The importance of the little qualifying words - part 1 - Polar ice

The BBC like to slip little qualifying words into their reports, words that slip by and when missed change the sense of the article. Here's an example, this report is headlined 'Record minimum for Arctic sea ice' but that's not the actual story. Here's what the report says:

'Arctic sea ice has reached its minimum extent for the year, setting a record for the lowest summer cover since satellite data collection began.'

'Since satellite data collection began' - so how far back does this record go? Let's see the first satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched in 1957 (55 years ago in a few weeks time) but the data collection of polar ice started in 1979. So we have a mimimum sea ice level for 33 years. 

Here are some more extracts from that BBC report:

'Scientists say they are observing fundamental changes in sea ice cover. The Arctic used to be dominated by multiyear ice, or ice that survived through several years.

Recently, the region is characterised by seasonal ice cover and large areas are now prone to completely melt away in summer.

The sea ice extent is defined as the total area covered by at least 15% of ice, and varies from year to year because of changeable weather.

However, ice extent has shown a dramatic overall decline over the past 30 years.

...

Some ships have already been cutting their journey times by sailing a previously impassable route north of Russia.'

Fascinating and scary, well no. I wonder how much sea ice there was at the North Pole during the Medieval Warm Period, that's the period that warmists ignore when they show you world temperatures increasing due to man's technology.

But you don't have to go back that far to find less sea ice at the North Pole, Watts Up With That has some photos of nuclear submarines in open water at the North Pole in 1958, 1959, 1962, 1987 and 1993. Here's three of the many photos, take a look at the full set, they are fascinating.

1958

1962

1987


What is always fascinating at Watts Up With That are the depth of knowledge of the commenters. Here's one comment that I think should be compulsory reading at the BBC and every school who teach the science/religion of Man Made Climate Change.

'” Claims of unprecedented warmth and abnormal melting of meltic arctic ice are unfounded if we look at history;

1 The following link describes the ancient cultures of the warmer arctic 5000 to 1000 years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lithoderm/Inuit_culture

2 This relates to an Arctic culture thriving in warmer times 2000 years ago
From the Eskimo Times Monday, Mar. 17, 1941
The corner of Alaska nearest Siberia was probably man’s first threshold to the Western Hemisphere. So for years archeologists have dug there for a clue to America’s prehistoric past. Until last year, all the finds were obviously Eskimo. Then Anthropologists Froelich G. Rainey of the University of Alaska and two collaborators struck the remains of a town, of inciedible size and mysterious culture. Last week in Natural History Professor Rainey, still somewhat amazed, described this lost Arctic city.
It lies at Ipiutak on Point Hope, a bleak sandspit in the Arctic Ocean, where no trees and little grass survive endless gales at 30° below zero. But where houses lay more than 2,000 years ago, underlying refuse makes grass and moss grow greener. The scientists could easily discern traces of long avenues and hundreds of dwelling sites. A mile long, a quarter-mile wide, this ruined city was perhaps as big as any in Alaska today (biggest: Juneau, pop. 5,700).
On the Arctic coast today an Eskimo village of even 250 folk can catch scarcely enough seals, whales, caribou to live on. What these ancient Alaskans ate is all the more puzzling because they seem to have lacked such Arctic weapons as the Eskimo harpoon.
Yet they had enough leisure to make many purely artistic objects, some of no recognizable use. Their carvings are vaguely akin to Eskimo work but so sophisticated and elaborate as to indicate a relation with some centre of advanced culture — perhaps Japan or southern Siberia —certainly older than the Aztec or Mayan

3 This link leads to the Academy of science report of the same year regarding the Ipiutak culture described above
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1078291

4 This refers to the Vikings living in a warmer arctic culture 1000 years ago
People might be interested in reading a very interesting book about the Vikings called ‘The Viking world’. It is a very scholarly and highly referenced book running to some 700 pages and deals with all aspects of the Vikings. It is good because it does not have an axe to grind, but deals matter of factly with all aspects of Viking culture and exploration.
There is a large section on their initial exploration of Greenland, the subsequent establishment of their farms there, everyday life, how they gradually lost access to the outside world as the sea lanes closed through ice, a record of the last wedding held In Greenland and how trade dried up. It also deals with Vinland/Newfoundland and it seems that it was wild grapes that helped give the area its name, it being somewhat warmer than today.
This is one of a number of similar books that record our warmer and cooler past throughout the Northern Hermisphere. Al Gore wrote a good book in 1992 called ‘Earth in the Balance’ in which he explored the changing climate that devastated the civilisations in the Southern Hemishpere.
The book ‘The Viking World’ is Edited by Stefan Brink with Neil Price Published by Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 33315-3
I suggest you borrow it from the local library as it costs $250!

5 This refers to a warmer arctic 75 years ago recorded on Pathe newsreel by Bob Bartlett on the Morrisey during his journeys there in the 1920’s and 1930’s and reported in all the media.
http://boothbayharborshipyard.blogspot.com/2008/08/arctic-explorer-on-ways.html
Wednesday, 10th August 1932
The ship rolled heavily all night and continues to do so….
The glacier continues its disturbances. No real bergs break off but great sheets of ice slide down into the water and cause heavy seas. About noon, the entire face of the glacier, almost a mile in length and six or eight feet deep slid off with a roar and a rumble that must have been heard at some distance. We were on deck at the time for a preliminary report like a pistol shot had warned us what was coming. The Morrissey rolled until her boats at the davits almost scooped up the water and everything on board that was not firmly anchored in place crashed loose. But this was nothing to the pandemonium on shore. I watched it all through the glasses. The water receded leaving yards of beach bare and then returned with a terrific rush, bringing great chunks of ice with it. Up the beach it raced further and further, with the Eskimos fleeing before it. It covered all the carefully cherished piles of walrus meat, flowed across two of the tents with their contents, put out the fire over which the noonday meal for the sled drivers was being prepared, and stopped a matter of inches before it reached the pile of cement waiting to be taken up the mountain. Fortunately, in spite of heavy sea, which was running, the Captain had managed to be set shore this morning so he was there with them to help straighten out things and calm them down.”

The arctic has periodically warmed to greater amounts than today-there is additional data from the Royal society, The Hudson Bay co and many other sources illustrating that there seems to be a cycle of extensive warming every 80 years or so contained within a longer cycle of melt and cold. A tiny reduction in ice extent since 1979 ( A high point in ice levels) is of no consequence if you look at the historical record of this region
Tonyb'

The cherry picking of data and deliberate selection of start & end points for data comparison is an easy way to manipulate people's minds and is something that the warmists have been doing for years.