Arnd Bernaerts

Arnd Bernaerts (born 1939 in Berlin) is a master mariner and lawyer. Since 1988 a main aspect of his work is the climatic change issue from an oceanic perspective.
Biography
He has received a “Master Licence Foreign Going” in July 1964 and worked as a ship master since 1968. In the meantime he enrolled as law student at Hamburg University, passing the 2nd State Law Examination in November 1973. In 1977 he was awarded “Dr. juries" by the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, since 1985 he works as lawyer and international consultant.
From 1976 and 1985 he ran a law office in Hamburg, when accepting two long term assignments in Saudi Arabia as lawyer and international consultant, followed by other consultancies in several countries and regions until 2008.
In 1988 his text book about the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was published (UNCLOS-1982); followed by research work on Climate Change.
In addition to the climate definition subject, Bernaerts’ work focused on raising the awareness of the importance of better understanding of the oceans to minimize the risk of anthropogenic impact on the marine environment, which may have a profound impact on climate change.
He discovered that the major climatic shifts since 1850 can be linked to naval war activities during World War I, namely the warming of the Northern Hemisphere from about 1920 to 1939, as well as global cooling from 1940 to mid 1970s, which started with three extraordinary harsh winters in Europe since December 1939. In many regions they were the coldest for more than 100 years, as analysed in several books since 2006 (see Works).
In addition he queries the scientific reliability of commonly used climate definitions by WMO, UNFCCC and others, reasoning:
As the terms weather and climate belong to the laymen’s sphere, it is doubtful whether science should use them for their terminology. It would not only be difficult, if not impossible, but presumably remain a source of confusion. In a Letter to the Editor, Nature (1992, “Climate Change”, 360, p. 292) he suggested defining: ‘Climate as the continuation of the oceans by other means’.
Works
• “Bernaerts' Guide to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”; 1988, Fairplay/Coulsdon/UK, ISBN 1-870093-15-1; http://www.bernaerts-sealaw.com; reprint by Trafford, 2006 /Canada (now USA), ISBN 1.4120-7665-x
• “Climate Change & Naval War”, Trafford/CA, pages 325, 2005; http://climate-ocean.com/book%202005/index.html
• “War changes Climate. How two World Wars change climate”, Trafford/CA, b/w images, p. 177; BoD/Nordestdt, b/w images and 14 colour pages, p. 224, 2007; http://www.warchangesclimate.com/index.htm
• “How Spitsbergen Heats The World The Arctic Warming 1919 to 1939”; BoD/Norderstedt (2009), about 110 pages; iUniverse/USA (only b/w images); Bod/Nordersted, about 120 color images; http://www.arctic-heats-up.com/
• “Failures of Meteorology! Unable to prevent climate change and world wars? Oceans change climate!” BoD/Nordestedt, p. 220, 2012; http://www.seaclimate.com/_ToC/_ToC.html

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