2007 is the year the Northwest Passage became navigable for the first time since records began; the year scientists predicted that arctic waters could be ice-free in summer within five or six years; the year the political temperature began rising over arctic resources ownership. What do the next five years hold for us?
Much is being made of the Mayan prediction concerning the end of the present age, due to fall in our Western year of 2012, on the 21st of December. It also happens that on the same day (some sources say at precisely 11.11am GMT), our sun’s path will visually intersect the Milky Way’s galactic centre-line — something it does only once every 25,920 years. This transit is considered by many with a belief in astrology to be a highly significant event. Some religious followers of various faiths also see it as presaging a time of great change. Hollywood, inevitably, is gearing itself up for a 2012 Doomsday FilmFest. As I write, there are 1,819 days to go.
The Maya, a civilization that flourished in what is now Belize, Guatamala, Honduras, El Salvador and part of Mexico in central America from around 1,800BC to about the 9th century AD, when they went into a mysterious decline. They were the first in the area to develop a system of written language. They were also very sophisticated mathematicians and astronomers. They developed a complex and accurate Long Count Calendar capable of measuring the passage of astronomical time in huge chunks — in far greater detail than might be expected from a civilization that had no telescopes to aid their nightly observations — and it’s this calendar which has set modern-day researchers all a-quiver, for it indicates that the current age in which we live will end on 21st December 2012 — the Winter Solstice, and also the day of the great and rare galactic transition.
The Maya came to understand that the events they observed wheeling above them in the stellar sky occurred in cycles as vast as 26,000 years. The civilization itself, however, only existed in sophisticated form for some 3,000 years, and this astronomical long-sightedness can be a mystery to some in this day and age. People wonder: if they could only base their calculations on celestial phenomena observed by eye and in real time, how could they possibly have known that such a vastly long astronomical cycle even existed, much less accurately identify its beginning and forecast its end?
It’s because they grasped the significance of an astronomical phenomenon called Precession, caused by the wobble of the Earth on its axis, a process that takes almost 26,000 years to complete one cycle. It would take too long to explain it in detail here, but I’ve no need to — Roderick Marling’s already provided an excellent explanation at 2012: The Astronomy Connection. Suffice to say that the Mayan astronomers would have noticed, over periods of 70 years at a time, how sunrise on the equinoxes shifted one full degree from its previous starting point, and from this they would have been able to extrapolate a complete Precessional cycle amounting to nearly 26,000 years.
This Long Count, or Great Year, was also known to the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians and the ancient Greeks. What the Maya did for us with their way of figuring it out was to give it a start point and an end point, knowledge the other civilizations somehow managed to lose. And it’s probably worth pointing out that when the Maya were working all this out, the countries of Europe were still languishing in the Dark Ages.
I’m not here to warn you that the world as we know it will suddenly explode or implode or disappear altogether in an almighty celestial impact on that fateful day in December 2012. Indeed, that’s not necessarily what the Maya were doggedly transmitting to us down through the centuries with their Long Count Calendar. They were as much concerned with mapping the beginning of the next age as they were with acknowledging the end of the previous one — and their world view was very much steeped in matters spiritual rather than temporal. Nonetheless, some people today might consider it more than purely coincidental that global events seem to be converging in a manner threatening to culminate in a dangerous mix that could turn highly explosive just at that ill-starred time.
On 12th December 2007, BBC News Online reported that northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years. This news came from professor Wieslaw Maslowski in an address to the American Geophysical Union. He said that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.
In 1980, the summer sea-ice cover extended to 7.8 million square kilometres. By 2007, this had shrunk to just 4.2 million square kilometres. Professor Maslowski’s calculations incorporate more realistic representations of the way warm water is moving into the Arctic basin from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans — figures which have been omitted from previous forecast models.
This sea-ice shrinkage has had a profound effect on the Northwest Passage. On 14th September 2007, BBC News Online reported that for the first time since records had begun to be kept in 1978, the European Space Agency’s data showed that this fabled short cut from Europe to Asia through the Canadian Arctic was ice-free and navigable.
The opening of the sea routes is already leading to international disputes, said the BBC. Canada says it has full rights over those parts of the Northwest Passage that pass through its territory and that it can bar transit there. But this has been disputed by the US and the European Union. They argue that the new route should be an international strait that any vessel can use.
Just a few weeks earlier, on 1st August 2007, BBC News Online reported that Russia had planted a flag on the sea-bed under the North Pole as an assertion of its rights to claim large areas of the Arctic Ocean as its own. It wants to be able to drill for what may turn out to be enormous oil reserves under there. The BBC said that other states are acting to protect their interests in the Arctic. Canada is planning to build up to eight new patrol ships and the US Congress is considering a proposal to build two new heavy polar ships. It also reported that the US and Canada [are arguing] over rights in the North-west Passage, Norway and Russia differ over the Barents Sea, Canada and Denmark are competing over a small island off Greenland, the Russian parliament is refusing to ratify an agreement with the US over the Bering Sea and Denmark is claiming the North Pole itself.
The global demand for oil is still increasing at an alarming rate. We may already have passed Peak Oil — the point in time at which the maximum global petroleum production rate is reached, after which the rate of production enters its terminal decline — but this won’t stop desperate energy-hungry countries from exploring — and exploiting — areas where vast new oil fields lie waiting to be discovered. Ironically, thinning ice cover will make it easier and cheaper to extract the stuff, so let’s hope they don’t use that as an excuse to water down their anti-global warming efforts.
The bickering over who owns what has already started. It’s to be hoped that our world governments can resist the urge to flex their military muscles over these issues as December 2012 approaches.
Read my Climate Change posts in chronological order by using the Climate Change Log.
After publishing this post, I added it to Digg. It soon picked up a comment there by vemmamjf:
“…the first time since records began…” must be since 1945, since the passage was navigable that year. This “Conclusion” is based upon satellite data of no more than 29 years. This is the third time since 1900 that this passage was navigable.
You have got to do more research than watching Al Gore’s laughable movie. He doesn’t even quote his own sources correctly. How many polar bears existed in 2006? How about in 1940?
Answers: 2006: over 25,000. 1940: less than 4,000. Species over-hunting was wiping the polar bear out. The study cited found four (4) dead polar bears.
To which, as soon as I saw it this morning, I replied:
Hi vemmamjf – you’ve lifted the quote “…the first time since records began…” from my headline first paragraph, which I kept short for editorial purposes.
Later in the item I paraphrased from the BBC News story from where I got part of my info: ” … for the first time since records had begun to be kept in 1978, the European Space Agency’s data showed …” The “since records had begun to be kept in 1978″ referred specifically and only to the ESA’s record-keeping.
I haven’t seen Mr. Gore’s film yet (though I got it for Christmas). And I didn’t mention polar bears
Thanks for your comment!
It is very worrying, but as you stated the records quoted are only from 1978 which is hardly scientific is it? I mean the floods we had this summer were the worst since records began in 18XX and people were still arguing over that.
There is defiantly something happening, at what speed? What are the consequences? Should we all take action? YES
“Hardly scientific, is it?” Sorry Dave, but that dismissive comment rather frustrates me. It is ‘scientific’, in that it’s reliable data faithfully recorded by a space agency’s satellite cameras for the past 29 years. My post didn’t refer to the period before 1978 because the news item from which I quoted on this occasion didn’t mention the period prior to 1978 either. That it’s the first time in three decades that it’s been navigable is the point — an important enough point without having to refer to any years previous to 1978 when it may (or may not) have been navigable.
The original European Space Agency press release worded it thus:
“The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to its lowest level this week since satellite measurements began nearly 30 years ago, opening up the Northwest Passage – a long-sought short cut between Europe and Asia that has been historically impassable.”
On August 29th, a Canadian newspaper, the Gazette, called the opening of the Northwest Passage ‘unprecedented’. It reported that the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Centre said “this summer’s record melt of Arctic sea ice has unlocked the fabled polar shipping route more completely than ever before.” … “Analysts at the Canadian Ice Service and the U.S. National Ice Centre confirm that the passage is almost completely clear and that the region is more open than it has ever been since the advent of routine monitoring in 1972.”
They say “1972″, note — six years earlier than the ESA monitoring. I’m guessing that they mean observations from on board ships or from coastal regions or from aircraft. It’s probably also worth pointing out that a “navigable” route through the Northwest Passage means different things to different vessels: while it may have proved theoretically possible to get a small ship through in previous years (if anyone was brave enough to try it), it would have been an impossible journey for, say, an oil tanker.
Indeed, reading Wikipedia’s entry on the Northwest Passage, it soon becomes clear that using the word “fabled” in describing this passage isn’t short of the mark. The only successful trips that have ever been achieved in the past have been by hardy explorers in super-tough, well-equipped icebreakers. The first sea trip was achieved by Amundsen in 1906. It took him three years. (Prior to that, it was crossed by using dogs and sleds.) It was 1940 before another explorer succeeded by sea; there have been only a handful of other successful sea trips since then. No commercial merchant vessels have ever attempted the journey. Clearly, the sea ice has always made the trip an extremely hazardous prospect for a vessel of any size, and not one that any commercial shipping company would ever have contemplated — until, perhaps, now. The future possibility of The Northwest Passage being completely ice-free and open to commercial shipping, even for just a few months each summer, is of tremendous strategic and financial importance to the global shipping industry.
I always provide links to the facts and comments I use in my posts so that readers can access the greater detail provided by my sources — there’s always more to be digested. These blog posts of mine serve only to provide the gist of what may be several hundred words published elsewhere on any given subject. My aim is to draw attention to things that I think are important and worth keeping an eye on — but I’m only writing the ‘headlines’. The links to the associated articles provide the necessary additional background information.
Bob, sorry it offends you but I like to see my evidence before I judge stuff, and 29 years is not enough and that makes it not scientific, you cannot take one piece of evidence and say it is all you need, and with weather you need many decades and it takes many years of collated weather reports to show full and true cycles in weather patterns as meteorologists state they could only predict el Niño after many el Niño’s the same goes for tropical storms and hurricanes/typhoons (Northern or Southern Hemisphere).
I am not saying we are not in a dangerous situation and the globe isn’t warming up, far from it Bob, but I would also like to see the evidence and not just scaremongering and the odd flood here and there, they have happened in the past many, many times as have ice ages and heat waves.
As for Wiki…what a pile total junk that is, it is a badly moderated open forum that any idiot can post on. It’s like saying Joe Blogs’s website is the font of all knowledge, it’s one site that really winds me up especially when people quote from it as evidence for any argument.
On December 21st, 2012 A.D. the Mayan calendar is going to end. There are many theories and historic prophecies that claim this is the end of times. What is really going to happen at the end of the Mayan calendar? Only time will tell. Be smart… be ready. Find the best deals on everything to survive 2012 only at http://www.2012Supplies.com.
You’re putting words in my mouth, Dave — I didn’t say I was offended by your comment, I said I was rather frustrated by the dismissive nature of it.
There’s a world of difference.
(Continued below…)
The fact that the Mayan Long Count Calendar could accurately predict time on an astronomical time scale is really interesting. The change in cycle may or may not represent anything other than an astronomical oddity. The tie in with the discussion about global warming seems to overwhelm the interest in the astronomy. I can’t help but wonder if the change in ages will indeed lead to a significant change on the earth. Since this is a religious belief issue we will just have to wait to see. Almost as significant as the argument over the existence or non existence of global warming. The only difference being the heat of the idiocy involved.
Hi Neil G, many thanks for your comments.
In my radio DJ-ing days, one of the cardinal rules I was taught (and one I often broke) was: “one link, one idea.” It should probably also apply to blog posts too.
The original subject of the post was the polar meltdown angle, but while writing it I realised that the figure of “five to six years” quoted by professor Maslowski took us up to the year 2012, so I researched some additional information that would illuminate this rather tenuous but nonetheless interesting (as I saw it) connection to the Mayan calendar. Roderick Marling’s paper on the subject helped me understand how the Maya managed to calculate their Long Count using the phenomenon of precession. Where before their achievement was a mystery to me — it had previously seemed like they must have used some sort of arcane, hidden knowledge unknown to us even to this day — I could see now that it was arrived at by patient observation of physical events and the diligent application of basic mathematics.
These are the same principles we use today: we’re observing what’s going on around us, e.g. we’re measuring the rate of polar ice loss, and then we’re trying to make sense of what we’re observing by using mathematical models to predict the future and pin it down to an understandable time frame so we might know what to expect.
There were probably arguments on both sides in those far-off Mayan days — those who had faith in their priests’ predictions, and those who preferred the “wait and see” approach.
Two millennia on, and we’re really not that far removed from the Maya after all.
Dave — to continue:
There are several areas where I must take issue with you.
If these 29 years’-worth of satellite observations are insufficient to warrant the label “scientific”, then how much more time has to pass before observations such as these become “scientific” in your view? Thirty? Fifty? Five hundred? When does the “scientific” clock start ticking?
At the risk of being accused of putting words in your mouth, I think perhaps what you intended to get across was that in your view these observations are not valid rather than not “scientific”. That is quite a different matter, though I think still not applicable in this particular instance for the following reason:
“you cannot take one piece of evidence and say it is all you need” — I can when the only point being made is that the Northwest Passage has never, in all of human maritime history, been observed to be so completely ice-free, until this year, the first time it has ever been observed to be in such a state. It’s quite possible that in 2008 and in other future years, it will not be so ice-free. It’s also quite possible that in future years it will be even more ice-free. Either of these future scenarios does not invalidate the factual statement that 2007 was the first year it was observed, from space, to be so ice-free as to make it navigable in a practical sense. This observation provides a baseline marker in time that can be used when assessing the state of the Northwest passage in future years.
“with weather you need many decades and it takes many years of collated weather reports to show full and true cycles in weather patterns” — I agree with this statement, but I must reiterate that the observation we’re discussing in this particular case concerns the state of the Northwest Passage in one particular year. It’s a single indicator of how the trend of global warming seems to be affecting one part of the polar region in an observable way. Taken in isolation, it doesn’t prove that global warming is a clear and present danger, any more than do this year’s UK floods — and nor was I using it as individual proof of such. However, it is one of a number of indicators which, when taken together, point to a continuing build-up of hazardous global warming conditions.
“I am not saying we are not in a dangerous situation and the globe isn’t warming up, far from it Bob, but I would also like to see the evidence and not just scaremongering and the odd flood here and there, they have happened in the past many, many times as have ice ages and heat waves.” — Thus, if I may paraphrase, you acknowledge that we are in a dangerous situation and the globe is warming up — points on which we both agree. But you’d “like to see the evidence and not just scaremongering”, so you’re basing this opinion on … what, exactly? If you’ve yet to see any convincing evidence (I assume you classify what I’ve presented here, since it doesn’t qualify as evidence in your view, as “scaremongering”), then what is it that’s convinced you something’s going wrong?
“As for Wiki…what a pile total junk that is, it is a badly moderated open forum that any idiot can post on. It’s like saying Joe Blogs’s website is the font of all knowledge, it’s one site that really winds me up especially when people quote from it as evidence for any argument.”
Here I think you’ve thrown baby out with the bathwater. While it’s true that some recent Wiki entries have been tampered with (a Google search for Wikipedia tampering brings up about 189,000 returns — the one I’ve linked to above by way of example was published in August 2007 on the Profy web site), the entries in question have been limited to a handful that refer to individuals and institutions in the modern political and economic arena, and they were tampered with purely for modern-day politically-motivated purposes. The tampering was quickly spotted by the regular Wiki editors (of which there are some 75,000 currently active, the huge majority of which are, I’m sure, not “idiots” — I count myself amongst them) and removed or corrected. Additional safeguards were put in place for some entry genres to help prevent further scurrilous tampering of this nature.
The vast majority of the two million or so entries in English are untainted by any intentionally scurrilous tampering. They provide a rich resource of cross-referenced information and data with online sources that are checkable by any reader.
With regard to the advisability of using Wikipedia as a reference work, researchers are reminded that because Wikipedia is an ongoing work to which, in principle, anybody can contribute, it differs from a paper-based reference source in important ways. In particular, older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles more frequently contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism. Users need to be aware of this to obtain valid information and avoid misinformation that has been recently added and not yet removed. However, unlike a paper reference source, Wikipedia is continually updated, with the creation or updating of articles on topical events within seconds, minutes or hours, rather than months or years for printed encyclopedias.
This seems to me to be a common sense approach that should be adopted when reading any online website, and not just Wikipedia. But being careful in this way doesn’t mean dismissing everything one reads. Presumably, Dave, as you’re so against Wikipedia because it might be unreliable in some respects and therefore none of it can be trusted, then you don’t invest any other online information or resource with veracity for the same reason. (Not even this little blog of mine.) So from where do you glean the kind of information you trust?
The Northwest Passage entry was created in 2001, soon after the start of the Wikipedia project, and has been added to and revised hundreds of times since then. The information it contains is supported by 36 references. There is no indication that the information is bogus or has been tainted by scurrilous tampering — nor, frankly, would I expect there to be in what is an academic record of historical facts and figures, easily verifiable by following the references provided.
Much as I enjoy these lengthy debates with you, I feel I’ve devoted as much time as I can spare in discussing the side-issues raised by this particular post, but I look forward to engaging with you again when the next one’s posted!
In Reply Bob,
With Wiki as apposed to such great websites like http://www.britannica.com which is regulated by the company. Any page on wiki can be modified at anytime by anybody..doesn’t that bother you? It does me, so I just don’t use it. I have even used http://www.encyclopedia.com but the moment any of these start to be messed with by the general public I will stop using them.
Right…here goes. Weather goes in cycles and these cycles can be 10 of years, hundreds of years and even 1000’s and 10,000’s of years so just having less ice in one place this year means, what Bob, no one can say, can they? To me it’s a blip, if it happens next year then it could be a coincidence after that a pattern starts to appear. Call me cynical if you want Bob, that’s OK. A 29 year piece of research is great but it isn’t conclusive is it? As such it can’t be quoted as scientific as it isn’t complete and as such doesn’t prove anything at the moment its just a bit of incomplete research, you need to have all of the stats and they haven’t got those yet, who’s to say XXX years ago it didn’t look the same from space and it goes in cycles of XXX years?
About 25,000 years ago when the last Ice age ended and the top half of England was made..a greater part of Hull and the North East was actually deposited then by Glaciers leaving its sediment deposits behind them. These are now eroding into the sea…is this global warming or natural erosion by time and sea? The sea is rising because of Ice erosion, but also look at the fact of water displacement we are adding 100’s 100,000 tonne super tankers, massive 100,000 tonne cruise liners and tens of thousands of pleasure boats ever year. This must have an effect, it has too the laws of Physics say so also so did Archimedes with his Eureka theory of water displacement, extra water washing against ice does what? It erodes it. To me it isn’t clear cut that its just global warming causing us problems Bob, some of the problems are natural, some are man made.
Nature has been here a heck of a long time and given us droughts, floods, it’s heated us up and frozen us, who’s to say we are not in one of her cycles?
as for trusted sites for info; that depends on what information I am after, doesn’t it?
Open source pages I don’t tend to bother with, I try to go to the closest page to what I am after, say it’s about the moon then I would go to NASA And the European Space agency, if it’s weather patterns then http://www.metoffice.gov.uk and http://www.worldweather.org I would also look at closed member forums but I doubt I would use this info as facts or collated information.
I’ll explain in a different way: I am a Pro Tools user and every now and then I may come across a problem I cannot solve. My first port of call is the Digidesign website, then the official Pro Tool Forum (moderated by Digi but used by members) I would never use just an open forum.
I try to be the same about most things, I love Egyptian history and The History Channel does some great programmes, and Pro Bob Brier is an amazing font of knowledge of Egyptian History, and when he says something is surmised I know it isn’t a fact but guess work, you can’t do that with sites like wikipedia or any open source website. Bob I read your blog as I find it very interesting and good entertainment, you look into things and have a passion for what you are interested in.
Thank you Dave.
I had read an earlier article on the Mayan calendar claiming that the 2012 date is in line with a Chinese record of a supernova about 6 years after the generally accepted date of Christs birth. The article was making the point that it looked to the author like a significant event was likely to happen in 2012.
I happen to agree with you about the global warming issue. My concern is not with the cause but with the effect. In the 1970′s I worked in the Marshall Islands. Since that time they have lost about 20% of their land area to a raising ocean. Most people when talking about a small raise in the sea level do not consider the tides. Tides raise the level at specific shores far in excess of the overall average. Kind of like drowning in a lake with an average depth of one inch.
Good luck in the new year.
Thank you, Neil. Based on what you’ve said about the Chinese link, I’ve started looking through some sites that might shed some light on that.
Yesterday I was watching re-runs (on the BBC’s HD channel) of a recent BBC2 TV series, Earth: The Power Of The Planet with Dr. Iain Stewart. In programme three — Ice — he showed us just how appallingly fast the world’s glaciers are now melting compared with just a decade or so ago. I was truly shocked by what I saw — especially the time-lapse pictures of glacier movement, and the aerial and satellite photographs depicting the extent to which glaciers have shrunk back along their lengths and decreased in thickness. It was horrifying evidence that should make everyone sit up and take notice.
My post North Polar Meltdown highlighted a journalist’s visit to a Greenland glacier in September. It made sobering reading then; in light of what I saw on TV yesterday, it’s now even more worrying.
We here in Somerset have along our coast the second highest tidal range in the world — 15 metres, or 49 feet. (It’s bettered only by the Bay of Fundy in Canada, by a couple of feet — and note, Dave, that’s not a Wikipedia reference!) There have been a number of occasions in the past when our sea defences have been breached by unusually high tides and storm surges with disastrous consequences for the low-lying land of the Somerset Levels, which is why I’m particularly interested in how global warming will affect sea levels and tides.
Expect a post about it soon!
LOL….I have walked out to the sea at Western on a low tide day it took ages and we told off by the Police when we returned!!!! saying there are known area’s of quick sand out there and we were stupid!!!! I have to say I was about 19 and smoking certain additives at the time… I still don’t remember there being signs saying don’t follow the sea?
The glacier melt is scary. I worked in Juneau and Anchorage Alaska in the late 1970′s and early 1980′s. I toured several glaciers during this period. The recent TV documentary pictures and articles showing their conditions are amazing. At first I did not believe I was looking at the same glaciers. When I was there the discussion was about the advances and retreats they had undergone over several decades. Now it seems that there is only long term retreat.
Thank you Bob for reviewing Star Trek-Sci Fi Blog. Your altruistic words of logic meant alot to me.