Note: One of the many integrity issues with Catlin is that none of their photos can be dated. Even embedded EXIF information (including date/time done by most digital cameras in use today) has been removed from gallery photos on the website. For all we know this photo above they included in their just released report could have been taken during training. The high photographic angle suggests the photographer was standing on something, but what? Further, no raw data is offered in their first report, we are expected to take it on faith I suppose. Given their admittedly fraudulent biometric readings, and lack of candor on their ice radar, how can we trust anything they publish? So far for a “science” mission I remain unimpressed with the effort or the transparency. – Anthony
Guest post by Steven Goddard
Catlin Report Confirms that Satellite Data is Accurate
Catlin just came out with their first ice report (PDF)
The ice thickness measurements that Pen and the team have been able to phone in imply that they are travelling over predominantly thick first‐year ice. Satellite imagery of the area, especially passive microwave imagery (e.g. AMSR and QuikScat data), indicates the area is indeed covered primarily with first‐year ice and a scattering of multi‐year ice floes.
The report summary is :
The results collected in the first month of the Catlin Arctic Survey point to an unexpected lack of thicker Multiyear Ice.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent.png
This begs the question – why were they expecting multi-year ice, when satellite data showed otherwise? As reported on WUWT, NSIDC data from February showed their route map starting on first year ice.
If they were looking for older ice, there were many obvious (and shorter) routes they could have chosen. What made them choose this route, which was apparently too long to be completed and which started on first year ice?
Most of the report is regurgitated satellite data, but there are a couple of particularly interesting items:
One further consideration, when interpreting the ice thickness measurements made by the CAS team, is navigational bias. The team systematically seeks out flatter ice because it is easier to travel over and camp on.
and
The ice thickness measurements that Pen and the team have been able to phone in imply that they are travelling over predominantly thick first‐year ice.
In conclusion:
- They seek out “flat” (implying thinner and younger) ice
- They planned on being on multi-year ice, even though the satellites showed that their route is on first year ice.
- The first year ice they are on is “thick.”
- Their measurements agree closely with satellite data.
In other words, they could have been home enjoying a pint in sunny England, and waited to see what happens to the ice this summer.
Expedition Leader Pen Hadow who remembers feeling angry a few days into the expedition because he felt that, between expeditions, his memory had tricked him over the cold.
“Although I’ve been here before, I wasn’t able to hold the memory of just how uncomfortable, in an almost surreal sense, it really is”, he says. “When you’re warm, at home, you can tell yourself how awful it’s going to be, but when you get here, the shock of it hits you all over again and you really can’t believe you’ve allowed yourself to go through it again“.
Pub garden during the hot summer of 2007
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Steve,
You think they might be at the golf course?!?!?
This is a “Fail” on a 5th Form science test ( Grade 11 for the USA) – poor experiment design. I mean, this is what schoolkids are told – have a Theory, construct a hypothesis and design a experiment to test that hypothesis and check that the design is not biased. This expedition is akin to looking for signs of drought in the Australian outback. A PR stunt that risks lives for no purpose at all.
Mutliyear ice isn’t going to be flat unless by some fluke. It will have been compressed, broken, compressed again, and broken again and compressed some more. It would be a jumble with MAYBE a misleading appearance of flatness from accumulated snow filing in the depressions.
I still believe they could have hired a helicopter survey crew to drill a series of holes a certain distance apart and have been done with this ages ago.
Mike,
I think they are freezing their tails off in the Arctic, but probably wish they were at the golf course or someplace else green – like Colorado.
http://www.inforum.com/event/apArticle/id/D97LA1300/
please read what william connolley says in his blogs about catlin et al. http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/04/wandering_across_the_arctic.php
and mr.connolley is not a denier…
Could someone point the BBC’s David Shukman in the direction of these pages in advance of him writing his next report?!
Are these the same guys that ran this expedition?
Hmmm … 3rd and 4th images (pics?) not displaying, even after trying several IE6 “Show Picture” tries and page reloads.
3rd – NSIDC ice map overlaid on the Catlin Route Map
http://docs.google.com/File?id=ddw82wws_182gm7bscf7_b
4th – NSIDC map – yellow is first year ice
http://docs.google.com/File?id=ddw82wws_181dvgxxqfk_b
REPLY: fixed thanks – A
Catlin. Isn’t that a UK insurance firm? Let’s hope they don’t go belly-up in the current economic climate. Could be embarrassing to get stuck on the ice because the money man went bust.
Looks like they were racing to the pole this last day. Yesterday their total distance traveled was 316.69 km; today it’s 343 km. So they went 26.31 km in one day. Can’t see them doing much drilling if they’re covering such a distance while towing hundreds of kg of equipment and supplies.
I also see they’re still having the pole moving towards them. Their latest reported position is at 84° 46′ N (84.77°N). That would put them at 5.23° of latitude from the pole. Again, with each degree of latitude representing approx 111.6 km, that would make the distance to the pole as 583.67 km. Yet Catlin reports the distance to the pole as being 548.93 km. So, the question is, do they know where they are?
According to the link above they are going to reach the Pole in 80 days. If I read the PDF maps right, they will not make it due to open waters.
Shouldn’t they have a kayuk to paddle about in?
KimW (14:37:49) :
In climate science you don’t design an experiment – you design a computer model based on the hypothesis and use that as proof the hypothesis is correct.
How much thicker should multi-year ice be anyway? It seems a simple matter of conduction of heat from ocean water to ambient air. Once you get to six feet of ice, the heat flux you can transport through the ice must drop drastically, hence impeding the formation of more ice.
I can see that two year ice would be thicker, but I don’t believe it would be anywhere near double the thickness of one year ice.
16 miles on the ice towing a sled?
Hey, that’s really cooking it.
The Catlin field trip is as KimW states, a FAIL. Looking at the image at the top of the article caused me to go on my own field trip – to the Catlin web site! What prompted this was the high photographic angle commented on by Anthony. I did not look at every image in the Catlin site but I did see many and have come away with an observation. Given that they have choosen to not geo-locate nor time stamp images we MUST assume a degree of skepticism when viewing. I note the following.
1). The only images of Pen in an orange over parka are when he is drilling ice or getting off the transport aircraft.
2). There are no images of Pen in an orange parka when is not drilling nor in sunny weather.
2b). All of the images of Pen doing ice depth measurements seem to have been photographed under similar low contast overcast day(s?).
3). As noted by Anthony they have a systematic desire to traverse flat ice. There are images showing the team climbing ice ridges a meter or more in thickness. I wonder if those ever get measured and rolled into the average.
Unless someone at Catlin, or associated with the that team, can convincingly correct me I must conclude that ‘All Catlin Expedition drilling images are from a photo-opportunity staged previously and are NOT representative of actual events now ongoing. I will be happy to be corrected and will publicly correct this post should it be required.
SL
The spinmasters will try to salvage this novelty act: time to keep them honest and convene the media when they’ll cross the line. A big fuss should be made of it, maximum damage.
When they report the distance traveled each day, how do they account for the drift of the ice they are trudging across? I imagine that what they are actually reporting is the change in their position each day as determined by GPS, not necessarily the distance they actually walked.
Is there a plot anywhere of the actual path they have followed so far? I couldn’t find one at their website. I think that examining the path they travel at night while sleeping would be interesting.
Where is the base supply camp from which the flights originate?
i.e. – there must be some way to verify that they are indeed up in the Arctic other than a few meager photos and some stats on a website.
Are there other places from which similar scenes of ice can be found but not be in the Arctic, say Great Slave Lake, Hudson Bay??
Before the advent of blogs such as this one, an expedition of this type could have easily gotten away with every single claim they have made. Only now do we have the capability to really examine their claims and point out the inconsistencies – and downright lies.
I’m quite confident that in the end they will claim victory and issue dramatic press releases shouting the same gloom and doom story about the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.
Jorge C 14:45:06
That link to Connolley’s blog is the funniest thing I’ve read all day. I hope I’m not laughing out of the other side of my face when this expedition turns tragic from the foolishness of its perpetrators.
=========================================
[snip – OT and pointless]
Any of you clever at geometry etc.?
Here is a new version of the image at the top of this article but now it has a shadow.
http://www.gpsl.net/climate/data/sea_ice/pen-hadow-drills-ice-hole-a.jpg
You got the pole and the shadow. How high in the sky does the sun get where the expedition is right now? Doesn’t really prove anything, just a spot of fun.
OT: What happened with the oil post? It suddenly disappeared .
REPLY: I sent an email to the author with a notice that I published it and a question and it bounced. If I can’t contact the author then I can’t in good faith keep it online, so it is shelved for now. – Anthony
[snip – OT and pointless]
This is as real as a soup opera story.