One cold wave after the other took hold of Northern Europe in what was called an arctic climate, since mid-December 1939. Nothing similar has happened in more than 100 years. Only three months earlier, more than 1000 naval vessels went out on sea and turned the waters of the North-and Baltic Sea upside-down. Day and night, week after week, many thousands of ships criss-crossed these seas, millions of “sea fountains” sprang up, being caused by shells, bombs, depth charges, sea mines, torpedoes. Ships and airplanes sank to the sea bottom with hundreds.

If war at sea changes the climate, such an event would have tremendous political implications. If there are significant political implications in 2006, there must have been in 1939 too, but unfortunately no one knew what was at stake at that time.

On the 1st of September 1939, Germany launched land, air and sea attacks on Poland. Soon, the Nazis deployed 5,000 planes upon Poland. On the 25th of September 1939, 240 German planes bombed Warsaw, dropping 560 tons of bombs (including the first bomb of 1,000 kg). 30 transport aircrafts dropped 70 tons of firebombs.

The autumn of 1939 has a unique importance for climate research. On the 1st of September 1939, climate statistics was free from any “external” influence. The winter of 1938/39 had been the warmest in the past few hundred years. Since the end of the WWI, Europe had become warmer every year.

This investigation is not concerned with naval history but with global warming, respectively climate changes. Describing military events in Europe since September 1939 would require any historical writer to make the distinction between activities on land, in the air and at sea. Military aspects interest us only as far as they affect the climate.