I’m working against the clock on a couple of articles for The American Spectator while preparing to report on Monday for federal jury duty. I’m obligated to attend court for two days or one trial. I would be surprised if any counsel would be dumb enough to pick me – a retired lawyer with 50 years of trial experience – to serve on a jury. But we live in strange times, and you never know.

So, if I get picked, it may be a while before you hear from me.

In the meantime, with the arrival of warm weather, the news media are recycling their “global-warming-we’re-all-gonna-die!” stories. Which is why I found the following article to be so reassuring. Take a look.

But then there is this article which ran in the Washington Post on November 2, 1922:

The article was based on a report by the American consul in Norway to the State Department which was published in the October 1922 edition of the Monthly Weather Review as follows:

The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from fisherman, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas about Spitzbergen and the eastern Arctic, all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, and hitherto underheard-of high temperatures in that part of the earth’s surface.

In August, 1922, the Norwegian Department of Commerce sent an expedition to Spitzbergen and Bear Island under the leadership of Dr. Adolf Hoel, lecturer on geology at the University of Christiania. Its purpose was to survey and chart the lands adjacent to the Norwegian mines on those islands, take soundings of the adjacent waters, and make other oceanographic investigations.

Ice conditions were exceptional. In fact, so little ice has never before been noted. The expedition all but established a record, sailing as far north as 81° 29′ in ice-free water. This is the farthest north ever reached with modern oceanographic apparatus.

The character of the waters of the great polar basin has heretofore been practically unknown. Dr. Hoel reports that he made a section of the Gulf Stream at 81° north latitude and took soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters. These show the Gulf Stream very warm, and it could be traced as a surface current till beyond the 81st parallel. The warmth of the waters makes it probable that the favorable ice conditions will continue for some time.

In connection with Dr. Hoel’s report, it is of interest to note the unusually warm summer in Arctic Norway and the observations of Capt. Martin Ingebrigsten, who has sailed the eastern Arctic for 54 years past. He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1918, that since that time it has steadily gotten warmer, and that to-day the Arctic of that region is not recognizable as the same region of 1868 to 1917.

Many old landmarks are so changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now often moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea they have entirely disappeared.

Somehow the snow and cold weather have returned and the Arctic ice cap has survived despite the addition of megatons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere since 1922.

Okay, that’s enough climate fun for now. I have to dig out a suit and tie and prepare for Monday.

How strange it will be to enter a courthouse as a civilian and without my usual pre-trial nervous breakdown.