By ROBERT SEITZ
There has been a lot of press on the decline of the crab fishery in the Bering Sea. Most of the articles and presentations about this blame human-caused climate change and marine heat waves.
As an engineer, I looked in to these claims to determine how much truth there is to the claims. As an Arctic engineer, I have studied sea ice. As an oceanographic instrument engineer, I have collected and processed data from the waters of Alaska. As a deckhand on a Kachemak Bay crab processing ship in 1957, I have an interest in crab. And as an Alaskan, I have an interest in making sure the news and stories of Alaska are reasonable true.
In an earlier column I stated: “It is not that we have hotter weather; we just have less cold in the winter” in response to the claim that Alaska is warming two to three times faster than the rest of the planet.
A review of air temperature and sea water temperature at St. Paul Island, and of the sea ice extent and area of the Bering Sea supports that statement: For the time during and preceding the lowest sea ice extent and the warmest temperatures in the Bering Sea at St Paul Island, there was a lack of air temperatures much below freezing for each of those years.
Beginning in 2022 the sea ice extent and area for the Bering Sea has approached values of the last century. In late 2021 more extreme low air temperatures were present at St Paul Island, which resulted in sea water temperatures falling below freezing, promoting the growth of sea ice. The extreme low air temperatures were also present in 2022, 2023, and at the beginning of 2024, which saw sea ice extent close to the historical value. We’ll see what the winter of 2024/2025 will bring.
With the sea ice extent getting back to normal with resultant lower ocean water temperatures, the recovery of the crab populations should continue. The point of this column is to voice my objection to reporters, op-ed authors, and bloggers who want to vent about the changing weather, and blame the changes on human-caused climate change and human-caused warming. Reporters should state the observable facts and not preface their presentation by stating that human-caused warming due to CO2 emission from fossil fuels is the cause.
My investigations show me that we don’t have a heating problem, but we do have a cooling problem.
Most of climate articles do not mention we have been recovering from the Little Ice Age. There are many historical accounts of extreme cold during recent past centuries during which the Hudson River, the Thames River, and canals in Holland froze each winter. During that same time the summers were warm in the interior of Alaska, even while glaciers advanced.
We should encourage our Alaska scientists to do some real science about our weather and our climate to determine what kind of response should be expected from a recovery from the Little Ice Age, instead of accepting the claim that changes in our weather is due to greenhouse gas, when scientific observations do not support that claim.
If we stop the doomsday approach to weather observations, and accept that we have some change in weather around the globe, we can then find ways to adapt to what we have. It looks to me like we are getting our cold back, as the waters around Alaska are gradually getting back to their historically normal temperatures.
We have had weather anomalies in the past which were extremely abnormal. In 1957 the Gulf of Alaska was 10 degrees above normal. The king crab in lower Cook Inlet moved out to deeper cooler water during that event. Crabbers were wondering where all the crab went that year. In 1958 it rained 96 inches in 90 days in Chinitna Bay on the western side of Lower Cook Inlet. In 1967 it rained in the Interior of Alaska hard enough for 8 days in August that the Yukon River, Tanana River, Chena River, and others were so full that the Tanana and Chena overflowed their banks and flooded the Fairbanks area. In 1948 there was a flood in Fairbanks, but it was not nearly as bad. It was a spring break up flood.
It is time to combat the myth of greenhouse gas warming, change the conversation to the change in weather as we finish our recovery from the Little Ice Age. Then we can change the priorities of our transitions with renewable and alternate energy resources.
I still advocate for communities to use whatever alternate energy is most appropriate for their community, where there is no natural gas pipeline to provide their energy. I advocate for the installation of micro-nuclear reactors for those communities for which there is not a reliable natural source their community can develop. I also continue to advocate for the increase production of Cook Inlet natural gas to keep that as the primary fuel for the Railbelt for the foreseeable future.
And while we are at it, let’s keep Eklutna Dam, as it has provided reliable electric power for a long time and now provides water for a large portion of Alaska’s population, and if expanded could provide storage for the renewable energy resource that will be developed to supplement the Cook Inlet gas supply.
We do have some warming as evidenced by our extended growing season for much of Alaska, but does not seem to be expanding rapidly at all. With evidence that extreme cold temperatures are returning each winter that should provide some comfort to those who are concerned. It is time to learn more about our weather and how the cold of winter makes it all work. We all need to apply critical thinking to the information we gather, so that we can respond most sensibly to the events with which we are faced. I’m looking forward to a fresh batch of Bering Sea crab in a few years.
Robert Seitz is a professional electrical engineer and lifelong Alaskan.
Interesting !
Climate change is more about control and social change than it is about the environment. The biggest problem with our oceans is pollution. For many third world countries streams and rivers are their garbage disposals, all of which run into the ocean. Clean up the oceans? Naw, there’s no money in that, just ask Al Gore and John Kerry.
You are correct, this scam is 100% an effort to impoverish the people in developed nations and bring them under the control of the government. Freedom in the world is dead, unless you live off the land in a third world country. Everywhere else in the world, you can only do it if you have the government’s permission.
Thank you for a sensible argument explaining that there is weather that changes and it has been doing just that Sense the earth was formed.
The climate scary cats need a real education to understand what they attempt to explain is far bigger than man.
If the climate was really heating up by man why don’t they outlaw any kind of sporting event or concert as these are unnecessary events using large amounts of energy to put on.
Also stop all wars as they cause real damage to earth.
The myth of greenhouse warming, I agree one hundred percent. The North Atlantic is my home, where Maine is the least populated State is the United States and there are no sea lanes. We had the birth of our first whale in the North Atlantic, a huge event for the North Atlantic Whales!!!
I can only reiterate what Robert Seitz has stated because he is correct.
Alaska needs to apply critical thinking, ignoring the doomsday theory, greenhouse gases. Funding is needed for real Scientific research into obvious, traditional and historical weather patterns – the Crab population moves, according to temps, recovers and has recovered. A lull in production is a norm in extreme conditions and we are recovering from the little ice age! The Eklutna Dam is invaluable renewable energy resource, supplying gas to the Cook Inlet. This is of inestimable worth!! Alaska sits on valuable reserves for itself and the Country – second to Russia in natural gas. This Country need import nothing!!!
Robert Seitz is correct. His are the words that give hope for Alaska to the mainland States. We’re afraid for what you will allow to happen in the great State of Alaska. Russia and China will turn you into the Ukraine for the valuable resources you hold. Your politicians are money grabbers and thrived – everyone knows this. Your thinking is not rational and far from critical!
Thank you, Robert Seitz!
Coming out of Alaska, these are the first sensible words I have read!
This author is fantastically imagining we can effect the climate like a terrarium. The cost for this rent seeking, green washing profiteering mindset, intended or not, is unfathomable and ignored.
Take the pump storage pablum. The readers are not told of the cost as well as the fact that it is only needed if destructive, inefficient, expensive, ecologically disastrous renewable of solar and wind are allowed to be forced on us. This in a state awash in coal, gas and oil.
One must believe that the transition is needed at all and more importantly that Alaska, with the insignificant and tiny footprint its puny grid’s emissions are should pay ANY credence or efforts to especially considering that Alaska depends so heavily on a carbon rich lifestyle and that supplying petrochemical industry is it’s life blood.
You need to reread the piece, starting with the title. Seitz is not claiming humans can impact climate like a terrarium. Rather, he is pointing out how nature tends to do whatever it wants to do without our help.
As to pumped storage. It is an affordable response to the storage problem associated with all renewables (other than nukes and hydro). Renewables are coming to the RailBelt regardless of what we want. They will be done on the standard green cramdown method. They will also be imposed without storage leading directly to rolling blackouts and system instability. Pumped storage is an affordable response to the cramdown. Think of it as a defensive move. Cheers –
agrimarc
Thank you. RealisticAK must not have been reading my commentaries, or they would know that I have been campaigning against renewable mandates and have been advocating for long duration energy storage where renewables are being added for whatever reason, to ensure their energy is fully captured for use when needed.
The “renewable energy” movement is crippling our economy because of all the tax breaks and subsidy given to promote this falsehood with printed money, making every dollar we hold or earn worth less every year. Based on the 2008 dollar, the dollar today is worth about 32 cents.
Global warming in such a short period of time lends to the already overwhelming evidence of the same.
Large numbers of biological bodies give off heat.
The noble King Crab have become victims.
We need to decipher between science and religion and survive.
Read the article before commenting. If you’re having trouble understanding it, find someone to help you.
3rd Generation Alaskan Yes living bodies give off heat, and clear night skies dump a lot of that heat to the universe. Not sure what your point is. What is important is that their is no conflict between science and my religion. As long as science is done correctly and one makes proper decisions based on the scientific results. One has problems with survival in Alaska when one makes stupid decisions.
Atmosphere traps heat and heat gravitates back to earth.
There are over 2,000 different religions and many with incorrect information, the great flood, parting of the Red Sea, earth is 6,000 years old and was created by a human, people walking on water, all unproven and superstitious hocus pocus.
Summarize,; 8 billion people have everything to do with recent, rapid global warming which is a conservative concept.
So much to say. So little time.
1. Heat has no mass and therefore does not gravitate.
2. There are at least 4 explanations for the Great Flood – filling of the Med, filling of the Black Sea, impact event that created Burkle Crater in the Indian Ocean – all of which took place in human memory (Biblical times).
3. From the perspective of when Genesis was written, it’s not a bad description of the modern big bang theory.
4. Your proof that 8 billion have everything to do with recent, rapid global warming is precisely what? Note for the record that you completely ignore the exit from the Little Ice Age in the 19th Century.
From here, it appears you believe humanity is the problem. In my world, humanity is the solution, though more likely we are simply along for the ride, which means time, energy and resources ought to be spent in mitigating the impact of climate shifts rather than trying to control them. Of course, the notion of controlling climate by controlling humanity is really appealing to a certain segment of humanity, which is both nothing new and a fool’s errand. Cheers –
Heat is absorbed into the atmosphere which consists of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other gases and does gravitate back to the earths surface. You are incorrect on the rest of your post.
Summarize; I recommend you do some research, click around on Wikipedia, google. Try to stay open minded and learn.
What great commentary Mr. Seitz, one to marvel at! Yes, critical thinking is a commodity today in this messed up “politically corrupt” State / Nation. Thank you for the historical review of Alaska’s ” climatic changes ” of natural occurrences witnessed over time. Liberty Ed Martin Jr, 60 plus year Alaskan.
“We should encourage our Alaska scientists to do some real science about our weather and our climate to determine what kind of response should be expected from a recovery from the Little Ice Age, instead of accepting the claim that changes in our weather is due to greenhouse gas, when scientific observations do not support that claim.”
Unfortunately, there’s no money in that. The money is in perpetuating the alarmist point of view.
It’s all over when it’s over, so get what you can! Nothing lasts forever: everything is in flux.
All we need to do is apply “critical thinking,” eh? Sure, but keep your eyes on the prize! It’s the lucre, bud!
Don’t worry about Alaska getting too hot too soon. As long as someone keeps seeding the upper atmosphere with microplastics, we will continue to have less sun heat days throughout the Valley and in the State. Talk to the University of Alaska and their HAARP manager (Robert McCoy) to find out exactly what is going on. NSF5 year grant of $9.3 million to UAF and HAARP to study the ionosphere. Read the NSF 2022- 2026 Strategic Plan which gives over $8.8 billion dollars in grants for: Pandemic Response, Economic Recovery, Racial Equity, and addressing Climate Change. Interesting read. You won’t have to worry, your life is being figured out for you in a Global Society.
We don’t necessarily have a warming problem as pertains to the decline of the crab fisheries. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is the fact that NOAA/NMFS have allowed the Seattle based factory trawl fleet to drag football field sized nets across thousands of square miles of crab habitat and nursery grounds in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska for decades now. Where trawling has been curtailed in Alaska crab populations have rebounded enough to have limited commercial harvest opportunities for local fishermen. Global warming has become a convenient scapegoat for fisheries managers such as ADF&G, NOAA/NMFS & NPFMC who have failed to reign in the Seattle based factory trawl fleet due to corruption and lack of political will to stand up to the powerful Washington State Congressional delegation.
What is not mentioned ,and is far more important is the migration of crabs for better food source for their diet. It means that crabs have patterns of life in areas that can sustain their intact of food and when the food is gone, they go to another neighborhood that has what they need. That means they travel miles and miles away from where a fisherman may have fished, giving the impression of that area being fished out. It wasn’t fished pout, it simply didn’t have the food for the crab to sustain its life and the crab took the initiative and moved to better feeding. All of this done underwater where they can deal with rising and lowering of seasonal temperatures of the waters. They don’t die off but just move on!
Exactly what I was thinking. 10 billion dead crabs? I’m thinking they just moved somewhere more likable to them.
Yep, they all walked off–10 billion of ’em! Like a mega-Exodus, eh? Eat your heart out, Moses!
Cold is the absence of heat, which AGW is giving us in abundance. This is remarkable because we should be cooling now in this interglacial period, and the author appears to not know this along with a great deal else.
You are doing your readers or the livable planet no favors by posting wordy anecdotal drivel that in no way undermines climate science, which is why it doesn’t include any either, just the functional equivalent of “thoughts and prayers” for more crab.
Seitz outlines his credentials and life experience, and clearly lays out the science, the exact OPPOSITE of “anecdotal drivel”. Your comment, on the other hand, is made up of hollow blather with virtually NO information to back up your alarmist claims. – M.John
I’m considering the response to the Little Ice Age, since it was after the last glacial period, so warming is what I would expect. I did recommend “thought”, but not prayers, in this writing as I called for critical thinking. I did indicate that it appears that we are seeing a return of cooling in recent years. Prayers can provide a lot when you are seeking guidance.
The author, Seitz, states in support of his argument that Alaska’s huge decline in the crab population is not caused by human induced global warming that:
“ It is not that we have hotter weather; we just have less cold in the winter.”
Seriously? Yep, read it again! And the reader is supposed to believe what this “expert” says?
Yes, I have read it again! And, Seitz is perfectly right.
Since the official records deal with average annual values without providing the actual temperature values. When we have less extreme cold values, but have normal summer time values the average value is much higher than it used to be, but without adding more heat. We just don’t loose as much heat as we do when we have extreme cold.
Thank you for addressing this issue so sensibly. Life is change, therefore, adapt. I do take issue w/nuclear reactors that could melt down. I have been hoping technology could get them even smaller, to where they can’t melt down, and perhaps we could set them up accordingly, especially considering earthquakes rock our region.
But I’m also glad you addressed the Cook Inlet and Eklutna Dam issues. I lived through the ‘energy crisis’ of the 70s, but I personally find this to be much much more concerning.
Human caused global warming is THE biggest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. It’s a Marxist effort on a world-wide magnitude to phase out the internal combustion engine, halt oil and coal production, push all countries into a communist-style One World Government and spread the wealth of highly productive countries, like the US, to every Third World country, while enriching a few dictators who would otherwise rule the World. This plot has been developing for decades and is coming to fruition through indoctrination of young people, a willing media, and ultra greedy politicians ……..particularly in the Western Hemisphere. It’s real and it’s happening quickly before your eyes.
I blame the draggers for the damage caused to Alaska fisheries. They wreck and kill everything in their path.
When you have no other option, claim Nazi or global warming.
“DK, How dare you speak logically!!!”
WELL DONE SIR 👍
Here here! Thankyou for the other side of the debate; and to be unafraid of the haters.
The debate is not even that of climate change. Any knowledgeable person knows climate has been constantly changing since the beginning of the earth. Anyone believing climate should not be changing should be viewed as a “climate change denier.” The real debate is that of “climate sensitivity” to anthropogenic influence. The fact is, the atmosphere is not that sensitive. As to the “97% of scientists” trope, the amount of atmospheric scientists truly qualified to comment on the matter can be counted on two hands. The rest of them are just guessing, or echoing what they have heard, or propagating hyperbole. The entire matter is entirely politicized; science is no longer involved.
A great article. We need more people like Robert Seitz to study weather patterns. Clear, rational. evidence-based thought. It always scares the hell out of climate alarmists and other environmental extremists.
Great article. Refreshing to read logic and science. And not religion and $cience.
A recent study ‘https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3705’ found that Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) varied over a range from 11° to 36°C for the last 485 million years, we are currently around 15°C and historically earth is much cooler now than it has been for the last half billion years. The study also concluded that Earth’s temperature has varied more dynamically than previously thought, even though those who follow such things are and have been well aware if this fact.
With a proposed atmospheric CO2 threshold for unipolar glaciation at 750 ppmv and current levels around 400 ppmv, it’s not hard to tell why algore and other climate fanatics were wrong about the melting of the ice caps. So called “coldhouse” climate conditions, like we are currently in, range from 11°C to 18°C while “coolhouse” conditions are from 18°C to 22°C. Coldhouse states, like our present-day climate, are relatively uncommon during the last 485 million years (13%). Icehouse intervals, which includes both coldhouse and coolhouse states have climates that support unipolar or bipolar continental ice sheets and steep pole-to-equator temperature gradients.
We are told by the fanatics that since the end of the Little Ice Age the globe has warmed 1°C from 14°C to 15°C, and we are told we should cease and desist with all human activities to save the world. Science does not support the conclusions of these fanatics.
Steve; The accelerated rate of warming in the last 150 years causing mass die offs among many species including marine birds, fish and as for this story, King Crab is significant because of the very short period of time the warming has occurred.
Scientists going in opened minded at this problem are credible, the non-scientist people that go in to this global warming problem with their minds already made up are useless and irrelevant.
Robert Seitz is likely a religious fanatic.
3rd,
Sudden climatic change on the order of decades and even years are a known scientific variable, and nothing new. Look up Dansgaard–Oeschger events, Heinrich events, and Bond events. There are of course many, many different reasons for the rapid heating that has been scientifically proven over the past 485 million years, pretending that the Little Ice Age is the beginning point for climate norm is beyond ignorant.
Hope your not in the running for the Pulitzer Prize for science 😉
3rd
He gets it before your best guess
3rd,
Nope, I’m not in the running for a Pulitzer Prize for science. Mainly because Pulitzers are for journalism and poetry and have nothing to do with science. But facts, science, and rational thought aren’t really in your wheelhouse, so I understand your misunderstanding…just like your misunderstanding of Pebble.
Pebble is gone, poof, like a f*#t in the wind. And I see you did not defend your previous posts.
You didn’t challenge my previous post, so there was nothing to defend.
You talked about a journalism award and I responded to your continued ignorance.
Good grief! Where to begin?
Now I have no doubt that the author is a well-trained electrical engineer, but those qualifications hardly permit him to speak authoritatively on the subject of climate change.
Without a doubt, the large volume of scientific evidence collected over the last 50 years on the subject far outweighs the validity of his casual and anecdotal observations. Apparently Must Read Alaska is struggling to fill its white space, and therefore accepting unsolicited stories from almost anyone, provided that they have a conservative viewpoint.
Whidbey – When seriously discussing climate change, using data collected in the last 50 years is akin to a pimple on an elephant’s a–! The reason NOAA, NASA & NWS only use weather data gathered in the last 50 years is because that data supports their computer modeling. If they were to go back even a little further to the 1930’s, when the United States was much hotter, their computer models’ conclusions of global warming fall apart.
Fishing, you have not understood me correctly. I am not referring to 50 years of data, I am referring to efforts undertaken primarily with the last 50 years to collect climate data going back hundreds and thousands of years.
Dog; You will never make headway with people that already have their minds made up, they are old and hard headed and most are likely religious fanatics.
Your posts do make sense.
Dog go home your causing climate change every time you breath.
3rd should also go home your arguments don’t hold water that’s why the smart people debunk your baseless conclusions gathered from lack of common sense.
I’m already home, I am the host you are the guest. You don’t like Alaska, flee the state.
Just because I am an electrical engineer does not disqualify me from being able to observe the events around me. After living and working in Alaska for 80 years I do have an understanding of weather and climate in Alaska. As a trained Arctic Engineer I am trained, educated and experienced with cold, thermodynamic and heat transfer. As a trained and experience physical oceanographer (in Alaskan waters) I am familiar with the ocean dynamic around our state and with the meteorological aspects as well. I have installed and collected data from meteorological stations. If one processes the data collected over the last 50 years incorrectly they will end up with wrong decisions and faulty understanding of the processes.
As my father would say, “I think Seitz’s eyes ( i’s ) are too close together”.
His opinions do not appear to be scientifically based. Maybe a guess based on his life experiences. But imo not the opinion of an informed scientist!
Jeez, Whidbey, I don’t know where you think you are; this is the Great Land! Here the lack of qualifications has never prevented a half- or quarter-wit from opining about anything. Drop into any number of our “respectable” dives and you’ll find at least two or three of our geniuses bellied up to the bar bullshitting each other! There’s not a damn thing wrong with that just as long as they pay for their drinks and don’t get overly “opinionated.”
Have you considered moving to Springfield, Ohio? They really like dogs there.
Better spell it out a little better.
I dont think he has the capacity to link the suggestion to the town.
I have NEVER met a engineer with common sense Engineer moto is It looks good on paper it will work. Worked around them for 40 years. NO COMMON SENSE!
You’ve maxed out, Suzanne, tending to this goat herd: it’s got to be tough job!
Edit: “[I]t’s got to be a tough job.”