CAN THE “BIG
WARMING” AT SPITSBERGEN
FROM 1918 to 1940 BE EXPLAINED?
Recent
conclusion on the arctic warming in the 1920s/1930s:
Dr. Arnd
Bernaerts
2007
1.
Natural fluctuations are a component of the climatic
system (Johannessen et al., 2004);
2.
Natural variability is the most likely cause (Bengtsson,
et al., 2004);
3.
Sun has partly caused the warming (Daly, 2004);
4.
The 1930s warm period did not coincide with a positive
phase of the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) (Polyakovet al., 2004).
The latest
IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers (IPCC 2007) paid little attention
to the previous statements and summarised the ‘arctic
warming’ as it follows:
Average Arctic
temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the
past 100 years. Arctic temperatures have high decadal variability, and
a warm period was also observed from 1925 to 1945.
One century has passed
since arctic warming started in the late 1910s, but science is still
unable to give a consistent explanation of the warming causes and
origins. This investigation attempts to offer clues and explanations
about what caused the arctic warming at the beginning of the last
century. However, as a Conference paper, it is actually only a brief
summary of a more detailed work, which is fully accessible at
http://www.arctic-warming.com.
It will be demonstrated
that the location and the timing of the first observed arctic warming
in the early 20th Century could be identified with high
precision. We will prove that the warming phenomenon started at
Spitsbergen and, even more that it started within a very short time
frame of only a few months, in 1918. Therefore, the most dramatic air
temperature increase was recorded in the winter of 1918/19 and lasted
in force only until ca. 1922. Over a very short period of time, from
the winter of 1915/16 to the winter of 1921/22, winter temperatures had
risen by about 10ºC, never coming back to pre 1918/19 level, but
increasing at a lower level until ca. 1940.
A further
highly
significant aspect is the Spitsbergen location. On one hand, a
substantial part of the water masses reaching Spitsbergen have either
passed the West coast of Scotland or came from the North Sea, which
might have had dramatic consequences back in 1918. These water areas
around Great Britain had been under considerable constraint due to
naval warfare during World War I (WWI), whereby the ca. 2000 kilometre
distance between the two locations is not a significant one. Oceanic
currents carried all the naval battleground water northwards, in the
Spitsbergen region, within only a few weeks or a couple of months. Once
the ‘composition’ of the battleground seawater structure
has changed, it remained so.
It is important for this
investigation to mention that only the winter season is covered: not
only because of the fact that only winter temperature recorded a
dramatic increase, but because it covers a period during which the sun
influence is inexistent for many months, or its direct influence is
negligible.
The following
investigation will:
- in the first place,
establish that the arctic warming location and time can be identified
with high precision, namely at Spitsbergen, in the winter of 1918/19;
and
- show that naval
warfare during WWI is a very serious event which might have caused this
phenomenon; and
- that it is up to the
scientific community to confirm or to disapprove this prima facie evidence.
After all, since
meteorological observations began to be recorded, namely over the last
200 years, not one similar phenomenon was ever observed, neither before
1918 nor thereafter. So, no other meteorological event can help us
understand the climatic process better than the arctic warming which
took place at the end of WWI.
ELABORATION
OF SCOPE AND PREVIOUS ANALYSES
Elaboration basis
Until recently, a
systematic ocean data collection did not exist, with the exception of
the frequent sampling of the sea surface temperatures made by merchant
vessels. But these measurements were very
random, very selective and
very insufficient. Analysing oceanic
conditions and changes has to be
largely based on air temperature observation. 
At Spitsbergen, the first
permanent temperature data series recording began in 1912. In other
places from the Nordic Sea areas, e.g. North Greenland, Jan Mayen, and
Bear Island, weather records date from the 1920s. Actually, for the
first quarter of the last century, solid data concerning the polar
region are limited and rely only on a number of single expeditions and
interpretation of secondary observations.
As for the facts
concerning temperature development in the high northern hemisphere, the
over-proportional rise in the wider polar region is well established
and undisputed. The temperature increase is two to three times higher
than the global average of the last century. This is well indicated in
all temperature graph series available. What these graphs 
and tables do
not indicate clearly enough is the purpose or relevance of the
statistical accumulation of data series. The following applications of
temperature data are either related to geographical, earth surface or
to seasonal issues, as it follows:
Geographical: (A) Local: Spitsbergen, latitude ca. 80 degrees North;
(B) Regional: Arctic/Polar region, at least higher than 60º North;
(C) Global: Northern Hemisphere; (D) Global: Northern and
Southern Hemisphere, whereby this statistical mean can be neglected
because it doesn’t provide any clue on Spitsbergen warming; or
Earth Surface: (A)
Land-based air temperature observation. Concerning
air temperature data taken at Spitsbergen, it should be observed that,
due to the permanent and extended sea ice-cover, the island is partly
similar to an inner continental place. But as the southern flank of the
island is open to the sea and the closest continent is almost 1000 km
away, this South-Sector is under very strong oceanic influence; (B)
Sea-surface air temperatures (SST), which play no important role in
this investigation simply because they do not exist in any reasonable
number and time for the period in question.
Season or specific months:(A) Seasonal temperatures are
of particular interest because Polar Regions at high latitudes are an
outstanding example of the considerable impact and influence of the sun
decreases in wintertime as far down as the North- and Baltic Sea (both
above 50° North). (B) Monthly mean data are a tool equivalent to
the seasonal temperature measurement. Their applications make sense in
exceptional cases. Spitsbergen is such an exceptional case.
In our research and
effort to explain the big warming at Spitsbergen and its causes, air
temperatures series play a major part. Focusing on certain 
aspects such
as location and time sequence may reveal the source of the
warming.
Scientific
position when
it comes to explaining the phenomenon arctic warming 90 years ago has
already been highlighted in the Introduction above. It might therefore
be of interest to see to what extent the phenomenon was discussed
before WWII.
One of the first
scientists who highlighted the extraordinary temperature development at
the ‘Green Harbour’ Spitsbergen station was the Norwegian
scientist B.J.Birkeland, in 1930 (op. cit). He was very surprised of
what he discovered. He finishes his brief essay with this statement:
“In conclusion I would like to stress that the mean deviation
results in very high figures, probably the greatest yet known on
earth”. A couple of years later, in 1936, a number of
authors put Birkeland’s findings into a wider context.
(A) Johansson (op.
cit., 1936) focused his
investigation on the relevance of sunspots. Yet, some analytical
consideration is nevertheless interesting. For example: (a) In 1919,
the statistical means crosses zero-value; or, in other words, all
previous years are colder; all later years are warmer; (b) Between 1917
and 1928, the increase during the summer season is of +0.9°C per 10
years, and in winter, of +8.3°C, in February, of +11.0°C; (c)
It seems that the changes are coming from the North. (d)
Johannsson’s main conclusion is that the increased air
circulation (15 % higher) between 1896 and 1915 had gradually changed
the current and ice conditions, thus altering the borders between the
Arctic gulf current climate and the true Arctic climate further north.
(B)
Scherhag (op. cit., 1936/8) refers to
Birkeland’s work from 1930, assuming that all warming analyses
have to begin with the observation of the Spitsbergen phenomenon,
because only here the temperature increase was measured in the winter
of 1918/19 for the first time (Scherhag, 1939); (a) There were
increased Gulf Current temperatures, particularly significant in the
Barents- and East Greenland Sea. (b) The extraordinary increase of the
winter temperatures in Greenland (Scherhag, Nordeuropa, 1936), was
caused by a considerable retreat of the ice border and the prominent
increase of the atmospheric circulation (Scherhag, ditto).
(c) Scherhag (op.cit.,
1937) states that a thorough research
of the
temperature changes over
the whole northern half of the globe during the period 1921-1930
confirmed that the largest part of the investigated region had been,
indeed, considerably warmer during the decade 1921-1930. (d) Scherhag
stressed: “such kind of climate changes as could now be observed
in Spitsbergen and along the western coast of Greenland were certainly
not restricted to a small region but must be global” (Scherhag,
1937). (e) In his subsequent research work, Scherhag pays little
attention to the natural circumstances from Spitsbergen in the late
1910s, merely acknowledging that the extent of the temperature increase
would be, without any doubt, the greatest in the Arctic (Scherhag,
1939).
(C)
Brooks (op.cit.,1938): (a) The Spitsbergen
branch of the North Atlantic Current has greatly increased in strength
and the surface layer of cold water in the Arctic Ocean has decreased
in thickness from 200 to 100 metres. (b) Attributing the recent period
of warm winters to an increase in strength of atmospheric circulation
(in reference to Scherhag) only pushes the problem one stage back,
because one should still have to account for the change in circulation.
(c) It may also be objected that the atmospheric circulation depends on
the difference of temperature between low and high latitudes and,
hence, should be weakened instead of strengthened by a warming in the
arctic. (d) Regardless the mechanism, the rise of temperature did begin
prematurely and had a cause, though it is conceivable that it arose
spontaneously in the incessant kaleidoscope of temporary pressure
distributions.
(D) Manley (op.
cit., 1944): (a) Temperature in
Norway, especially in the North, has certainly risen far more in recent
years than at any other time in the last two centuries. (b) A more
vigorous atmospheric circulation in the region of the Norwegian Sea
would explain the observed facts, namely the recession of the
ice-limit, the increased frequency of south-westerly winds, rather than
south-easterly, in North Norway, and the consequent marked rise in
winter temperatures which has attained its greatest magnitude in the
north of the Scandinavian Peninsula.
All pre-WWII papers
acknowledge the suddenness of the rise in temperatures in the North
Atlantic region since the early 1920s, but pay too little attention to
the location of Spitsbergen, an island in the mid of a huge sea area,
with sea-ice in the north and at the edge of the Norwegian Sea in the
South. However, the great-grandfathers of today’s climatologists
discussed this matter very seriously and in a way, which is not very
different from today.
ANALYSING THE WARMING OF SPITSBERGEN OVER
A WIDER REGION
“Needless
to say, a necessary condition for the Arctic warming event to happen
depends on the change in the larger scale atmospheric
circulation” (Bengtsson, et al., 2004). While a conclusion like
the previous one seems to be of little help for the explanation and
understanding of the warming in the high North region, a more detailed
analysis on first appearance and intensity of temperature changes is
required. To this reason, it is to emphasise that, to “warm
up” the air of a remote archipelago at 80º North during
winter, heat must have been available and injected to the atmosphere
between the direction 135º (SE) and 270º (West) of
Spitsbergen, which are usually sea ice-free areas throughout the year
and belong to the Barents Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea.
The source of the warming was either due to internal processes within
the water bodies, or influenced by ‘more’ warm water coming
from the Atlantic Gulf current. The latter came with the Norwegian
Current and West Spitsbergen Current, formed by water flowing from the
Gulf Current after it had passed the Iceland - Faroe – Scotland
line, enhanced by North Sea water, and continental run-off rain and
melt water.
Scenario
1 - A considerable part of the
Atlantic water moves via the currents towards the basin of the Arctic
Ocean. Actually, due to the high salinity of the Atlantic water and the
cooling process, the water becomes very dense and ‘falls’
over a ridge (with a depth of 600 m below sea level) in the Arctic
Basin. Before the Spitsbergen current reaches the ridge, at about
80° North, the water, at a depth of 20 metres, has a salinity of
about > 35 per mile and a temperature of up to 7°C (Knies,
1996).
Scenario 2 -The North Cape Current,
which supplies the Barents Sea with Atlantic water, may have
contributed to the warming in the long run. But, generally speaking,
the Atlantic water ‘disappears’ in the East of the 
North
Cape and Spitsbergen. Instead, a polar water current flows in from NE
and partly joins the Spitsbergen Current in the south of Spitsbergen.
According to Wagner (op cit., 1940), the mean water temperatures in the
Barents Sea increased with +1.8°C from
1912/18 to 1919/28. It is
not easy to assess how much the 500 m deep Barents Sea might have
contributed to the ‘Severe Warming’. Presumably, not very
much, especially during
1918,
although the Barents Sea ice border
retreated significantly since 1919 (Wagner, 1940). After all, a
complete renewal of the water body of the Barents Sea is completed at
every four years (Schokalsky, 1936). Thus, the Barents Sea would
require a permanent water inflow, which could only come from the South,
when it is supposed to sustain the warming.
Scenario 3 - At west of Spitsbergen, the seawater has a temperature
of 5°C and a salinity of 34.90 to 35.00 mg. A significant
part of the warm Atlantic Gulf water that has reached Spitsbergen
‘turns left’ in the south-western direction, at the
position of 75-77° North, and flows either as Greenland current
down to Newfoundland and back in the Atlantic, or goes down into the
huge Greenland Sea Basin with depths of 2,000 metres or more (max. ca.
3,500 m), or circles for some time the surface water 
layer or the
thermocline waters. This water may have contributed to the warming at a
later period of time, on a long-term basis.
Scenario 4 – On the fourth place is the Norwegian Sea Basin
with depths of 3,000 metres. The whole eastern part of the European
North Atlantic – Norwegian Sea - is a reservoir for the Atlantic
Gulf water, reaching depths of 800 meters. This large water body has a
huge heat retaining capacity. Any increase in temperature, or
enlargement of the ’warm water part’, or
‘functioning’, would quickly be reflected in temperatures
at Spitsbergen, in Europe or elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. In
addition, while the deep water of this basin is formed north of Jan
Mayen, it can, in exceptional circumstances, warmed up by Atlantic
water in case that it had been ‘pushed down’ to lower
depths after passing by the Shetland Islands, Faroe Island and Iceland
ridge (approx. 500 m).
Evaluating the Scenarios,it
can be said that three out of the four possible sea sectors mentioned
above may have generated the temperature rise in 1918. For the
subsequent climatic change, which took place between 1918 and 1939, the
Norwegian Sea must have been the major, if not the only contributor,
either due to its own heat storage capacity, or by a sustained supply
of warm Gulf current water, respectively both of them.
Arctic
Ocean. According to Johannessen
et al. 2004, the most pronounced warming area from 1920-1939 covered a
region from the East coast of North Greenland (60º West) to
Severnaya Zemlya Island (100º East), with distances of about 1200
km each. Comparing the location and the extent of this warming area
within the wider Polar region, a substantial distinction can be made.
The pronounced warming area covers only about 1/3rd of the
Arctic area, namely the northern parts of the Greenland Sea, Norwegian
Sea and Barents Sea as well.
Greenland.
It is widely acknowledged 
that Greenland went through a significant warming-up period. This is
well demonstrated in the research work of R. Scherhag (Scherhag, 25
Jahr, 1936), which indicates that
temperature had increased with more than + 3ºC from 1921 to1930.
The warming of the East of Greenland, after 1920, could be possibly
related to the findings of Bjerknes (Bjerkness, 1959), in 1958,
sustaining that the Labrador Current had shown a brisk upward trend,
starting as late as 1920. It is certain that a substantial warming of
Greenland took place after WWI. One can also be sure that the
warming period of Greenland was limited to about one decade. The
indicated period of time in question is from 1920 to 1930/32. Bjerkness
(op. cit, 1959) assessed seawater temperature data in the North
Atlantic as it follows: “North of about 57° North the
trend in sea temperature has been slightly upwards. Actually this
change resulted from a brief but strong upward trend in the 1920s, but
essentially, it lasted only from 1920 to 1930 in Greenland
waters”.
Europe.
The warming trend after
WWI is different from Greenland because temperatures had increased only
very slowly but steadily from the winter of 1918/19 until the winter of
1939/40. It went so far that autumn 1938 was the warmest, together with
1772, 2000 and 2006, in the last 500 years (Xoplaki,
2006). Summer temperatures also
rose substantially by 1ºC. Actually, autumnal temperature rises in
the 1930s were local and observed in Scandinavia and western part of
maritime Russia only (Polyako, 2004). No other continental Northern
Hemisphere region experienced a similar rising trend. The United States
data records, which had a modest warming until 1933, saw a decrease in
temperatures since then.
Is
Spitsbergen the only
heating-up spot?
If one asks whether
the heating-up spot is to be found at Spitsbergen, we would certainly
answer ‘yes’; information supplied previously sustain this
affirmative answer. If one reviews the January/February temperature
difference between the winters of 1913/14 and of 1919/20 (ca. +
15ºC), or from the winter of 1916/17 to the winter of 1919/20 (ca.
+ 22ºC), the results are not only extraordinary, but they reveal
that the ‘shift’ took place in 1918, respectively in the
winter of 1918/19. This is emphasised by the comparison between the
data recorded since 1912, before WWI ended (ca. – 4.3ºC),
and thereafter (ca. +3.8 ºC), including the winter of
1925/26.
It had been also observed
that seawater temperatures had
reached unusual values: +7ºC to 8ºC at the West coast of
Spitsbergen in the summer of 1918 (Weikmann, 1942). During the winter
of 1918/19, there had been considerable temperature variations. There
were long periods in November and December 1918 with
temperatures close
to zero degrees (approx. 26 days with less than 5°C), 4 days with
temperatures above zero in November and 7 days in December. In January
1919, the temperatures did not reach –5°C for 14 days, and
five days were frost-free. With monthly averages of minus 7.5°C and
plus 8°C, the sea must have transferred a lot of heat into the air.
However, during February–April 1919, the temperatures were well
below the average, with a large ice-cover far out into the sea. But
that did not affect the significant warming, which started a few months
earlier.
All information and every
aspect confirm that an
outstanding warming-up phenomenon can be located with precision at
Spitsbergen, and the exact timing is within a range of a few months.
Such a precise date cannot be provided for any other global location
since records have been taken. As there was no simultaneous temperature
jump during the corresponding time period elsewhere, it is possible to
assert with certainty that Spitsbergen represents the first place where
the Arctic warming started at the beginning of the 20th
century.
WHAT
CAUSED THE ARCTIC-SPITSBERGEN WARMING?
The probable forcing
mechanism of the warming 
After having established
the location and time-period for the sudden Arctic warming, the most
interesting question to be answered is: what has or may have triggered
this climatic phenomenon? Neither Johannessen et al. (Johannessen,
2004),who recently assumed that the warming
in the early part of the 20th century was probably a natural
phenomenon, nor Bengtsson et al.(Bengtsson, 2004), who asserted that
this climatic anomaly was probably a result of the influx of warmer
water into the Barents Sea, can be of much help. Closer to the
core issue came Polyakov et al. (Polyakov, 2004), with the conclusion:
·
This
variability appears to originate in the North Atlantic and is likely to
be induced by slow changes in the oceanic thermohaline circulation.
-
However, SAT records
demonstrate stronger multi-decadal variability in the polar region than
at lower latitudes.
-
This may suggest that
the origin of the variability may lie in the complex interactions
between the Arctic and the North Atlantic.
Although all three
research papers come up with a ‘conclusion’, none of them
realises that the results offer no consistent explanation at all.
C.E.P. Brooks (op. cit, 1938) has already expressed his disagreement
with regard to R. Scherhag’s assertion, made in 1936, that an
increase of atmospheric circulation was the cause of the Spitsbergen
warming, that this pushes the problem one stage back because one should
still have to account for the change in circulation. 
Polyakov et al. notion
that the variability might have been induced “by slow changes
in oceanic thermohaline circulation” also neglects completely
the fact that there must have been a very sudden and dramatic change in
the oceanic interior.
It is also
difficult to agree with the affirmation sustaining that
the“variability may lie in the complex interactions
between the Arctic and the North Atlantic”.The
problem derives particularly from the word “interactions”
because the overriding relation between the two oceans is the one-way
transport of warm water to the Arctic basin. The West Spitsbergen
Current transports warm Atlantic waters to north, through the Fram
Strait into the Arctic Ocean, and, in the opposite direction, the East
Greenland Current transports very cold fresh water and sea ice
southwards. Actually, the higher any interaction at the time period in
question, the less significant would have been the warming up of
Spitsbergen. 
Finally, it should be
stressed that the sudden warming phenomenon was definitely not
generated in the sea areas from the North-West, North and North-East of
Spitsbergen (80˚ N) for the simple reason that they had been
permanently covered in sea ice, which at least would have prevented a
very sudden air temperature jump during the winter season of 1918/19,
and the subsequent winters until ca.1922.
Oceanic
potential – Oceanic impact
What is still open for
the discussion is the source of the winter warming from Spitsbergen,
respectively the role the Norwegian- and Spitsbergen Current played.
When the Spitsbergen Current reaches the shelf of Spitsbergen (ca.
79°N), it splits in two and passes the West and the East of
Spitsbergen, to sink, eventually, into the Arctic Basis. The incoming
water is relatively warm (6 to 8°C) and salty (35.1 to 35.3%) and
has a mean speed of ca. 30 cm/sec-1.
After having reached the
Spitsbergen region, the warm current goes through a series of highly
complex processes. As no ocean observing systems were in place in the
late 1910s, any theoretical analysis would hardly bring any relevant
results because there are too many components involved in the
transformation process of the warm Atlantic water into cold Arctic
Ocean water. At the sea surface, major components are air temperature,
wind, waves, sea ice, ice motion and rain- or melt-water. Below the sea
surface, there are only two components, which might represent
overriding forces on ocean dynamics: seawater temperature and its
degree of salinity. Density, the third major component, becomes a
significant factor only at much greater depths.
While the water
temperature and the salinity for internal oceanic dynamics is
generating forces in every ocean water around the globe, the matter is
particular crucial with regard to the Spitsbergen Current. There is no
other place as ‘sensitive’ as this one. Very warm and
saline water arrives in a very cold environment. Nevertheless, the
principal rules of ocean dynamics are simple:
·
Warm water is lighter than cold
water.
·
Salty water is heavier than less
saline water.
These two components
allow uncountable variations and the sea areas around Spitsbergen have
an increased range of variability.
Finally, we have to take
into account the ‘capacity’ issue and the fact that the
warming at Spitsbergen was the most pronounced during the winter. In
winter, the importance of the ocean role for the supply of the
atmosphere 
with heat becomes much more obvious. And here it comes
in
discussion the capacity issue. In average, a sea surface layer of mere
three metres holds the same heat as an entire air column of 10,000
metres. One can explain it with a ‘one-degree-image’. If
1° of heat is taken out of the upper three-metre of the sea surface
layer, the entire atmosphere above warms up with one-degree. This is a
relation which stresses out the importance of the transfer of the warm
Atlantic water into the Polar region.
One need only to pay
attention to the interesting ice-cover charts for April 1918 and 1919,
which show that towards the end of the winter season the open sea area
is reduced to a small percentage of about 10-20%. The section from were
high winter temperatures could have only been released from an open sea
area is the SW-sector of Spitsbergen, and that is the section where the
West Spitsbergen Current transports the warm and saline Atlantic water
towards the permanently ice-covered Arctic Basin.
The sudden warming at
Spitsbergen after the winter of 1918/19 could have been caused only by
one distinct force: the sea, which, in this case, needed an additional
forcing mechanism, namely either the warm Atlantic water or a big
change in the ‘dynamics’ of the water body of the Nordic
Sea. It could clearly be indicated that the sea areas around
Spitsbergen in combination with the West Spitsbergen Current flowing
into the Arctic Basin had been the sole driving force of the sudden
Arctic warming in the early 20th century.
Which are the
potential forces available?
Around the
winter of 1918/19, nature had run its normal course. No
‘natural’ event, as asserted by Johannessen et al (op. cit,
2004), which could have affected the natural commons, had been observed
around Spitsbergen or at a global level. There was no significant
earthquake, no eruption of a forceful volcano, no tsunami, no sunspots,
and no big meteorite fell on the continent or into the sea. As previous
analysis showed it, there was no hot spot in the atmosphere, from which
warm air could have been transferred to Spitsbergen, causing a very
pronounced warming and sustaining the phenomenon for such a long time.
In so far, the only conclusion is that the sea areas around Spitsbergen
must have undergone dramatic changes in a very sudden and unexpected
manner.
It is furthermore evident
that the Spitsbergen event was, in the common sense of the word,
‘unnatural’, as science has never recorded a similar
situation again. To quote Birkeland once again, this rise had been
probably the greatest yet known on earth. As there was no extraordinary
event in the space, in the atmosphere or in the common ocean behaviour
observed which might have caused this special phenomenon, it is
reasonable to think about a causational force never experienced before:
the First World War. Highly destructive forces had been fighting in the
air, on land and at sea, in Europe, from August 1914 until November
1918, when the big warming at Spitsbergen began to manifest
itself.
Naval War, a
force to recon
WWI had destructive
effects on men and on the environment, but nothing changed the commons
of nature as much as the naval war did. This notion derives from
understanding that the oceans, together with the sun, determine the
status of the atmosphere on a short, medium or long term. The author of
this paper has suggested and discussed this matter in a number of
publications since 1992 (Bernaerts). The impact of naval warfare on the
ocean environment is in so far unique because it includes two principal
aspects: one which is destructive to men, ships, and materials, and
another one which is changing the temperature and salinity structure of
the seas, where naval activities have taken place.
The second aspect is
certainly not the only one, which might have had a significant impact
on the interior of the seas in question, but it is, presumably, the
most important one. Particularly sea surface layers of 50 metres depth
and shallow seas (like the North Sea) are highly complex entities,
always under permanent change due to season, wind, rain, river water,
melt water, ice, and so on. Huge water masses in Western Europe seas
were churned upside-down. The Norwegian Current transports these water
masses northwards, to Spitsbergen. The temperature and salinity
structure of the water had certainly changed its composition.
How close was the
naval war to Spitsbergen?
Naval war during WWI was
highly concentrated in the seas around Great Britain. The distance
between Spitsbergen and the main naval battleground was of about 2000
km. But this distance is not very significant in this case. The
currents moving through the Norwegian Sea and along the Norwegian coast
consist of water from the Gulf Current, from continental rain/melt
water, and water from the North Sea.
·
The branch of
the North Atlantic Current has temperatures exceeding 6°C and
salinity greater than 35. Norwegian Coastal Current flows closer to the
coast of Norway in the upper 50-100 m of the water column with lower
temperatures than the Atlantic branch and low-salinity water, less than
34.8.
·
The average speed of the coastal
current is in the range of 0,7 to 1 km/hour (max. 115 cm/s), while the
speed of the Atlantic Gulf water further off the coast is in the range
of 0,7 to 2,2 km/hour (max. 85 cm/s), and even under northeast wind
condition, the average speed is calculated with 1 km/h.
While the Atlantic branch
current needs some time to cover the distance between Scotland/Shetland
Is. and Spitsbergen (ca. 1500km), the transport of surface water into
the high North can be accomplished within a couple of weeks or several
months. All mentioned timing illustrates perfectly the
‘connection’ between WWI and Spitsbergen warming, as it
will be further explained.
Timing and ship
losses. Although WWI started in
August 1914, naval war began in earnest only two years later, when a
series of new weapons were put in use: sea mines, depth charges, new
sub-marines, and airplanes. By then naval warfare had reached a
destruction stage to which no one might have thought of only two years
earlier. The situation became dramatic when U-boats destroyed more
ships than Britain could build in early 1917. In April 1917, the same
total rate of the previous annual rate of 1916, ca. 850,000 tons, was
destroyed by U-boats. In April 1917, Britain together with the Allies
lost 10 vessels every day. During the year of 1917, U-boats alone sank
6,200,000 tons, which means about 4000 ships, and, during the war
months of 1918, another 2,500,000 ship tonnage. The total loss of the
Allies ship tonnage during WWI is of about 12,000,000 tons, namely
5,200 vessels. The total loss of the Allies together with the Axis
naval vessels (battle ships, cruisers, destroyers, sub-marines, and
other naval ships) amounted to 650, respectively 1,200,000 tons. 
A weapon scenario
churning the seas. The weapon
scenario employed since 1916 is too complex to make a full assessment.
Many figures are even impossible to quantify. The air force, for
example, went through a great development. Airplanes were increasingly
used in bombing and attacking missions over the sea. But it would be a
mere speculation to try to indicate the number of bombs, which fell and
exploded above or 
under the sea surface. We can say
the same for the
torpedoes activated or for the depth
charges dropped upon the
submarines, certainly many ten thousands of them. More detailed
information is available about the sea mines. Sea mines were planted
massively in the water column as soon as they became available since
1916. A total of about 200,000 sea mines had been deployed. Of much
powerful effect in churning the sea on a huge scale were those ships
known under the name of minesweepers, which navigated the seas day and
night to find and destroy the mines. Britain alone had more than 700
operational minesweepers; the Germans came close, too.
Churning the sea. War matters are usually quantified on the basis of costs
and destruction caused to soldiers, population, buildings, industries,
material, etc. Whether the water masses of a sea body have been turned
up side down has never been of any 
interest. But that has happened on
a
grand scale. While in many cases seawater may have remained unchanged,
temperature and salinity structure over a range of one metre to many
dozen metres of surface water was always altered by any naval activity,
whether there were weapons, sunken ships or mines planed or swept.
Naval war at the magnitude of WWI means that many thousands of vessels
navigated in defence-, combat-, or training missions, day and night.
Battle ships had a draft of ten metres and could travel at a speed of
30 knots/hour (ca. 60 km/h). In addition, the wide range of other
impacts should be at least mentioned. Most ships that were sunk
transported a variety of cargo, and all of them had equipment and
provisions on board. The total number could be somewhere in the range
of 10-15 millions tonnes. It has been never quantified how much cargo
and provisions surfaced and travelled with the currents towards the
Arctic region and how the sea and sea-ice interacted with all that
stuff - a matter that should not be ignored outright.
The naval war from1914 to
1918 can be considered as the most comprehensive single event in the
late 1910s that has altered the common sea body structure around Great
Britain through a huge variety of activities and means. In previous
sections, we have proved that an extraordinary warming phenomenon took
place at Spitsbergen. These two events are strongly connected by the
timing of each event and by the current system linking the two
locations. No other coincidence of such a close relation has ever been
observed before or after WWI. The coincident is prima facie
evidence that naval war could have caused the warming.
To many climate
scientists the Arctic warming remains “one of the most
puzzling climate anomalies of the 20th century” (Bengtsson, et al., 2004). Yet,
the phenomenon discussed here is not as puzzling as claimed. This
investigation could establish that only the seas in the realm of
Spitsbergen could have generated the sudden increase of the observed
air-temperatures, and indicate the precise time period, namely the
winter of 1918/19. This timing stands in extremely close relation with
the naval war activities in Europe.
The investigation could
furthermore demonstrate that there is a high possibility of a
connection between the Arctic warming and the naval war in Europe from
1914 to 1918, due to the fact that the seawater current system and the
war activities had torn sea areas literally to the front garden of the
Spitsbergen region. Had the naval war of WWI occurred in the
Spitsbergen area at a similar magnitude to that from the sea waters
around Great Britain, no one would have ever questioned the
interconnection between the Arctic Warming and the naval war, if not
proven otherwise.
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