Adolf Hitler started World War II in September 1939, and initiated the longest and biggest climate change of the last century. This book is about oceans, wars at sea and climate changes. It focuses on two major climate changes, which happened because man abused oceans through naval warfare two times during the last century.
The severe winter period in North Europe lasted from mid-December 1939 until April 1940. It was the coldest for more than 100 years. Allowing navies to participate in a war at sea, in Northern Europe natural heat reservoir, is like hastily stirring a hot soup to cool it down for quick consumption. Once the heat storage of North Sea and Baltic Seas has been diminished, water will warm again only during the next year summer.
The statistics for the war winter temperatures between 1939 and 1942 is nothing less than a “Big Bang”. In five out of six locations nothing comparable has ever happened since temperature observations have been made.
The chapter will focus on the warming trend (1918-1939) and on the cooling trend (1939-1980). Naval war and supply across the seas became part of ocean physics for a long time. Correspondingly climatic changes during WWII have two distinct periods, namely the period before Pearl Harbour and the period thereafter. From September 1939 until early 1942, naval warfare was largely confined to European waters, than war at sea became a global matter.
The book shows that the war activities on sea during WWI and WWII correlate perfectly with the only two significant climatic changes between 1900 and 2000. The first one started in 1918 and lasted until 1939, while the second started in the winter of 1939/40 and came to an end in the early 1980s. The temperature rise during the recent 25 years can have “new causes”, but it might as well be a resume of the steep temperature rise between 1918 and 1939, interrupted by WWII.
