to avoid this reckoning mechanism. It’s what they do, but let’s make it
difficult for them.

5
Reply

not-a-red-neck

 Reply to philincalifornia 
December 30, 2021 8:52 am

Enough with the “lefttard (or libtard) remarks. It is possible to be somewhat


skeptical of the catastrophic global warming argument without being way over to
the right of the political divide. In my opinion those sort of comments diminish
much of the usefulness that this site would otherwise have.

4
Reply

Tom Abbott

 Reply to Tom Halla 


December 30, 2021 8:17 am

“800 years should have picked up the Medieval Warm period and the LIA, so there might be a problem
with the proxies they are using to determine temperature.”

It should have picked up the 2.0C cooling that took place from 1940 to 1980, too.

See the U.S. surface temperature chart, Hansen 1999 (the chart on the left on the webpage):

https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research//briefs/1999_hansen_07/

As you can see, it warmed about 2.0C from 1910 to 1940, and then cooled about 2.0C from 1940 to
1980, and then it has warmed about 2.0C from 1980 to 2016, and now in 2021 the temperatues have
cooled 0.6C since 2016.

Keep in mind that 1998 was just as warm as 2016, and both are 0.5C cooler than the high temperatures
of 1934, according to James Hansen, and one of his colleagues who independently determined this
number.

An email archived among the Climategate emails is between Hansen and this colleague and confirms
the 0.5C figure.

Hansen has subsequently tried to take this back and now claims the 1930’s were cooler than the present
day. But read the text of the webpage provided. There, Hansen says the 1930’s were the hottest decade.

That didn’t fit the CO2 climate change crisis meme when temperatures started cooling after 1998, so to
compensate, Hansen and his merry band of Data Mannipulators decided they needed to downplay the
1930’s, in their computers, to enable them to claim temperatures were getting hotter and hotter and were
currently the hottest temperatures in 1,000 years, and it’s all the fault of CO2.

If the 1930’s were just as warm as today, then they couldn’t say that, and they couldn’t claim we are
experiencing unprecendented warming. And no unprecedented warming means there is no CO2 crisis.

So you can see the problem Hansen had. He wants a CO2 crisis to exist, so he manipulates his computer
data to show one. It’s all in his ocmputer. It does not exist in the Real World.

 Last edited 7 hours ago by Tom Abbott

8
Reply

AGW is Not Science

 Reply to Tom Abbott 


December 30, 2021 11:57 am
 +infinity 
When the data is “inconvenient,” they just change it to fit the narrative. This is how anyone who’s
paying attention knows that it’s all bullshit.

2
Reply

Pat from kerbob

 Reply to Tom Abbott 


December 30, 2021 1:42 pm

Hi Tom

I commented before that I went onto the GISS site and recently graphed that same 5 year mean
temp from 1880 -2000 and I get a different graph than Hansen showed in 1998

Now it shows the 30s much cooler than the 90s

Adjusted away

“Trust no one”, Fox Mulder

2
Reply

Zig Zag Wanderer


December 29, 2021 6:15 pm

The researchers say that their results also expose a possible flaw in climate models, because they do not

reproduce this early Atlantification at the beginning of the last century.

Oooops!

Cancellation Alert!

13
Reply

Ron Long

 Reply to Zig Zag Wanderer 


December 30, 2021 1:47 am

It took the report a while to get around to this statement of “…possible flaw in climate models…”, and it
might impact their future funding. Good comment ZZW.

4
Reply

Janice Moore

 Reply to Zig Zag Wanderer 


December 30, 2021 11:12 am

“Climate simulations generally … [display] an incomplete understanding of the mechanisms … .”

In other words: THEORY ERROR (not mere random error) — as per Pat Frank.

2
Reply

John Tillman


December 29, 2021 6:21 pm

The famous 1922 article on the melting Arctic:

https://www.cato.org/commentary/global-warming-apocalypses-didnt-happen

6
Reply

Terry


December 29, 2021 6:21 pm

A possible flaw in our understading of the unfolding catastrophe? I’m shocked – what don’t the
writers understand about settled science.

10
Reply

John Tillman
  Reply to Terry 
December 29, 2021 6:26 pm 
Doubt is not permitted!

Resistance is useless!

3
Reply

Clyde Spencer

 Reply to John Tillman 


December 29, 2021 9:30 pm

“Resistance is useless futile!

4
Reply

gringojay

 Reply to Clyde Spencer 


December 29, 2021 9:46 pm

Let it flow …

2
Reply

Dave Fair

 Reply to gringojay 
December 30, 2021 1:12 pm

Bad advice if the flow is about to inundate you. Keep your eyes open.

0
Reply

John Tillman

 Reply to Clyde Spencer 


December 30, 2021 12:28 pm

The Green Meanies try to make it so!

0
Reply

Michael

 Reply to Terry 
December 29, 2021 7:05 pm

Note the reference to Climate Change.

Just keep the grant money coming.

Vk 5ELl me.

0
Reply

John Shewchuk


December 29, 2021 6:34 pm

Maybe the Gakkel Ridge plays a small role … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_a0exADJtk

1
Reply


Jackie Pratt


December 29, 2021 6:38 pm
 Huh. So this changes things? The climate maybe? 

1
Reply

Richard M

 Reply to Jackie Pratt 


December 29, 2021 7:30 pm

I mentioned several times in the past that a natural salinity variation across global ocean currents could
account for changes in the atmospheric temperatures. It could be the basis of warming periods (Minoan,
Roman and Medieval) and cool periods such as the LIA.

If this provided a small underlying recent warming, the addition of the PDO and AMO could then explain
all the warming seen over the past 150 years. Yes, it explains climate change.

4
Reply

Ric Werme
Editor 
December 29, 2021 7:19 pm

We heard! See https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/11/24/arctic-ocean-started-getting-warmer-


decades-earlier-than-we-thought-study/

3
Reply

Chris Hanley


December 29, 2021 7:20 pm

Ole Humlum at climate4you->Oceans has a section with detailed charts of the Arctic gateway seas
(20W-40E. 70-80N) heat content trends some dating back to 1900 that approximately correlate with
the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the HadCRUT4 surface air temperature trend from
1920 (Arctic).

Any effect CO2 emissions post-1950 may be having on the global atmosphere is difficult if not
impossible to differentiate from natural variations.

5
Reply

Tom Abbott

 Reply to Chris Hanley 


December 30, 2021 9:42 am

“Ole Humlum at climate4you->Oceans has a section with detailed charts of the Arctic gateway seas
(20W-40E. 70-80N) heat content trends some dating back to 1900 that approximately correlate with the
Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and”

And the AMO oscillations correlate with the U.S. regional surface temperature chart oscillations.

1
Reply

Smart Rock


December 29, 2021 7:29 pm

Even though this paper comes from Cambridge, where Peter (“ice-free by 2013”) Wadhams is also a
prof., he doesn’t appear as a co-author. Keeping his head down in embarrassment?

4
Reply

RickWill

 Reply to Smart Rock 


December 29, 2021 10:16 pm

I wonder how many people paid money to read the tripe Wadhams produced?

A few days every year, the North Pole gets more sunlight than any other place on Earth. The surprising
fact is that sea ice still persists under such intense energy input. 

1
Reply
 Stephen Goldstein 

December 29, 2021 7:53 pm

We’ve read so many times that ice cores show how, over time, CO<sup>2</sup> lagging warming
suggesting that the CO<sup>2</sup> increases are not the cause but, rather, the effect, of ocean
(and more general) warming. Easily convinced, I guess, I’ve long thought that this is one of the
strongest arrows in the skeptics quiver, so to speak because it offers a strong alternative explanation
for 30 years of warming (less the pause(s)) and correlation with increases in CO<sup>2</sup>.

And yet of the many pieces here on WUWT about ocean warming, like this one, I can’t recall any one
connecting those dots.

Glad to read that they <i>used geochemical and ecological data from ocean sediments to reconstruct
the change in water column properties over the past 800 years</i>. Anything about dissolved
CO<sup>2</sup>? That would be one property that would be very interesting.

Anyway, that’s what I think.

4
Reply

Chris Hanley

 Reply to Stephen Goldstein 


December 30, 2021 12:19 am

Because A is shown to be a cause of B it does not logically follow that B cannot be a cause of A.

For example poverty (A) can be a cause of drug addiction (B) and drug addiction (B) can be a cause of
poverty (A).

Rising CO2 concentration can be both a cause and effect of increasing global temperature.

-2
Reply

Graemethecat

 Reply to Chris Hanley 


December 30, 2021 2:21 am

Rising CO2 concentration can be both a cause and effect of increasing global temperature.

Not so. Causation can only operate forwards in time. The fact that CO2 always lags temperatures
excludes CO2 as the cause. Your analogy with drug addiction and poverty does not hold as it is
quite possible to find wealthy people who became drug addicts and fell into poverty as a result.

6
Reply

hiskorr

 Reply to Graemethecat 
December 30, 2021 6:34 am

See “positive feedback”!

1
Reply

Kevin kilty

 Reply to Graemethecat 
December 30, 2021 7:03 am

Yes, Hiskorr, nearby, has identified a flaw in this arrow of causation argument. A positive
feedback loop makes “causation” a difficult thing to prove. For example, when in its cold
state the Earth begins to warm from an increased energy input from an orbital variation.
This in turn releases a bit of CO2 from the oceans, perhaps. But because the
concentration of CO2 is so low in this state (190ppm or so) a small change in CO2 has a
large influence on greenhouse feedback and the Earth warms faster, producing a larger
increase in CO2 concentration. At higher concentrations CO2 presents a diminishing
influence on further warming.

Now, was CO2 the cause or an effect of warming? You see the issue…

 Last edited 8 hours ago by Kevin kilty

2
Reply

Graemethecat

 Reply to Kevin kilty 


December 30, 2021 8:02 am
 So there’s no possibility of a thermal runaway, then. Why are we even worrying 
about CO2?

1
Reply

Rich Davis

 Reply to Graemethecat 
December 30, 2021 8:53 am

Thermal runaway from CO2 concentration? Yes, I would agree, no chance.

It seems to me that we fluctuate between two stable states—glaciation and the


current interstadial, based on insolation factors due to orbital mechanics. In either
state the bulk of the feedbacks resist temperature change and therefore support
homeostasis.

We should be concerned about CO2 though. At least if the long-term survival of our
species has any relevance to us. The long-term trend for CO2 is leading to
extinction of all life that depends on photosynthesis. The last glacial max saw CO2
drop dangerously close to plant extinction levels. Fossil fuel burning may prove to
be our salvation.

0
Reply

Janice Moore

 Reply to Graemethecat 
December 30, 2021 11:26 am

Murry Salby, author of Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate


(https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Atmosphere-Climate-Murry-
Salby/dp/0521767180) supports your position, Graeme and Mr. Goldstein.

Here is Salby showing that CO2 lags temperature by a quarter cycle:

(Hamburg, 2013)

(starting around 3 minutes in)

0
Reply

Rich Davis

 Reply to Graemethecat 
December 30, 2021 8:34 am

It’s always true that CO2 concentration responds to changes in temperature, but any
change in CO2 concentration also adds to the mix a feedback from a change in the
greenhouse effect that could further increase warming (or cooling if the concentration is
falling) which is what Chris is arguing.

It follows from basic observation that this CO2 feedback is weak and is damped by other
feedbacks such as the effects of clouds and thunderstorms, that prevent run-away
temperature change.

Making simplistic claims that there is no such thing as a greenhouse effect, or that
temperature is controlled exclusively by aerosols is the same species of foolishness as
the alarmist faith in the CO2 control knob. Climate is not simple at any level.

 Last edited 7 hours ago by Rich Davis 

1
Reply
Chris Hanley
 
 Reply to Graemethecat 
December 30, 2021 12:50 pm

My comment was about a simple logical flaw in the argument.

In the case of the climate:

A. warming of the atmosphere can cause CO2 to ‘out-gas’ from the oceans.

B. According to physics increasing CO2 in the atmosphere can result in warming of the
atmosphere.

The fact that A is true is not a logically valid reason for rejecting B, that is an example of
the logical fallacy affirming a disjunct.

Eg. Max is a mammal or Max is a cat. Max is a mammal. Therefore, Max is not a cat.

1
Reply

RickWill


December 29, 2021 9:43 pm

When the farce ends, will climate scientists declare their models were WRONG? Or will they just slide
into another career?

We can only hope the farce ends before they depart for good.

The good news is that it is rapidly becoming unpalatable for politicians to condemn their electorate
to shivering through cold winters or sweltering through hot summers.

1
Reply

Willem Post

 Reply to RickWill 
December 30, 2021 7:05 am

Career changes are disruptive and angst creators.

You might have to admit you have been a liar for decades, when applying for a new job

0
Reply

RickWill


December 29, 2021 10:06 pm

“Climate simulations generally do not reproduce this kind of warming in the Arctic Ocean, meaning there’s an

incomplete understanding of the mechanisms driving Atlantification,” s

This is stated as if climate models have some basis in physics and reality.

CLIMATE MODELS ARE SPECULATIVE GARBAGE. They are based on the GHE fairy tale. They are
nonsense.

6
Reply

joe

 Reply to RickWill 
December 30, 2021 5:19 am

they are artwork created to generate and emotion.

1
Reply

Dave Stephens


December 29, 2021 10:53 pm

The huge number of newspaper articles talking about dramatic changes in the Arctic and the
dramatic loss of ice in the 1920s and the 1910s is just one of the many glaring factual realities that
are typically dismissed by Alarmists, so it’s nice that scientists over 100 years later are able to
acknowledge that newspapers were reporting on something that was absolutely real… 

4
Reply
Graemethecat
 
 Reply to Dave Stephens 
December 30, 2021 2:25 am

Tony Heller has been hammering this point for a long time.

1
Reply

Philip Mulholland.


December 30, 2021 12:35 am

Maybe this observation by Paul Vaughan fits in here:

Yes. Tipping points are observed. Bill Illis’ classic graph again since it underscores discrete circulatory

reorganization fantastically:

 Last edited 15 hours ago by Philip Mulholland.

1
Reply

griff


December 30, 2021 1:58 am

Nonsense.

The arctic is warming thanks to human CO2.

Here’s an example:

Alaska sets record high December temperature of 19.4C | US news | The Guardian

An unusual winter warm spell in Alaska has brought daytime temperatures soaring past 15.5C (60F) and
torrents of rain at a time of year normally associated with bitter cold and snow.

At the island community of Kodiak, the air temperature at a tidal gauge hit 19.4C (67F) degrees on
Sunday, the highest December reading ever recorded in Alaska

-14
Reply

Joseph Zorzin

 Reply to griff 
December 30, 2021 2:29 am

I wonder how many Alaskans were complaining about the 67F?

3
Reply

Rich Davis

 Reply to Joseph Zorzin 


December 30, 2021 9:01 am

OMG! 19.4C

Talk about beneficial climate change.

1
Reply

Joseph Zorzin

 Reply to Rich Davis 


December 30, 2021 9:06 am

December has been warm here in New England- nobody is complaining- other than ski
resorts and ski lovers. I happen to love snow shoeing, in a serious winter with deep snow,
but I’m not complaining either. I don’t like buying fuel oil to heat my home.

2
Reply

Rich Davis

 Reply to Joseph Zorzin 


December 30, 2021 9:23 am

Agreed! Let’s keep this mild winter going.

2
Reply
joe
 
 Reply to griff 
December 30, 2021 5:24 am

At the island community of Kodiak, the air temperature at a tidal gauge hit 19.4C (67F) degrees on Sunday,
the highest December reading ever recorded in Alaska

so are we now measuring temp with tide gauges?

asking for a friend.

3
Reply

rhs

 Reply to griff 
December 30, 2021 5:51 am

Proof of change isn’t proof of cause.

Also, any idea of how many high temps at cold airports have been recalculated or otherwise invalidated?
Quite a few because of engine exhaust.

3
Reply

Tom in Florida

 Reply to griff 
December 30, 2021 6:08 am

The ignorance of Griff is once again on display. No knowledge of Alaska. Alaska is a huge state and
Kodiak Island is latitude 57.388 N. Hardly in the Arctic. Griff also willfully ignores the words “unusual
winter warm spell”. Weather Griff, weather. You just can’t fix religious zealots.

6
Reply

Loren C. Wilson

 Reply to griff 
December 30, 2021 6:26 am

And they have had record cold weather this winter as well. Don’t cherry pick the data.

6
Reply

ResourceGuy

 Reply to griff 
December 30, 2021 7:18 am

Tahoe just set a record for snow. I’m sure you have some troll look-up answer for that too.

4
Reply

Tom Abbott

 Reply to ResourceGuy 
December 30, 2021 10:05 am

The Guardian will probably write an article about Tahoe, and then Griff will quote it as evidence of
something.

 Last edited 5 hours ago by Tom Abbott

2
Reply

Dave Andrews

 Reply to griff 
December 30, 2021 7:22 am

Well then griff explain the following,

“In Spitsbergen the open season for shipping at the coal port lengthened from three months in the years
before 1920 to over seven months of the year by the late 1930s The average total area of the Arctic sea
ice seems to have declined by between 10 and 20 per cent over that time.”

H.H. Lamb, Climate, History and the Modern World, 2nd edition, 1995, p260

Spitsbergen (Svalbard) lies between about 76 and 81 degrees North opposite the NE tip of Greenland 

 Last edited 8 hours ago by Dave Andrews


5
Reply
 

Badgerbod

 Reply to griff 
December 30, 2021 9:04 am

If you did a bit of reading and research Griff you would know that whilst Kodiak experienced a brief warm
interlude, the rest of the state was experiencing record cold. How can this be? Adiabatic winds from a
warm Hawaiian atmospheric river. It’s simple thermodynamics, nothing to do with human produced CO2.
Other parts of Alaska were experiencing record cold of -18C. Ryan Maue gave a good explanation on his
twitter feed, check it out. It is not any kind of CO2 signal, it is a weather event that is quite interesting and
such events happen all the time in one form or another anywhere in the world at any time in earth’s
history. There are reams of accounts of unusual, hot, cold, wet, dry, events in archive. Go and look, check
your history, before you make foolish claims. Kodiak set a record, but so did Ketchikan but I don’t see you
remarking on that record.

4
Reply

meab

 Reply to griff 
December 30, 2021 9:14 am

Griffter plays the role of Simplicio in Galileo’s Treatise on the Tides. He makes unfounded statements
that reasonable people can counter with logical arguments and actual data. Griffter is helping any new
reader to understand that griffter’s positions are those of an uneducated dupe who is easily influenced
by phony arguments shouted by the climate alarmist carnival barkers.

3
Reply

Patrick B

 Reply to griff 
December 30, 2021 9:39 am

“The arctic is warming thanks to human CO2.”

This isn’t right. This isn’t even wrong.

2
Reply

Tom Abbott

 Reply to griff 
December 30, 2021 9:53 am

“An unusual winter warm spell in Alaska”

It’s just weather, Griff.

See the big high-pressure system just south of Alaska? It’s warming up the area. The warmth won’t last
long, and it’s not caused by CO2.

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-154.85,32.31,264/loc=-150.5
68,40.310

The center of the high is marked.

3
Reply

Dave Fair

 Reply to Tom Abbott 


December 30, 2021 1:29 pm

Griff, see that archipelago stretching Westward from Alaska? Where the maximum (purplish)
warming occurs? That is where the island of Kodiak is located.

1
Reply

climanrecon


December 30, 2021 1:59 am

The early 20th century warming can be seen clearly in instrumental data, here for example is 
Stockholm winter night temperatures (Tmin). Why do so many Canadians and Swedes crave a return
to the frigid pre-industrial climate? Maybe one reason is that they have never experienced it, and
scientists/media of today ignore the beneficial effects of warming.
 

2
Reply

climanrecon


December 30, 2021 3:47 am

“Historical Data Utilized in First-hand accounts from 19th century explorers’ logs for the Canadian Arctic
reflect similar climate conditions as present” (2003)

https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/arctic/historical-data-canadian-arctic

2
Reply

climanrecon

 Reply to climanrecon 
December 30, 2021 3:54 am

https://seagrant.uaf.edu/nosb/2005/resources/arctic-explorers.pdf

1
Reply

ATheoK


December 30, 2021 4:37 am

“In a recent paper, scientists expressed their surprise that the Arctic had started warming already back in the

early 20th century, 100 years ago.“

It’s a shame they fail to describe what happened correctly.

That is, ice grew and advanced during the LIA ‘Little Ice Age’.

When the LIA ended and began a return to slightly warmer conditions, the Arctic fitfully started
returning to a pre-LIA condition. A condition that it is unlikely to achieve.

“The researchers used geochemical and ecological data from ocean sediments to reconstruct the change in

water column properties over the past 800 years. They precisely dated sediments using a combination of
methods and looked for diagnostic signs of Atlantification, like change in temperature and salinity.
“When we looked at the whole 800-year timescale, our temperature and salinity records look pretty constant,”
said co-lead author Dr. Tesi Tommaso from the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council in
Bologna. “But all of a sudden at the start of the 20th century, you get this marked change in temperature and
salinity—it really sticks out.”

It is interesting that they use a lot of self inflating terms without detail to back up their contentions;
e.g., “precisely dated sediments”. Who verified their “precisely”?

All the while lumping assumptions and actions to intimate research rigor without explicitly defining
what, when, where and why. e.g., “using a combination of methods and looked for diagnostic signs of
Atlantification”.

A statement that basically admits pre-existing conclusions and confirmation bias.

1
Reply

Sara


December 30, 2021 5:49 am

“The reason for this rapid Atlantification of at the gate of the Arctic Ocean is intriguing,” said
Muschitiello. – article

They still don’t get it, do they? The planet is fine. The planet has been taking care of itself for a very,
very, very long time.

They will never understand it or anything it does. And it’s right in front of them.

Sad.

 Last edited 9 hours ago by Sara


4
Reply
 

ResourceGuy


December 30, 2021 5:53 am

Now I wonder what that could be……

AMO GlobalAnnualIndexSince1856 With11yearRunningAverage.gif (880×471) (climate4you.com)

Free the Atlantic coral data to see more.

0
Reply

taxed


December 30, 2021 6:30 am

One of the causes of this Arctic Ocean warming was likely to be due to a shifting trends within the
weather patterning. Away from northern Atlantic blocking and a increase in Azores highs ridging up
towards europe. Which opens the gates to allow warm mid-Atlantic air to push up into the Arctic
circle around the northern europe area.

0
Reply

JeanE


December 30, 2021 6:43 am

An article titled “The Coming Ice Age” was published in Harper’s in 1958. It describes the work of
Maurice Ewing and William Donn and their efforts to understand the Ice Age cycles. A key
component of their theory is exchange of warm Atlantic water with cold Arctic waters across “a
shallow “sill” between Norway and Greenland”- this has been called the Fram strait since the 1970’s.
Their work focused on understanding what caused the glaciers to melt 11,000 years ago, but they
also recognized that the ocean was warming (in 1958), and predicted that within 100 years the entire
Arctic ice sheet would melt, leading to increased snow in arctic regions and growth of glaciers- the
beginning of a new Ice Age.

It’s a fascinating article about their work- not a scientific paper, but a magazine story describing the
unexpected findings and fortuitous encounters with other scientists that provided additional pieces
of the puzzle. It also seems that in 1958 they had a better understanding of the many natural
phenomena affecting climate than we do today.

3
Reply

Thomas Gasloli


December 30, 2021 6:45 am

Just like Covid, everything we’ve been told about Climate Change has been a lie.

0
Reply

Ouluman


December 30, 2021 6:47 am

Whatever caused this I think we can agree that it wasn’t human CO2 emission! It is frustrating that
the “scientific” community doesn’t put more emphasis on ocean currents being responsible for
climate change today as it almost certainly was in past years. Earth being 70% water might be the
clue.

4
Reply


hiskorr


December 30, 2021 6:48 am
 “…global sea level rise as the polar ice sheets continue to melt.”

Another reference to “sea level rise” as floating, Arctic, “ice sheets continue to melt.” Sigh!!

3
Reply

Rich Davis

 Reply to hiskorr 
December 30, 2021 9:12 am

Idiots gonna be idiots.

Their only argument would be if oceans expand thermally from warming after the sea ice melts. The
trouble is that warming from 0 to 4C actually shrinks the ocean because the maximum density occurs at
4C.

0
Reply

Phil Salmon


December 30, 2021 7:01 am

Arno Arrak published this paper of the “Atlantification” transition at the turn of the 19th to 20th
century, which directed warm water into the Arctic and initiated a century of Arctic warming.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1260/0958-305X.22.8.1069

This may now be coming to an end.

3
Reply

Al Miller


December 30, 2021 7:17 am

What!!!??? A flaw in a model – say it isn’t so…

1
Reply

Tom Abbott


December 30, 2021 8:01 am

From the article: “Since 1900, the ocean temperature has risen by approximately 2 degrees Celsius,
while sea ice has retreated and salinity has increased.”

This would correspond with the air temperatures, too, since the U.S. unmodified, regional chart
shows a 2.0C warming from 1910 to 1940.

2
Reply

Phil Salmon


December 30, 2021 8:30 am

This paper by Tesi et al is an Italian one based in Bologna, with individual authors also from
Cambridge U.K., Norway and Germany. (It’s not a “Cambridge” study).

It’s incredibly interesting and important, showing a sharp transition to “Atlantification” at the turn of
the 19th-20th century. It’s worth looking at the paper itself – not just the press release – and look at
the figures.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj2946

A lot of oceanographic parameters are shown. Some start changing earlier, well back in the 18-19th
centuries. Other parameters abruptly change at the start of the 20th century. A classic picture of
transition in a complex system – the driving parameters and the responsive, state-flipping
parameters.

It’s curious that during the whole 19th century, water temperature in the North Atlantic was higher at
 
the depth of the LIA (little ice age). This might be surprising to some but shows that climate is ocean-
adiabatic. The ocean’s colossal heat content cannot change that quickly, so a temperature change at
one place means an opposite one somewhere else. Those who would expect a climate phenomenon
like the LIA to show up in radiation balance changes at the top of atmosphere (TOA) would look there
in vain. The heat never left the ocean.

 Last edited 7 hours ago by Phil Salmon

1
Reply

Rich Davis

 Reply to Phil Salmon 


December 30, 2021 11:37 am

Phil,

Do I misunderstand your comment or are you claiming that there was an early industrial warm period
somewhere else on earth concurrent with the LIA being a North Atlantic-focused regional anomaly? In
other words, if I grasped what you were saying, ocean currents temporarily shunted less tropical heat
into the North Atlantic, so that the heat must have warmed some area that had previously been cooler?

Given that the east coast of North America was equally frigid as the British isles and Europe, where do
you say that heat went?

0
Reply

Phil Salmon

 Reply to Rich Davis 


December 30, 2021 12:55 pm

Rich

No, the heat redistribution was vertical, not horizontal. It means that heat was withheld from the
atmosphere by the ocean during the LIA, over at least the whole northern hemisphere. This
caused the colder climate of the LIA. That heat was retained in the ocean. It’s well known for
instance that during extensive glaciation, sea water temperature under the ice is higher than in
the absence of glaciation.

So it means a kind of zero sum game regarding the huge heat content of the whole ocean.

0
Reply

Rich Davis

 Reply to Phil Salmon 


December 30, 2021 2:44 pm

How does the ocean do that? Isn’t the warmest part of the ocean at and very near the air
interface?

0
Reply

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