"Chip Ahoy" - Marblehead Harbor Frozen Over

Chip Ford's 1974 Catalina 22 Restoration Project
Sail #3282 l Marblehead, Massachusetts

Marblehead Harbor Frozen Over
Jan. 21, 2004

These photos were taken after two straight weeks of sub-zero Arctic temperatures and wind chill factors of -30° F and below. *Click on the thumbnail shots below for larger images.*

Me, my diminishing woodpile, and a covered Chip Ahoy wintering in the background


From the Riverhead Beach boat ramp toward the mouth of the harbor. (See this view in a warmer time.)	From the boat ramp toward Marblehead Neck.		From the boat ramp toward the harbor entrance (Marblehead Light).

The Riverhead Beach boat ramp and causeway to Marblehead Neck; Massachusetts Bay beyond.	Looking across the harbor to Marblehead Neck. (Note the roadway someone plowed across the ice.)		Looking across the harbor to the Neck. Think that Whaler's going to be moved anytime soon?
The Westside (Village Street) Town Dock & Mooring Area Jan. 26, 2004 Click on the thumbnail shots below for larger images.

Off this town dock is where I keep Chip Ahoy moored in warmer months.		The ice runs all the way across Salem Harbor to the Salem power plant.

The town brings in the docks in the late fall, clearly for good reason. Remember, this is salt water!		Does the Arctic Circle look much different? All we need are penguins and a stray polar bear or two!

Panoramic view of Salem Harbor from Lafayette Street (Rte. 114) Salem/Marblehead line at the mouth of Forest River; Salem on left - Marblehead on right. (After opening, click box on lower-right to enlarge.)

The Salem News Thursday, January 22, 2004 What global warming? By Joseph Perkins Scripps Howard A cold wave swept through the nation's northeast this week, leaving sub-zero temperatures in its wake, from Bangor to Boston, Syracuse to Scranton. The curious thing is, not one scientist, not one environmentalist, has claimed that the cold snap is prima facie evidence of global "cooling." Not one Chicken Little lawmaker on Capitol Hill, not one United Nations official has insisted that human activity is somehow causing Mother Earth to get the chills. Yet, if New England experiences a heat wave any time this year, if the mercury rises to levels unseen in the past 10-25 years, you can be almost certain the unusual weather will be attributed to global warming. Yes, I know the whole climate thing is complex. I know you have to look at the entire picture, and not just a few select pixels. But that's what the global warming alarmists do. Indeed, when Europe experienced a rather balmy summer last year, when a supposed 20,000 people suffered heat-related deaths, global warming was identified as the culprit. Yet, no one blamed global cooling for the recent cold spell that swept across Europe, and which, according to the BBC, killed more than 2,500 people in England and Wales last month. Nor has anyone suggested that human activity caused the cold wave that sent the mercury plunging in India, which has claimed the lives of more than 500 people there so far this winter. The point is that we are always witnessing extremes in weather. And if it is facile to suggest that the frigid weather in New England, in the United Kingdom and in India portend a new Ice Age, it is absurd to insist that every heat wave and every unusually warm summer presages planetary meltdown. Three decades ago, climate hysterics issued dire warnings about global cooling - that's right - much as they are forebodingly warning today of global warming. "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind," wrote Nigel Calder in a 1975 article for the National Wildlife Federation's journal, International Wildlife. Today, claims the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climatologists are agreed that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are unnaturally high so the U.S. and other industrialized nations must accede to Draconian cuts in emissions, as laid out in the 1997 Kyoto global warming treaty, before it's too late. The American people have been duped before by the false prophets of cataclysmic climate change, who assured them that a new ice age was in the offing. They should not be fooled again by those false prophets, who are now admonishing them that every time they gas up their car or SUV, every time they switch on their television or power up the computer, they are bringing the planet that much closer to a climatory meltdown. Joseph Perkins is a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune.