What’ll end up happening is that this will be exposed as a hoax, but all will be forgiven as these “crusaders” braved the publicity to “raise public awareness”……………same as The Goracles movie……filled with inaccuracies, (if not outright lies), but the “message” is clear…….and we must never shoot the messenger.

These “poor”, “misguided” individuals should be applauded for shining the spotlight on this impending worldwide catastrophe.

Now, I’ve got to go mow the lawn or feed the cat or something.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/16/weather-arctic-climate-change

Besides thinking he needed to get a mask on his son first, Pen must also think he knows when a pilot should take time out of performing emergency procedures to “reassure” passengers. It isn’t a good idea, at least until the immediate situation is under control, since saying “Don’t worry, be happy” can cause more panic.

And the Straight Dope answer was, as usual, straight to the point.

From personal observation, my breath shows at about 50 F and below.

Although it depends also on the Relative humidity of the surrounding air (if high, breath water vapor would condense), human breath condensation begins at about 41 °F (5 °C). So it’s true that if RH of air is at least 25%, we could experience visible breath condensation at10 °C (50 F); for example, when I lean over the packed meats gondola in the store, which is at 6 °C (42.8 F) and its RH is about 75%.

What do you make of all the complaining about cold, freezing tents and sleeping bags and such?

I’ve been wondering about their incessant, non-stop sniveling myself.

What ever happened to the old British stiff upper lip when facing adversity? Has it really been replaced by people like these three insufferable crybabies? What did they expect to encounter but constant cold?

Someone ought to send Pen and Martin one of these: click

REPLY: Smokey, it seems Pen Hadow has a habit of complaining publicly, as do many publicity hounds. see below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/2625521/Ryanair-boss-in-row-with-explorer-Pen-Hadow-over-emergency-landing.html

and

http://blogs.abcnews.com/worldview/2008/08/budget-airline.html

The key phrase here: “From where I was sitting I could see about 20 masks and only a few of them were inflating.”

Uh…Pen, that’s because they don’t inflate. Even I know this. Here is why:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/707/when-you-wear-an-airline-oxygen-mask-why-doesnt-the-plastic-bag-inflate

And this is the same Pen hadow that is doing “science on the ice”.

Also, apparently the Telegraph can’t do simple math, note the reference to “40,000 feet” in the first part of the article. – Anthony

Thanks for the question. I would also like to state I’m not against taking a challenge such as walking t the Pole on foot. I think it takes some serious courage to do it. Walking to work in -40 can be a challenge some days, so without a doubt, there complaining is likely warranted, however they deserve this, because IMO their expedition is just plain stupid and pointless. Their original launch point was Barrow, Alaska which is totally insane. Barrow, Alaska to the North Pole? Whisky Tango Foxtrot! Once they likely realized…or likely someone said, “you want to do what?” they changed to a second start point. (I should mention I’ve been following this ongoing saga since Fall of 08). The second start point was on the ice, essentially the same route from Barrow, however taking off a huge chuck of millage, not to mention a whole lot of swimming. The final one, which is the one they are on now was brought closer to land. I can only specualte as to why, however I suppose someone in Ken Borek Air Ltd who flew them out onto the ice and resupply them, out of Resolute, NU said…”you want to do what?”.

Sorry I went off on a tangent, back to your question. Dragging your sorry ass out of out of a sleeping bag in -40 is not a treat…especially after pulling all that unessential and likely now defective science equipment which may or may not been properly tested for arctic conditions doesn’t help things. Also being inside one of their tents for the short times that they are, is not likley to tropical. They won’t be suntanning in there, that’s for sure. Constant -40 temperatures after a certain period of banging a bashing will break anything down, especially ones body. I can only compare it to walking around in an old school dive suit when walking around on a cold (-30 and lower). As for the short sleeves, with weather in the Arctic latitudes, it does not begin until +7 to +8 Celsius.

So in all fairness, Catlin Arctic Scurvy…yes scurvy are likely suffering from fatigue and freezing their asses off, due to dragging non essential B.S. twitter based technologies (which will become their undoing) because in the Arctic, you do not waste energy. They seem to be wasting way to much energy.

What do you make of all the complaining about cold, freezing tents and sleeping bags and such? I’ve camped/hunted in sub-zero weather/snow in minus 0 F weather and just do not see it as that much of a big deal. -35C they report now is probably the low, that’s almost short sleeve weather, and a good tent could be heated to tropical conditions in a heartbeat.

“I wonder if the US Navy is near the Catlin Expedition right now. It’s not clear when the photo was taken. I’m not sure this is important but it is cool and in the arctic recently.”

Not if Catlin is where they claim, around 400 miles from the Pole. From Prudhoe to the Pole is over a thousand miles, 200 less would place the sub around 800 miles from the Pole. They would be around 400 miles from Catlin.

“ICEX is a two-week training exercise about 200 miles from the north coast of Alaska, near Prudhoe Bay. ”
http://www.navy.mil/list_single.asp?id=69910

No, that is more likely to be the tail of an elephant. I’ve seen it several times!

http://thetension.blogspot.com/2009/03/photo-essay-ice-exercise-icex-2009.html

REPLY: It is not obvious what post you are referring to, I can’t guess, so I’m leaving all posts warts and all. – A