A climate revolution in the Arctic?
By oceanclimate.de/01 March 2009
1919 Spitsbergen:
Probably the greatest yet known
temperature rise on earth.
B.J. Birkeland, 1930

1938
In recent years attention is being directed more
and more towards a problem which may possibly prove
of great significance in human affairs, the rise of temperatures
in the northern hemisphere, and especially in the arctic regions.
C.E.P. Brooks, 1938.

The enormous temperature rise at Spitsbergen in the late 1910s settled only slowly in the scientific community of those days. The extraordinary event lasted from 1918 to 1939. Meanwhile almost a full century has passed, and what do we know about this event ?  Very little! Scientific literature is quite superficial concerning all three questions: Where? When? Why? What is the context?

Beginning around 1850 the Little Ice Age ended and the climate began warming. For a long time, at least since 1650 which marked the first climatic minimum after a Medieval warm period, the Little Ice Age brought bitterly cold winters to many parts of the world, but is most thoroughly documented in the Northern Hemisphere as Europe and North America. The decreased solar activity and the increased volcanic activity are considered as causes. However, the temperature increase was remote and once again effected by the last major volcanic eruption of the Krakatoa in 1883. Up to the 1910s the warming of the world was modest. Suddenly that changed. In the Arctic the temperatures literally exploded in winter 1918/19.

2009

In recent summers the ice in the polar region melted away at an unprecedented speed. Is the Arctic screaming? Is a tipping point reached? Is the ice melting apocalyptic? What is the cause? Was the current warming set in motion by the early Arctic warming which started since the late 1910s, and lasted from 1919 to 1939?  A new book, will provide astonishing, but important answers. 

 The book: “How Spitsbergen Heats the World” will be available soon. Ca. 120 pages and color images; published by BoD Norderstedt. 

 Cover & Images from the new book