From the Catlin web site today –
Hypothermia Posted by Gaby Dean
Monday, 06 Apr 2009 15:58
In disadvantaged inner cities it’s known in medical circles as Urban Hypothermia. GPs adopted the term after seeing an increase, during winter, of elderly patients who have switched off their heating, fearful of the cost, and become ill as a result because of the cold.
Chronic, as opposed to acute, hypothermia is the official term.
The Catlin Arctic Survey Team have now been working in temperatures of below -40 degrees centigrade for more than 30 days. When the three (Pen Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley) leave messages on the TVM – a machine that records the messages they phone into London HQ – their voices often sound slurred and they occasionally muddle their words.
Extreme cold affects the senses and everyday skills we usually take for granted, like speaking. According to CAS medical adviser Doc Martin, the team are constantly battling chronic hypothermia, which was to be expected. (Pen Hadow has described it as an ‘occupational hazard’).
“Chronic hypothermia affects people who are under-nourished, physically and mentally tired and not sleeping well”, says Doc. “You can see the connection between vulnerable elderly people and the physical and mental condition that Pen, Ann and Martin are in”.
Weather
 -35°C |
Perhaps they are preparing to come home? They are 15 km further from the pole today (722.28 km) than they were yesterday (707.83 km) and according to satellite data, temperatures have been running below normal for the last two and a half months.
And from the NSIDC web site today – It was a warm winter in the Arctic. No doubt the Catlin crew will be relieved to hear that.
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Oddly enough I guess we can expect “global warming” to cause more Urban Hypothermia as cap and trade schemes raise the cost of life saving heat.
Perhaps they would like to postpone their trip for a 100 years until things warm up there a bit!
And Martin, the photographer, is having fantasies of real food in warm environments. I hope they make his fantasies a reality and get them out of there before they have to play Donner party in the snow and ice. They are hunting for a suitable landing strip for resupply.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/Croissants_in_Paris
I think I’m sticking with my Earth Day prediction for extraction of the team…
Hope that’s not too late.
JimB
They have another 63 days to make it to the North Pole. That means that they have to travel twice their current average distance to meet their target.
Can’t be much fun collecting ice thickness data now that NSIDC have released their satellite data from the comfort of government offices.
These three are explorers is the extreme. It’s clear that they are sacrificing for their beliefs but I’m saddened that their belief may be misplaced and their suffering is foolish. Their failure would be a blow to the AGW movement.
This spectacle needs to end and those people need to be taken out of the cold and back home to their families.
I hope their team can be safely extracted before they have any serious problems due to their chronic hypothermia. Having been in a similar situation during a -30 winter camp out where my pride out ranked my common sense I know how easily that sort of situation can sneak up on you over time. You try to “tough it out”, but over time it wears you down and at some point it becomes a quickly decaying spiral that requires outside assistance to avoid a physiological crash.
Forget the mission guys and get warmed up, fueled up and rested, where you can think properly to evaluate what to do next with a clear head.
Larry
Give them some hot soup and bring them home.
Impossible, the ice is melting and will be gone soon
Arctic will be ice-free within a decade
The Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in less than a decade, scientists have warned, as the latest figures show the thickness of the ice cap has shrunk to a record low.
The reported progress of the expedition dropped by 23 KM from yesterdays and the prior days report. I think they have been estimating distance and performed a correction with some better data. One curiosity for me is how they are getting enough power from batteries at -35C. You would think that the cold would have a terrible drain on battery power. It seems like they would require a lot to operate the sledges and communications equipment.
Time to get them home while they still can!
Having driven from Germany to Ukraine then Russia and Siberia over this Xmas and new year I cannot understand the problem, I was in -30c to- 40c for 2 weeks, admittedly in a heated cab, but I was in the company of 2 Siberians that had me dressed in furs and more furs, the problem with all other clothing I was told that it does not breath like fur, and that is the problem, as the humidity freezes and then you have big big problems
Anybody traveling on foot in those temp. deserves all that nature can provide, if they were just a tiny little bit scientific minded they would not be there.
Pathetic and ridiculous. They are proving nothing, adding nothing to science, and carrying out a worthless and pointless exercise. It doesn’t seem worth dying for. Stupidity knows no bounds.
Sorry to be so acerbic but – ya’ play with fire, ya’ get burnt.
Actually I hope these people get out of there now, while they still can.
I noticed they are not publishing their location today. I assume going back 15KM overnight has caused this.
Just think how cold it would be if there wasnt any global warming……
Someone needs to go get these people before they start to die.
Today every major news outlet is running the same Arctic melt scare they ran before last summer. They keep comparing the ice to the 1979-2000 average. While some have mentioned the ice cover has grown recently they are forecasting record summer melts and ice free Arctic by 2012 (this date chosen to force through legislation beforehand). They have even said it is the least amount of Arctic ice seen in the last 8000 years! If they want to dating of ice, they really should date all those glaciers that are melting. They’ll find a lot of them didn’t exist in that shape or form over 500 years ago.
So there’s mention of cooling trends, no mention of sunspot counts, no mention of sea level stabilisation. They are repeating the Orwellian idea that a lie repeated often enough is accepted as the truth.
I think it would be good to hear from Anthony in regard to the NASA press conference yesterday that spoke about the expected increase in Summer Arctic sea ice melt due to thinner ice.
I dont think NASA, at least these NASA scientists, have ever heard about changing solar activity and its impact on the ice extent.
I hope none of them die from the cold weather. And, I do hope that their experiences in the cold will make them a tad bit wiser.
Poor people! They are really a new kind of martyrs: The New Green Religion martyrs.
People don’t become ill as a result of the cold. It’s due to the negative warmth.
I’m not sure how they might fend off a Polar Bear in a hypothermic state and without a high powered rifle. Not a sensible situation.
That is another worrisome sign, that sort of thing happens to marathon runners just before they hit the wall at 18 miles as their body runs out of fuel. It is the bodies way of telling you the gas gauge is on empty.
Larry
I expect they’re trying to survive on a modern “healthy” diet with no animal fat. Try taking advice from the Inuits. Bet they didn’t take the traditional pemmican before the modern nutritionists ruined the stuff.