Flashback to 1972 - Scientists Fear for Arctic Sea Ice

The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) Wednesday 2 February 1972

Scientists fear for Arctic Sea ice 

Scientists fear that man, voluntarily or accidentally, may melt the Arctic Sea ice, leading to irreversible climatic changes.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation says in its latest bulletin that a group of 30 scientists from 14 countries have called for an international agreement concerning experimentation in the Arctic. The group met at the Study of Man's Impact on Climate held recently in Stockholm.

A report issued after the study singled out the Arctic ice as the feature on the earth's surface most sensitive to man-made changes. Once melting began in this area it was unlikely that it would stop, the report said. 

Several proposals had already been made to eliminate the ice, one suggestion being to spread soot or black dust on the frozen sea to absorb the sun's heat and increase melting in the summer and spring.

While these were only suggestions they pointed to the possibility that man could modify the global climate in a very substantial way if he chose to.

The melting would lead to large-scale modification of the climate but it would not affect the level of the ocean, the Unesco bulletin said.

However, if the Greenland icecap melted the sea level would rise 7 metres and a number of coastal cities would be under water.

Even without experimentation there was a possibility that global temperature increases produced by man's injection of heat and carbon dioxide into the environment could greatly reduce or even eliminate the Arctic Sea ice.

Additional reading:

Some background to the Study of Man's Impact on the Environment

Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, June 1972

Flashback to 1957 - CO2 from Industry May be Warming Earth

From The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) Tuesday 25 June 1957

Industry May Be Warming Earth

WASHINGTON, Monday (A.A.P.-Reuter). - United States scientists are planning studies on whether man's pollution of the atmosphere is creating a blanket around the world which is making it warmer.

The U.S. Department of Commerce said yesterday that, during the International Geophysical Year beginning next month, weather experts in the Antarctic would take air samples to check a theory that the earth's climate was gradually warming because the amount of carbon dioxide was increasing.

Officials explained, "Man is pouring an awful lot of carbon dioxide into the air by burning fuels. We do not know how much' of it is staying in the atmosphere or how much is going back into plants - or the ocean, if there is a lot staying in the atmosphere then it is possible that the temperature is increasing.

Carbon dioxide would act as an insulating blanket, stopping the earth from radiating as much heat as it otherwise would into outer space.

Flashback to 1947 - Arctic Climate's Alarming Change

This is related to the previous flashback about the then young Australian, Gordon de Quetteville Robin.

From the Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld. : 1885 - 1954), Saturday 31 May 1947, page 2

ARCTIC CLIMATE'S ALARMING CHANGE

LOS ANGELES. May 30.— A mysterious warming of the climate is slowly manifesting itself in the Arctic, and if the Antarctic ice regions and the major Greenland ice cap should reduce at the same rate as the present melting, oceanic surfaces would rise to catastrophic proportions, and people living in lowlands along the shores would be inundated, said Dr. Hans Ahlmann, noted Swedish geophysicist to-day, at the University of California's Geophysical Institute.

Dr. Ahlmann added that temperatures in the Arctic have increased by 10 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900. An 'enormous' rise from the scientific standpoint.

Waters in the Spitsbergen area, in the same period, have risen from three to five degrees in temperature, and one to one and a half millimetres yearly in level.

'The Arctic change is so serious that I hope an international agency can speedily be formed to study conditions on a global basis.' said Dr. Ahlmann. He pointed out that in 1910 the navigable season along the western Spitsbergen lasted three months. Now it lasts eight months.

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Hans W:son Ahlmann

Hans Ahlman and Carl Mannerfelt with Bonzo,
Photo: Sigurdur Thorarinsson
Source

Excerpts from an obituary in the Journal of Glaciology Vol. 13, No. 69.1974

Hans W:son Ahlmann (W:son or Wilhelmsson after his father Wilhelm Ahlmann) was born at Karlsborg, Sweden, in' 1889, received his doctor's degree (in geology) from Stockholm University in 1915 and became "docent" the same year. Ahlmann was a student of Professor Gerard De Geer, the father of varved clay chronology, whom he accompanied to Spitsbergen in 1910. This journey, in the company of an outstanding Quaternary geologist, made Ahlmann a devoted student of ice, snow, climate and landforms. He started his systematic glaciological research in Norway, which gradually became his second home country, and, after his main interest had been focused more on the climatological than, as previously, on the geomorphological aspects, he extended his studies to Svalbard, Iceland, and Greenland.  His reports from these expeditions were published within a year or two in Geografiska Annaler, and Hans Ahlmann made the 1930's a decade of intense glaciological and polar activity in Scandinavia. That was when Ahlmann, partly together with Harald Ulrik Sverdrup, developed the study of glacier mass balance and used the results for a world-wide study of climatic fluctuations.  Two publications, Glaciological research on the North Atlantic coasts published by the Royal Geographical Society in London and Glacier variations and climatic fluctuations published by the American Geographical Society in New York, summarized more than 20 years of work and, at the same time, marked the end of a long period of active field research.

During the last 25 years Hans Ahlmann continued to serve science, but in other capacities. His interest in polar ice sheets and his desire to establish close scientific collaboration with Norway and Great Britain as soon as possible after the war, inspired him to take the initiative for the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition, 1949-52, an expedition which in many respects set the pattern for research during the I.G.Y....

...To glaciologists Hans Ahlmann was mainly known for his pioneering studies of the relationship between glaciers and climate; it was, however, his human qualities that made him great. He had more real friends around the world than anyone I know, and a great number of letters arrived at his former department after his death expressing the deep sorrow felt by the world's geographers and glaciologists.

More here.

Related article here on the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition, 1949-52.

Flash back to 1949 - Global Warming, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica and a Young Australian

From The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954) Tuesday 15 February 1949

World May Be Getting Warmer

Australian Associated Press

LONDON, Mon. - Britain, Norway and Sweden are organising a joint Antarctic expedition this year to investigate whether the world is getting warmer.

Two British scientists and a young, Australian, Mr. G. Robin, who is Lecturer in Physics at the Birmingham University, have been appointed to the expedition. They will be absent for 2 1/2 years.

The expedition will explore the snowy wastes of Queen Maud Land, untrodden by man, and the strange warm "oasis" amid the mountains 200 miles from the coast.

The Director of the Royal Geographical Society (Mr. L. P. Kirwan) said today: "Evidence has 'been found that the Arctic is becoming warmer, lt is important, therefore, to see if the same is happening in the Antarctic and a world-wide climatic change is occurring."

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Gordon de Quetteville Robin (1927-2004)

Source: Farthest south during the seismic journey.
L to R: Charles Swithinbank, Gordon Robin, Kernek with Peter Melleby stand in front of one of their ‘weasels’.
Photo: Charles Swithinbank.

Gordon Robin at Maudheim, 1950.
Photo: Valter Schytt. Source

Gordon de Quetteville Robin was a renowned glaciologist and the longest serving director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge to date (1958-1982). He was the first person to produce reliable and accurate measurements of Antarctic ice sheet thickness using seismic sounding and in 1963, together with Stan Evans, developed a radio-echo sounding system, which allowed continuous profiling of ice sheets and glaciers. This technology is still the best available for measuring ice thickness and other glaciological investigations. Robin made numerous other highly significant contributions to glaciology including a better interpretation of climate records within ice sheets and the dynamics of ice shelves and ice formation and structure.

Immediately after completing his Master's Degree in physics in 1942, Gordon de Quetteville Robin joined the Royal Australian Naval Voluntary reserve and was appointed to antisubmarine duties. He soon lost interest in the work and moved to England. During World War II, Robin took up anti-submarine duties again and was sent to the Jahore Straits and Singapore. Back in England after the war, he enrolled in nuclear physics studies at Birmingham University and worked on the cyclotron project. However, Robin had always had a desire to go to Antarctica, so contacted the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at Cambridge University. He accepted an almost immediate posting to join the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey as their base commander at Signy Island in the South Orkneys (1947-1948).

When the twelve month position ended, Robin returned to the cyclotron project at Birmingham University, where he also gained a lectureship in 1948. The following year he joined the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition and was put in charge of the seismic survey to measure ice thickness. The expedition finished in 1952 and he returned to Birmingham University. There he undertook postdoctoral studies in glaciology, which provided new discoveries relating to ice shelf thickness and subglacial topography. In 1957 Robin decided to change his research focus again, and went to the Australian National University to study ocean waves. Within a few months of arriving, he was offered the first full-time directorship of the SPRI. He returned to England in 1958 to take up the position and this was the start of an outstanding twenty-four years of ground-breaking research.

As director, Gordon de Quetteville Robin oversaw the growth of the SPRI into one of the world's leading polar research institutes. He fought hard for and achieved greater cooperation and collaboration between all nations involved in polar research and between the research wings of the Navy's of the world and the broader research community. He also established a twelve-year collaboration with the US National Science Foundation which resulted in the mapping of around 50% of the continent.

Robin's own contributions to polar research were just as remarkable. These include at least five field expeditions to the Antarctic and arctic regions; co-production of the radio-echo sounding system which resulted in the first reliable measurement of ice thickness, the discovery of Lake Vostock under the Antarctic Ice Sheet; the identification and definition of ice streams flowing into the Ross Ice Shelf, large scale ice dynamics, and many other significant finds; the principal of using satellites to observe Earth from space; and the discovery of some of the mechanisms behind ice core temperature records. Even after official retirement, Robin continued to work at SPRI for many years as a senior research associate.

Robin held many other key positions, including Permanent UK Delegate to the world's coordinating body of Antarctic research, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research from 1958 to 1984; director of the British Antarctic Survey in 1993-1994; and a founding Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge (1964). He received the top prize in glaciology - the Seligman Crystal, as well as numerous other honours and awards from all over the world for his outstanding contribution to glaciology and geophysics.

View the full record at Encyclopedia of Australian Science
View a short summary with notification of his death from SCAR

Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition, 1949–52

G. De Q. Robin

After loading stores at Göteborg and Oslo, the expedition sailed from London on 23 November 1949 in the chartered Norwegian sealing vessel Norsel, G. Jakobsen, master. After calling at Cape Town, where P. G. Law of the Australian Department of External Affairs and J. A. King of the Union Weather Bureau of South Africa joined the vessel as observers, the Norsel headed south on 27 December to meet the Norwegian whaling factory Thorshovdi, which was carrying an advanced party of five men, with sixty dogs and some heavy equipment. An unexpectedly wide detour had to be made across the South Atlantic as the Thorshevdi was at that time in the Scotia Sea.

Source 

It was a very productive expedition but not without tragedy.  An excerpt from the Scott Polar Research Institute:

The Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition (NBSAE) of 1949-52 was the first expedition in Antarctica involving an international team of scientists. Their main objective was to explore whether the climatic fluctuations observed in the Arctic where also occurring in Antarctica. The party was led by the Norwegian Captain John Giaever, with each country in charge of a different aspect of the expedition: Britain geology, Sweden glaciology and Norway meteorology and surveying.

They expedition left London on 23 November 1949 on board the Norwegian ship the Norsel. As this vessel was not very big it could not transport all the men, equipment, supplies and dogs. Five of the team, the dogs and some of the heavier equipment sailed on a large whaling factory-ship, the Thorshovdi. As well as taking dogs for transport they also took aircraft, and amphibious tracked vehicles, weasels, which could pull sledges carrying over three tons and
would make depot lying much simpler....

...On 23 February 1951 the expedition was hit by tragedy when three of the expedition died. Poor weather had caused the party in one of the weasel tractors to misjudge their position and they plunged over an ice cliff into the sea. Only one of the four occupants was able to swim to safety reaching an ice-flow from which he was rescued thirteen hours later. 

...This expedition had managed to survey a huge area of Antarctica, 60,00 square km was mapped by ground survey, and in using aerial photography this area can be extended to 100,00 square km in total. Significantly this expedition paved the way for internationally run efforts, showing scientific cooperation was possible between nations.

Flashback to 1922 - World Growing Warmer

From The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957) Saturday 23 September 1922

WORLD GROWING WARMER.

 | 

Whilst many people have been bemoaning the cold weather of June and July it is rather questionable comfort to be told by a weather optimist in the London "Daily Mail" that the world, and particularly the Northern Hemisphere, is growing warmer. The process, he says, is rather a slow one but it is none the less steady, and of late it seems to have accelerated to some extent. If we possessed records of the weather since the beginning of the Christian era it is certain that the temperature over the whole of Europe and North America would show a startling rise. Unfortunately the thermometer is a comparatively modern invention while weather recording is a still more recent innovation. Yet for all that we can find plenty of proof, both in history and in other ways. For instance in Cesar's account of the Gallic Wars we find frequent mention of frosts so intense that whole armies were able to cross broad rivers on the ice. We know, too, that in those days Germany's winter was almost Arctic in its severity. These are conditions which have long since passed away, and it is not more than twice or thrice in a century that a river like the Seine freezes up. We are also aware that no farther back than the sixteenth century the winters in England were, on an average, much more than they are nowadays. Another interesting proof is obtained from the records of the Hudson Bay Company. We learn from them that within the last two centuries the average interval between the setting in of the winter frost and the coming of the spring thaw has decreased by no fewer than ten days. Again, European glaciers are everywhere receding. The ice fringes of both Poles are retreating. Even during the comparatively short space of time that the Antarctic has been visited by man the ice has retired some 40 miles. So let us cheer up. In process of time this country of ours will once more be growing palms and orange trees!

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The Weather Optimist from London's Daily Mail

I'll let you be the judge of whether the Daily Mail weather optimist was prescient, whether he knew the eventual impact of the inventions of Somerset, Savery, Newcomen and Watt, or whether he was merely another Daily Mail weather optimist.  It does seem as if he was basing his speculation about past climates on very limited geographic locations and limited historical sources.  (Does that ring a bell?)  I was unable to find out who he was.  If anyone knows I'd be grateful if you'd tell me.

No-one in 1922 would have had access to a comprehensive set of instrumental temperature data for the northern hemisphere, but if they had, this is what they would have seen:

Source: HadCRUT4

Had they a record of global surface temperatures, this is what they would have seen:

Source: HadCRUT4

And if they'd only had access to land surface temperatures, this is what they would have seen:

Source: Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures

Whereas had they access to a comprehensive set of proxy data, they would have been able to see much farther back in time, even back to the Gallic Wars they mentioned:

Source: Marcott et al (2013)

Flashback to 1910 - the Indian Monsoon and ENSO

The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) Saturday 8 October 1910

SCIENCE NOTES.

 -o- 

 (W. G. P.) 

 CLIMATIC CHANGE. 

Although no comprehensive law of periodicity has yet achieved acceptance, there is no doubt as to the periodic change of climate within given areas, and it can usually be seen that in some way long and short periods are superposed. A recent report of the Indian Meteorological Department gives some interesting data. Since 1894 the monsoon in north-west India has shown a marked weakness. This is a matter of vital importance, inasmuch as it is upon the monsoon that the rainfall depends. Careful examination shows a tendency during the past 30 years (a) for rainfall to increase to a maximum between 1892 and 1894; (b) for it to sink to a minimum in 1889. Similarly in the Nile there was a rise to a maximum in 1892-4, followed by a rapid fall in 1899, from which time until 1906 deficiency prevailed, while in 1908 there was a great improvement. The work of the Solar Physics Observatories shows how deep-seated are the causes of these variations. Thus it is proved that when in any year the pressure over South America is in excess that over India is deficient, and conversely the monsoon rainfall in India tends to be abundant when pressure is high over the Argentine.

---

Sir Gilbert Thomas Walker

Source: Indian Meteorological Dept.

Sir Gilbert Thomas Walker, CSI, FRS, (14 June 1868 – 4 November 1958) was a British physicist and statistician of the 20th century. He is best known for his groundbreaking description of the Southern Oscillation, a major phenomenon of global climate, and for greatly advancing the study of climate in general.

He was born in Rochdale, Lancashire on 14 June 1868, the fourth of seven children of Thomas Walker and Charlotte Haslehurst. He attended Whitgift School and St Paul's School, gained a degree in Metallurgy from Imperial College London and attended Trinity College, Cambridge where he was Senior Wrangler in 1889.[1][2]

Walker was an established applied mathematician at Cambridge University when he become director-general of observatories in India in 1904.[2] While there, he studied the characteristics of the Indian Ocean monsoon, the failure of whose rains had brought severe famine to the country in 1899. Analyzing vast amounts of weather data from India and lands beyond, over the next fifteen years he published the first descriptions of the great seesaw oscillation of atmospheric pressure between the Indian and Pacific Ocean, and its correlation to temperature and rainfall patterns across much of the Earth's tropical regions, including India. He is also worked (sic) with the Indian Meteorological Department especially in linking the monsoon with Southern Oscillation phenomenon. He was made a Companion of the Order of the Star of India in 1911.[2]

Source and more information in Wikipedia.

A nice paper on Sir Gilbert was written by Richard W. Katz for the journal Statistical Science.  Both the Walker Circulation and the Yule-Walker Equations are named for him.

From 1913 - A perspective on volcanoes and ice ages from Prof WJ Humphreys

As appeared in The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 - 1939) on Saturday 17 May 1913.  Note the reference to the greenhouse effect.

THE ICE AGE.

A Novel Explanation of Glacial Periods was propounded by Prof. W.J. Humphreys, of the Weather Bureau, at the Cleveland meeting of the Astronomical and Astrophyslcal Society of America. Several times in recent years it has been observed that great explosive volcanic eruptions (Krakatoa, Pele, Katmai), by charging the upper atmosphere, in the isothermal region, with fine dust, have markedly diminished the amount of solar radiation received at the earth's surface. It seems evident that the effect of this process must be to reduce the temperature of the air near the earth, since the dust scatters a much greater amount of the solar radiation received from without than of the terrestrial radiation received from within, owing to the greater average wave length of the latter. Thus a period of excessive volcanic activity if long continued would produce the thermal conditions of an ice age. The geological record furnishes evidence that such a period actually began shortly before the last ice age and has continued with diminishing intensity to the present time.

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About Professor William Jackson Humphreys

Excerpts from longer tribute and biography in Science Vol 112:

William Jackson Humphreys

Dr. Humphreys was born in a one-room log house at Gap Mills, West Virginia, February 3, 1862.

His undergraduate training was at Washington and Lee University, where he received the degree of A.B. in 1886, and C.E. in 1888. After a year of further study at the University of Virginia, 1888-1889, he taught at Miller School, near Crozet, Virginia, 1889-1893, then at Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland, 1893-1894. In 1894, he began graduate research in physics at The Johns Hopkins University, studying under the great physicist Henry A. Rowland and other noted men; he received the Ph.D. degree in 1897. His notable contribution to physical science began during his graduate work at Johns Hopkins....

...On July 1, 1905, Dr. Humphreys was appointed meteorological physicist in the U. S. Weather Bureau, a position which he held for 30 years. From 1905 to 1908 he was supervising director of the Mt. Weather Observatory, which had been established for the investigation of physical phenomena of the atmosphere; thereafter he served continuously at the Central Office in Washington, D. C.

He turned his attention from spectroscopy to the physical problems of the atmosphere, and soon provided the explanation of the existence and principal characteristics of the stratosphere, first announced on June 30, 1908, to the Physics Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society. This was followed by a long series of contributions to meteorological physics that brought him international recognition and many honors....

...His textbook Physics of the Air must be reckoned as one of his major contributions; its influence, and the reputation of its author among physicists, were important factors in obtaining for meteorology a wider recognition as a branch of physics. This treatise originated in a series of lectures given during January, 1914 to aviators in training at San Diego, California. The first edition appeared in 1920, the third in 1940, and it is still unique among modern textbooks: it is a systematic treatment of the physical phenomena of the atmosphere arranged according to the traditional subdivisions of mechanics, thermodynamics, electricity, acoustics, and optics. It also includes a long section on geological climates that embodies the author's own original contributions to this problem which, representing the result of careful thought by a competent meteorologist and able physicist, deserve more widespread consideration than they have received.

More here.

A notification of the death of Professor Humphreys by AMS:

Professor Emeritus W. J. Humphreys of George Washington University died November 10, 1949 at the age of eighty-seven years. He had been a member of the Society for twenty-four years.

Photo credit: Harris V. Ewing, Washington D.C., courtesy AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives, W. F. Meggers Collection

Flashback to 1906 - another ice age coming...

... in 200,000 years

From the The North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times (Tasmania : 1899 - 1919)

Saturday 18 August 1906

ANOTHER ICE AGE COMING.

Speak no more of the glacial epoch as 80,000 years agone. The glacial epoch is ahead. Sir Robert Ball says that the next ice age is due in 200,000 years. In the course of long periods the earth's orbit round the sun changes from being nearly a circle, as it is now, to a long ellipse or oval, and in the last case the summer may be only 166 days long, while the winter lasts 199 days. There is a short hot summer, followed by a long, excessively cold winter, so that more ice is formed in the cold than can be melted in the warm season.

On purely astronomical grounds, even if geologists had not discovered the ice ages from the records of the globe's surface, astronomers would have demonstrated that ice ages must have happened. When the next chilly epoch arrives posterity may see all Northern Europe under an ice-cap that will o'ertop the highest mountains and last for many thousands of years.

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Interesting to look back over old news articles.  This one pre-dates Milutin Milanković by a few years.

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About Sir Robert Ball

Source: Vanity Fair via Wikipedia

Sir Robert Stawell Ball FRS (1 July 1840, Dublin – 25 November 1913, Cambridge) was an Irish astronomer. He worked for Lord Rosse from 1865 to 1867. In 1867 he became Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Royal College of Science in Dublin.

In 1874 Ball was appointed Royal Astronomer of Ireland and Andrews Professor of Astronomy in the University of Dublin at Dunsink Observatory.[1] In 1892 he was appointed Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry at Cambridge University at the same time becoming director of the Cambridge Observatory. His lectures, articles and books (e.g. Starland and The Story of the Heavens) were mostly popular and simple in style. However, he also published books on mathematical astronomy such as A Treatise on Spherical Astronomy. His main interest was mathematics and he devoted much of his spare time to his "Screw theory". He served for a time as President of the Quaternion Society. His work The Story of the Heavens is mentioned in the "Lestrygonians" chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses.

He was the son of naturalist Robert Ball [2] and Amelia Gresley Hellicar.

More here on Wikipedia.