Read the new Book Publication - 2012
Book details:
Author Dr. Arnd Bernaerts;
Manufactured and published by: Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt ; ISBN 978-3-8448-1284-8,
232 pages, about 200 figures (if maufactured in the USA the 14 color pages are only in b/w).
at: www.seaclimate.com

C.  War calls the ice age back on duty – Winter 1939/40
Draft/Rev.07May

C1.  Idiots, Severity, Experiment. 

The winter 1939/40 does not only covers the first six months of a six years long murderous war, but it marks also the first very pronounced climatic shift since the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA), which had finished its reign around 1850.  The shift did not came as a smooth turn from warming to cooling, but temperature over Europe fell on the continent like a force of a sledgehammer.  In many region and  location it was the coldest winter since about the 1820s. The book will dedicate the most of its elaboration to this winter because a bunch of idiots, in an objective sense, acting as the government of the Third German Reich made all this to happen. 

Fig.1: World Temperature Anomaly in January 1940, the most severe in the Nasa/Giss record series with –10°C during the entire January 1940 in the marked location.

 Unfortunately, back in summer 1939 there was no voice that warned Adolf Hitler and his consorts that a major war in general, and a naval warfare in particular, would bear a high risk of a dangerous interfering in the weather and atmospheric commons, with unknown consequences.  In addition, no one mentioned how stupid it would be to start with naval war activities in the European northern waters in early autumn. It would lessen heat stored in The North and Baltic Sea. This heat is the essence for moderate winters in Europe. No, Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler and the High Command of the Wehrmacht had no idea of the risk, neither their professional adviser. The personal responsibility, for weather and climate modification in winter 1939/40 and beyond, was never raised. That should come, in the light of the current discussion on climate change, as a surprise.

 It is an irony that the deputy to Adolf Hitler, Field Marshal Herman Göring[1], saw this differently, when he said in a speech in mid February 1940[2]: 

• “Nature is still more powerful than man. I can fight man but I cannot fight nature when I lack the means to carry out such battle. We did not ask for ice, snow and cold - a higher power sent it to us” and 
• “These troubles, naturally, take precedence over yours. They are not a German patent – look at the nations around, you having the same difficulties.” 

 Here erred Göring, as he erred in many things. The winter severity was man  made, not necessarily alone, but the war contributed to the harsh conditions substantially. In northern Germany several all time records were broken, e.g. in Hamburg on 13. February with –29.1°C/-21°F. Many other placed also faced extreme temperatures reported the New York Times (NYT), for example: Copenhagen –25°F/-32°C (14.Feb.), Baltic countries –54°F/-48°C (14.Feb), Budapest –28°F/–33°C (15.Feb). “More than 40.000 frozen Russian corpses are said to be hidden under the snow.”(16 Feb.), and the NYT titled on 21st February a report: “Scandinavia is colder. Sweden suffers 32 below zero, worst since 1805”. That is something to take note of.  

Fig.2, Winter T°C (DJF) with a deviation of -6,7°C for three months

The result, only six months into war, rectifies to call the German leadership – in retrospect- not only idiots, but also environment criminals. Within six months they had turned the European winter weather up-side-down. “The widespread tendency towards mild winters seemed to have gone for ever”; bemoaned  the already mentioned  scientist from the Kew Observatory only a short time later (Drummond, 1943). On the February  followed a very cold March, and at the end of the year, at least for Central Europe, e.g. Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungry, it was not only the strongest winter for more than 100 years, but the entire year 1940 became the coldest of the 20th Century. 

 The whole matter should have been shocking to the political leaders and the meteorological services around the world, but not even the smallest raise of an eye brown could be observed. Latest by the end of February 1940, it was possible to realize that the harsh winter conditions did not have come out of the blue, but had to do with the war machinery in action. By now it was possible to realize that naval warfare had pushed the sea areas in the realm of the European continent into condition that prevented them to supply the atmosphere with the heat as it used to do during peace time. 

Fig.3: T°C published be news papers in Februry 1940

 But nothing had happened to understand and to explain the conditions and the story of the making of the extreme winter weather over the first six months into WWII, neither in spring 1940, nor when also the next two war winter run amok, and not after WWII had finished. Meanwhile 70 years have passed and science still does not know why the winter 1939/40 was the coldest for more than a century in parts of Northern Europe. 

 That is very difficult to understand. For climate research the 1^st war winter offered also a unique chance. In a flippant way one could say: “Bingo”. There is no question that the hard ship man did to man during the war was horror pure and extreme sad. But if the matter is called a unique opportunity, the situation is different, namely man versus nature. Seeing it in this way the clash is abstract, which  happened many decades ago, and it would use a worst scenario for a good cause, by regarding the first six month of naval war as a large-scale experiment with climate. 

 The conditions for an experiment in autumn 1939  and winter 1939/40 are ideal:

• Nature has been warming since the end of the LIA. 
• No unusual event, e.g. sun spot, volcano, tsunami, had been observed.
• No one has expected a sudden arrival of an extreme winter.
• During the first months at war man’s activities took place in a natural environment, in the sense that data records and series had not altered by an anthropogenic impact, an aspect one can not be sure concerning data collected the longer the war lasted. 
• During the first few months any war and naval activities can to some limited extent be viewed individually, which seems widely impossible the more the war activities increased, spread, intensified, and lasted. 
• However, there are two very important pre-condition for regarding the early war months fit for a field experiment, which are:
• that the war activities commenced in September. At this time the sea areas around Great Britain, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea finished to store summer heat, and the matter reverse, and
• the experiment is undertaken during the winter season, when the direct influence of the sun between France, Switzerland, Bulgaria, and the North Pole is low. During the winter season a considerable part of the  heating of Northern Europe is provided by the ocean and seas. 
• It is furthermore to note that the naval war during the first war months was not completely confined to the North and Baltic Sea, but reached far out in the North Atlantic and up to the Barents Sea. That was modest, compared to what happened only a couple of months later, but can and should not ignored in the entire picture 

The confinement of the investigation to the winter season is the key to detect the cause of the extreme winter weather 1939/40, namely, naval warfare in the marine environment. 

Fig.4