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Climate changing, but we’re still here

We have a daily weather review and weather commentaries regarding future weather predictions.

Here is one you might find interesting:

The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers who sail the seas about Spitzbergen and the eastern arctic all point to a radical change in climate conditions, and hitherto unheard-of high temperatures in that part of the earth’s surface.

In August, the Norwegian Department of Commerce sent an expedition to Spitzbergen. Its purpose was to survey and chart the lands adjacent to the Norwegian mines on those islands, take soundings of the adjacent waters and make other oceanographic investigations.

Ice conditions were exceptional. In fact, so little ice has never before been noted. The expedition all but established a record, sailing as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes in ice-free water. This is the farthest north ever reached with modern oceanographic apparatus.

The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a recent report to the Commerce Department. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes.

Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the Gulf Stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraine of earth and stones, while at many points, well — known glaciers have entirely disappeared.

Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

If this news makes you fearful and worried that the earth will be altered, if not destroyed in a few years, take heart: This news appeared in the edition of the Washington Post published on Nov. 2, 1922 — nearly 100 years ago.

And surprisingly, Miami, Florida is not yet under water. The climate is changing all the time, and those who claim that the earth will be destroyed or seriously changed for the worse in a few years probably have not previously read the 1922 article presented here.

If read, will it alter their perception on climate?

William J. Kirsch

Roaring Spring

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