Inconvenient Eisdicken – "surprising results" from the Arctic

I the use of an translation program suspects that the german sentence structure preserves.

That is a BT-67 Basler conversion on a DC3.
There are a couple of better pics here on Baslers site…
http://www.baslerturbo.com/bt_67_worldwide.html
Just scroll to the German plane. It has a couple of close ups
of the towed array.
Pretty cool birds to an aircraft nut like me…
Chris
REPLY: Ironically, the one they show from Kenn Borek Air may be the one going to rescue the hapless Catlin crew !! Borek is the one who pulled Penn Hadow out of the Arctic in 2003 on his last failed expedition, and is their flight service now.
– Anthony

more inconvenient facts
I’m sure now the new theory will be “ice becomes stagnant with man-induced global warming which explains the unusual thickness”!

Are there any results? The quote leaves me wondering – was this 4-meter ice widespread? Localized along a few pressure ridges?
Sorry if I seem skeptical, but some good hard data, along with the reassuring quotes, would be welcome. The press release acknowledges the work of other research teams showing thinning ice. It seems if there were contradictory evidence they would march it out for the world to see, no?
REPLY: if you can find their published results, feel free to post it. I have not found any yet. Only this news item. The expedition just ended, so I would expect it to be a couple of weeks. – Anthony

Send the news to the Catlin team. Sure to send what’s left of their morale crashing through the ice. This expedition started off a month after Catlin hit the ice and is done already, after covering larger and more diverse areas than they could ever hope to hit. Pity they didn’t run a survey leg over the Catlin team just to rub it in.
If “Eisdicken” translates to “ice thickness”, what does Catlin translate to? Disaster? Catastrophe? Misery?

“On the expedition, (there were) some 20 scientists from the U.S., Canada, Italy and Germany.”
I guess the scientists from England were afraid to hurt Princs Charles’ feelings.

Ahh the DC-3. Great stuff! Fond memories. As a kid I crawled around inside of one of these at the air show every year. They are definitely the workhorse o’ the tundra.

Eisstärke = ice strength

It would be interesting to know the resolution of the instrument, in all 3 axis.

Leon,
“If “Eisdicken” translates to “ice thickness”, what does Catlin translate to? Disaster? Catastrophe? Misery?”
From Wiki Encyclopedia:
“A catlin was a long, double-bladed knife used for surgery, commonly amputations. It was common in the 17th-mid 19th century; thereafter its use declined in favor of mechanically-driven (and later, electrically driven) oscillating saws.”
It sounds like a very old way of doing things…

ak,
they previously measured ice thickness between August and October 2008 from their Polarstern icebreaker. It seems that the ice was thinner that time and in those areas where they had access with the ice breaker (1.5 m ice thickness limit).

Leon Brozyna: ..”what does Catlin translate to?”
Second Annual Arctic Cockup
GaryB: The new theory probably just came out from under the ice in the Davis Strait. University of Washington researchers declared victory in measuring fresh water flows in the Eastern Arctic using a long duration underwater glider. As soon as the real ice data sinks in to the usual boneheads, the glider data should provide two or three years of distractive panic about currents in the North Atlantic. At least there will be something to talk about in Copenhagen. Article on the NSF website.

Somebody find the funding to have them do that 4 times per year.

Anthony, more about the EM-Bird here:
http://www.awi.de/en/research/research_divisions/climate_science/sea_ice_physics/subjects/ice_thickness_measurements/em_bird/
Electromagnetic (EM) induction sounding for ice thickness measurements is a technique that can achieve long profiles of some kilometer length. The accuracy and robustness of the EM method has been evaluated by comparing coincident drill-hole and EM measurements.
A pdf file can be downloaded and could be published as an UPDATE.

AH yes……A DC3…..But not really, You would have to call this one a “post modern” DC-3 with it’s turbine engines, plenty of power. Some how the tail looks larger, no doubt more directional control for the larger engines. I worked as a Flight Engineer/Steward/Mechanic/Flight nurse on an old style DC-3 with the Pratt&Whitney 1830 engines flown by a relief organization in the Amazon basin area. It was true job security, never ending work!

I think the real answer is that there is so much ice in the arctic that nobody can be sure what the eisdicken is.

More links on the AWI Polar-5 Project:
1. Aircraft Specifications: http://www.eufar.net/experiment/aircraft/specaircraft.php?num=71
2. AWI Homepage: http://www.awi.de/en/home/
3. Contact Information: http://www.awi.de/en/infrastructure/aircraft/research_aircraft/polar_5/
4. Most interesting, the entire PAN ARCMIP project plan in a full color PDF, including the names of the scientists and their participating Universities:
http://www.espo.nasa.gov/oib/docs/PANARCMIP-V2-20090219.pdf
It would be a nice idea to invite the German Director to publish an article about the project at WUWT before NASA starts to fumble the measured data and leaves us with a canard!

Also very interesting the ESPO NASA web site.
http://www.espo.nasa.gov/

As I’ve been saying for a couple of decades now, it’s soot! The albedo effect, along with solar cycle influences. The heavy pollution detected on this mission supports the hypothesis. The arctic (along with the northern most countries) is the only place where the warming trend is significant and possibly due to human influnec. But GHG has nothing to do with it. In the rest of the world, most of the “warming” is obviously due to poor sensor placement, urban heat island effects, and mostly, religiously biased temperature “correction.” The data set is junk.
Some studies have been done on albedo effect difference due to soot in limited regions of the arctic (see Hansen’s paper), but why aren’t some of the trillions being spent to extend the research and correct this problem?? It’s an easy correction, based on known technology.
This year, China’s efforts to close factories for the Olympics, plus the recession’s effect on factory production, plus the extended solar minimum, add up to a good hypothesis on why the positive-feedback, runaway ice melt, which the IPCC and gang eagerly awaits, is not happening!

Alexej Buergin (16:50:21) :
“Bremen is the smallest German state, consisting mainly of the towns of Bremen and Bremerhaven. It is governed by a red-green coalition.
Radio Bremen ist the public Radio- (and TV-) station.
That Radio Bremen publishes this news is astonishing”.
Alexej Buergin,
I know that the cool aid green machine promoting the AGW scam did not forget to take a strong influence in German Politics.
However, during a recent documentary about Antarctic, a broad cast by ZDF, the scientist in charge dismissed any link between CO2 driving our climate and said that AGW was a political hoax.
He also said that he was doing his job as a scientist and he would not allow politics to interfere with his work or his reporting.
Fortunately there are many scientists who share a similar opinion and their numbers are growing.

Not entirely off topic this Icecap publication from Joseph D’Aleo:
It’s too important.
Apr 28, 2009
Precious Few Months to Stop Disastrous Action
By Joseph D’Aleo
Two trains are racing down the tracks and if they get to where the government wants, the results to all Americans will be nothing short of catastrophic.
Given the current global cooling now in its 8th year, declining ocean heat content at least in its 5th year, sea level rises which have slowed or stopped, record rising Antarctic ice extent and rapidly recovering arctic ice since the 2007 cycle minimum, a sun in a deep slumber, increasing evidence that CO2 is a harmless gas that is in reality a beneficial plant fertilizer, you would think that this proposed legislation and ruling would in a sane world, have no chance of passing, but there is a huge political and NGO machine and all too compliant media and carbon crusaders like Al Gore and James Hansen and literally many billions of dollars behind making carbon evil and subsidizing unwise energy and carbon control solutions.
The Energy and Commerce committee under the leadership of the clueless Henry Waxman who teamed with the equally clueless Edward Markey on the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill is considering now that legislation. The bill took Al Gore, who testified in front of the committee last week, two transoceanic flights to read the bill, and Newt Gingriich could not get through the entire bill before his testimony. It is jam packed with every item on the environmental movement’s wish list and goodies for many companies, most notably GE, the parent of the NBC family and The Weather Channel, now selling global warming and the color green in a way not seen since the heyday of Kermit the frog.
According to ClimateDepot.com, the newspaper, the “Hill” is reporting that “The House may not vote on a climate change bill this year, according to a high-ranking Democratic leader.” That leader is Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and he says the problem is that a bill probably wouldn’t pass the Senate.” Roger Pielke Jr. on Prometheus chimes in similarly with Maybe Next Year that some Congressional Democrats are thinking that cap and trade legislation might be best considered in 2010.
DON’T ASSUME ANYTHING. Please make every effort to contact you congressmen and women and senators and write letters to the editor of your local papers, fight the good fight on the various blogs of all persuasions. The facts are according to an MIT study, the cap-and-trade legislation is really a tax-and-trade bill that an Massachusetts Institute of Technology study showed could cost American families $3,100 per year. Green jobs is a phoney claim that sounds wonderful, but recall as I showed here, Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Juan Carlos University in Madrid that found for every green job you create, you can count on 2.2 lost real jobs AND only 1 in 10 green jobs are permanent. That does not even account for lost jobs for industries driven to outsource or actually move abroad to avoid unreasonable taxation. Our economy can’t afford this bill to address a non-issue to enrich folks like Al Gore and companies GE.
The committee is very large. Your state may have a representive (see membership here). If so, please take the time to contact them and express your opinion. We must deluge the Energy and Commerce committee with phone calls, urging the democratic leadership ((202) 225-2927) to abandon the Waxman-Markey bill and the republicans to ((202) 225-3641) stand firm on resisting approval and not be afraid of the EPA hammer which we will discuss in depth tomorrow. You may not reach a person, but leave a message. I did on both lines. If you prefer to write the committee use this address:
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
2125 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515
There may be no turning back if this bill passes or the EPA ruling survives all challenges. We will have more on the EPA ruling and what you might do about it tomorrow.
ICECAP will act as a repository of all submitted comments back to the EPA you provide us. We will be working hard to solicit and write our own responses to specific claims made by the EPA based on the seriously flawed CCSP document which, with the many other submissions made to the CCSP, ANPR and this EPA serve as evidentiary material in court challenges to the EPA ruling.
Icecap could use your help and if you can provide, financial support (no amount too small) for our efforts. We are getting an increasing number of requests to participate in these kind of response efforts and also to give talks, participate in debates and do interviews. We recently did an hour long TV show. We are appearing on an increasing frequency in fronts of large groups, schools from the elementary to college levels. Sometimes they cover our costs or reimburse us for our time, sometimes they can’t. Your donations would help us do more by covering our costs. Unlike the blogs and “progressive climate alarmists sites which have blank check funding, we rely on donations from individuals, small think tanks and associations.
We are now a tax exempt 501C3 corporation which means all deductions before and now are fully tax deductible for U.S. citizens. We have gotten our first small grants and donations based on this new status. Our first board meeting is coming in early May and we will be discusssing how we can help serve you and our country better. Your suggestions will be welcomed and be considered. Tomorrow the EPA.

Those germans will spoil all our work of so many years of massagging data!!
(JH)
I will invite them to visit us at Colorado and send them into our newly designed
microwave kilns….

Well it looks like the Catlin Survey are the ones Eis-dick-en pointlessly but not with the ice. I suppose that is their tribute to the current Tea Bagging craze going on.
It does seem that “swimming with the ice” is a rather strange way to measure ice thickness. I suppose it’s the way that tree huggers would use.
Airplane seems a wee bit hugely better approach… and a lot more efficient than swimming and eis-dick-en with the ice, not to mention much safer although still riskier than a satellite.

I’ve heard a “rumor” that the Antartic has had -100 F temperatures. Is this true? Is it really 2 months early?
With the enlargement of the Antartic ice and the parallel enlargement of the artic Ice, could this bode for VERY COLD AND LONG WINTERS FOR THE NEXT FEW YEARS?

Robert Wood (16:37:02) :
You’ve gotta love those Dakotas. Still flying after all these years.
ralph ellis (16:06:17) :
For the aviation enthusiasts, this is actually a Super-Dak – A C47 freighter with PT-6 turbines instead of the standard PW-1830 piston radials.
A.Syme (16:50:18) :
AH yes……A DC3…..But not really, You would have to call this one a “post modern” DC-3 with it’s turbine engines, plenty of power. Some how the tail looks larger, no doubt more directional control for the larger engines. I worked as a Flight Engineer/Steward/Mechanic/Flight nurse on an old style DC-3 with the Pratt&Whitney 1830 engines flown by a relief organization in the Amazon basin area. It was true job security, never ending work!
Ron de Haan (17:15:06) :
A.Syme,
Have a look at this URL to see all the modifications.
They take a C47 and rebuild it entirely.
When they are finished it’s a new plane, ZERO hours.
http://www.baslerturbo.com/bt_67_overview.html

I was amazed to see they were using a DC-3/C-47. I flew in one in Nepal in 1968, a C-47 with school bus seats. When I looked at the props in the pictures, and saw they were way forward of where they should have been, it was obvious the engines had been replaced. From there to Basler to read about the conversion.
I’m curious about metal fatigue, after all these years. Here’s what Basler’s FAQ says:

Q. What about fatigue?
A. The DC-3 airframe is infinitely repairable as related to fatigue damage.

Not sure I understand that.
/Mr Lynn

The greenies thought that the Arctic had little attention but failed to realize the significance to the military. The ice is getting much more attention both now and in the distant pass then they failed you check. Gotcha!

hareynolds (18:39:43) :
Ron de Haan (17:29:23)said :
However, during a recent documentary about Antarctic, a broad cast by ZDF, the scientist in charge dismissed any link between CO2 driving our climate and said that AGW was a political hoax.
He also said that he was doing his job as a scientist and he would not allow politics to interfere with his work or his reporting.
Fortunately there are many scientists who share a similar opinion and their numbers are growing.
I am shocked, shocked to hear a climatologist actually doing his job, that is, REAL SCIENCE.
Perhaps, towards the end of this leftist political drama, all the AGW foolishness will have actually stimulated a renewed interest in the collection of real data and honest analysis without a preconceived agenda.
Maybe, if you will, AGW will be the “Sputnick” for climatology. That would be cool. So to speak.
Oh, and that aeroplane is one of the prettiest things I have ever seen. Old man Douglas would have been quite proud I think of this hot-rod version of his Gooney Bird. Simply stunning.
hareynolds,
It very well could be that you are “shocked” about a scientist (I never said the guy was a climatologist) taking a non biased point of view, but that was not the subject.
You know and I know that the current media (especially the ZDF in Germany, comparable to the BBC and CNBC) filter out every scientific information or data that could damage the green dream AGW doctrine.
For this purpose they interview biased scientists and lecture their public about all possible AGW/Climate Change scares.
So if ZDF, broadcasts the non biased opinion of a scientist these days, this certainly is rare event.
May I point out to you that I wrote down my experience in response to this posting that related to the original article about the thick ice at the Arctic:
Alexej Buergin (16:50:21) :
“Bremen is the smallest German state, consisting mainly of the towns of Bremen and Bremerhaven. It is governed by a red-green coalition.
Radio Bremen ist the public Radio- (and TV-) station.
That Radio Bremen publishes this news is astonishing”.
In short, the subject in this posting was not about scientists doing their work but German media putting a non biased AGW message on the air.
Next time read a posting twice before you express your mental condition.
I am glad you are pleased with the plane though.

@David Ball (15:44:08) :
“Reminds me of a discussion on here regarding the Lord of the Rings plot hole. The question as to why they just didn’t take the golden eagles to the volcano and drop the ring in.”
One word answer David – Nasgul
JRR didn’t do plot holes. ; )

Jack Green,
That’s true. The ice is thin because… who’s gonna check up on them? Also it seems like GISS usually has the hottest parts of the earth where there are not as many people. Remember the Siberian debacle? Then they pushed the heat into the NWT of Canada and parts of Australia. Its the same with AGW proponents everywhere. No one around the polar bears so they, obviously, are the victims… Who’s going to check up on them?
The GCMs said that the extra heat would manifest itself in the tropical tropospheric temperatures, but guess what it’s not there… sooooo it must be hiding in the deep ocean!!! Yeah, that’s the ticket!
The ice is thinning!!! Horror of horrors!! Oh wait… Actually it’s not!
It’s time to stop this idiotic game of hide and seek… It’s time for some real science for a change.
When can we all finally say, “Alle, alle auch sind frei!”?

I just submitted this “eisdecke” item to Drudge-lets see if we can get a little more space in spite of the huge H1N1 scare !!! With 22 Million hits a day Drudge can get our message out very effectively.

David Ball (15:44:08) :
Reminds me of a discussion on here regarding the Lord of the Rings plot hole. The question as to why they just didn’t take the golden eagles to the volcano and drop the ring in.
Dude, because Sauron would have seen them coming, with horrible results.

Mr Lynn (18:52:26) :
Q. What about fatigue?
A. The DC-3 airframe is infinitely repairable as related to fatigue damage.
Not sure I understand that.
/Mr Lynn
Mr. Lynn,
The aluminum airframes of the C47 (which does not have a pressured air cabin) have a very long life cycle.
The entire fuselage and wing sections are produced from sheet metal, attached on a frame by rivets.
The only threats to the construction of an aluminum air frame is corrosion which could cause metal fatigue.
Therefore they perform a thorough inspection.
If they modify a C47, they drill out all the old rivets that hold the aircraft together and inspect the aluminum parts.
They look for corrosion and cracks, they replace effected parts, apply new corrosion protection and put in new rivets.
This a time consuming job.
But when it is finished the plane is like new with ZERO hours.
Have a look at this Word File providing more insight:
http://www.rv7-a.com/builder_docs/Repairing%20Sheet%20Metal.doc

“BTW “Eisdicken” translates to “ice thickness”. – Anthony”
This is the first time I’ve read an article on arctic ice where it’s made me feel dirty.

Here is my translation. “Dicken” is a plural, so I have translated it to “thicknesses”. The plural means the thickness at various different locations, obviously.
My translation – unfortunately – doesn’t have some of the humorous surprises that Google translator produces, but I figured maybe someone may want to know exactly what it says in German.
===========
The research aircraft “Polar 5” is finishing its latest arctic expedition in Canada today. During the flight, scientist have measured the current strength of the ice at the North Pole, in particular in regions that have never before been flown over. Result: sea-ice in the studied areas is apparently thicker than the scientists had suspected.
Normally, newly formed ice is roughly two meters thick after two years (according to the scientist mentioned next – this is a transcribed quotation as the German uses the subjunctive – “sei” instead of “ist”). “But here, the ice thicknesses were measured to be up to four meters, ” said a spokesperson of the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar Research and Oceanography in Bremerhaven. For the scientists this result is presently still in contradiction to the warming of the seawater.
Besides the ice thicknesses, the composition of the air was also studied. With the help of a laser the scientists checked how polluted by exhaust gas from industrial contries the athmosphere is. The results will be analyzed in the coming weeks. Around 20 scientists from the US, Canada, Italy and Germany participated in the expedition.

“Result: The sea-ice in the surveyed areas is apparently thicker than the researchers had suspected. Normally, ice is newly formed after two years, over two meters thick. “Here were Eisdicken up to four meters,” ”
Thicker ice means a slower summer melt than suspected too.
Here’s JAXA today–still clearly behind last year :
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
I love the smell of slower melting ice in the morning….

Jeff B. (16:55:36) :
They had a DC-3 parked outside of OMSI when I was a kid. I spent many days checking it out.
They moved, and now there’s no room for the bird. Instead, there’s a submarine parked out back.
Too bad it’s an SS, and not an SSN: could make an “OMSI Under the Ice” Expedition.

“philincalifornia (20:44:12) : then the eisdickenheads can come home ???”
Maybe I’m tired and punchy, but this is funny too!

“A catlin was a long, double-bladed knife used for surgery, commonly amputations.”
No doubt very useful if you have severe frostbite, what goes around comes around.

Apologies Anthony, I don’t know where else to post this, but for your further information re the above from Raff:
“Raff (15:26:20) :
Anthony – this is off the topic. There were two brilliant articles (Jan Veizer and William Kininmonth) published by The Australian lately: here the links:”
I have also just read a half-page letter from William Kininmonth in today’s Australian Financial Review (29.04.09), giving the most succinct, reasoned and irrefutable rebuttal of AGW science and politics that I seen. It is couched in calm, apolitical, realistic scientific terms for the educated layman, and will be read by every banker, company director, stockbroker and financially astute politician in the country.
The AFR is the local equivalent of the London Financial Times, and equally authoritative, as the financial community are only interested in the actual facts. William Kinninmonth is of course the former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre.
Unfortunately I don’t have a link to the letter for you, as I only have my paper copy and am not subscribed to the AFR’s rather expensive online service (perhaps another Australian reader has?).
But this letter, plus the similar articles in the Australian Newspaper online and the current book by respected geologist Prof. Ian Plimer will have a significant effect on the opinions that matter here in Australia.
Elsewhere in the paper there is an article describing an endorsement that Primie Minister Kevin Rudd’s Climate Change Minister Penny Wong feels she has had from Barrack Obama for her carbon cap-and-trade policies. But I think they may end looking like King Canute, with wet socks.
With regards,
Larry Kirk

G Alston (21:54:23) :
That the Germans are reporting larger eisdicken than an English expedition is unsurprising. This rivalry has been going on for centuries.
——————————
Oh dear …. “My eisdicken is thicker than yours” ???
REPLY: OK OK enough fun, let’s leave it at this. – Anthony
I’m going with the Germans on this one.

Leon Brozyna (15:24:30) said…..
“If “Eisdicken” translates to “ice thickness”, what does Catlin translate to? Disaster? Catastrophe? Misery?”…….
Howabout……. Stupidity?
LoL 😉

I think 2009 is bigger than 2008! That ‘ice thickness’ wins! Is it from Africa?
Ok, I’ll leave it at this and respect the wishes of the moderator, and boss here. 😉

Leon Brozyna (15:24:30) :
If “Eisdicken” translates to “ice thickness”, what does Catlin translate to? Disaster? Catastrophe? Misery?
~~~
expendable AGW pawns.

I am a fan from Prof. Miller from the Afrad-Wegener-Institut: http://www.awi.de/People/show?miller
I have read some Interviews (only in german) and can say: very seriously.
He is not a “sceptic” but he is also not an alarmist.
Free science without ideological influence.

Well Phil. (20:05:36) I did rank “eis-dick-en by swimming with the ice” to be more dangerous than flying since getting your feet wet can actually cause frost bite and lead to lost lives, limbs, and digits such as toes… I also stated that flying was “riskier” than using satellites… so it’s a matter of perspective… and likely accuracy… I wonder which is more accurate? the plane style eisdicken survey the germans conducted or an arctic satellite fly over… certainly the satellite would give greater area coverage. Note that flying planes is still dangerous, but likely a lot less dangerous than walking across the arctic ice pack as it melts in the sping time when taking the plunge to measure ice thickness with your hands makes no sense… might as well be eis-dick-en instead… certainly it’d be more fun. I suppose the only advantage of being in a remote place like the arctic is that when (and IF) you return you might find that you’re the only ones to have survived the plague that hit while you were having fun losing toes up north while hugging the ice… Nothing like hands on science I suppose.
I support smart science rather than stupid scientist games and travels.

While I think the current developments in ice situation is interesting indeed, I think we should wait until later in summer before glouting too much.
Eyballing a set of curves like the JAXA, I think it is evident that the largest interannual differences are found at the extremes of the cycle. I would think oceanic heat content only can explain a part of these differences, and
expect that wind and current patterns is at least an important contributor.
In winter at the polar periphery, e.g the Okhotsk Sea and The Barents Sea, and for the summer/autumn minimum, closer to the central part of the polar basin. Hence we may still experience a rapid ice loss if wind and current patterns are favorable for ice transportation.
Anyway, allthough I will not glout, I am open for a bet: I am reasonably certain that the summer ice area in 2009 will be close to 6 mill km2, i.e. within the 1979-2007 mean.
Cassanders
In Cod we trust

Luuve the Plane!

“If “Eisdicken” translates to “ice thickness”, what does Catlin translate to? Disaster? Catastrophe? Misery?”
“Cat litter in der brain”.

Maybe its time we skeptics started supporting nsidc and even CT as they are obliged to report data “as is”. On another note you may notice how some ice sites like to use “thick” lines to maybe “cover up” trends (ie AMSR) so therefore I recommend this site:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
where you can really see the difference. Another is AMSU global temp data:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
Also we should perhaps be not so nasty with all these sites even the AGW ones because they are doing everybody a service by providing data, graphs etc…

Interesting that bbc.com has nothing about the results of this expedition. And continually touts the Catlin Expedition.
http://search.bbc.co.uk/search?go=homepage&scope=all&q=Eisdicken&Search=Search

http://www.awi.de/en/news/press_releases/detail/item/ende_ark_xxiii3/?cHash=27cb41926f
17. October 2008: Research around the North Pole – RV Polarstern returns home after its expedition through the Northeast and Northwest Passages
The German research vessel Polarstern has returned today to Bremerhaven from the Arctic Sea. It has cruised as the first research vessel ever both the Northeast and the Northwest Passages and thereby circled the North Pole. The third part of the research vessel’s 23rd Arctic expedition, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute in the Helmholtz Association, started its journey on August 12th in Reykjavik and ended it on October 17th in Bremerhaven. The ship travelled a distance of 10.800 nautical miles, equivalent to 20.000 kilometres. On board were 47 researchers from 12 nations, for example from Belgium, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Korea, the Netherlands, Russia and the USA. Because of the small ice cover, the expedition members were able to research hitherto uncharted waters. The small sea ice cover presents a cause for concern regarding climate change in the Arctic Ocean. The aim of this expedition was to gather data on the development of the geology of the Arctic area.

An interesting Catlin video of a lead closing as it is crossed
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/gallery_video.aspx?id=79

Ken Hall (04:55:27)
“I wish that the Elrond character… could have decided to kill the king and take the ring and throw it into mount doom..”
But surely Isildur would have just put on the ring and escaped. Anyway, elves are just glorified fairies, so I reckon he could take Elrond no problem, visible or not. You have to think these things through scientifically.
What were we talking about? Ice or something.

ak (15:02:13) It seems if there were contradictory evidence they would march it out for the world to see, no?
No, they wouldn’t. Are you beginning to see the problem?

Somewhat odd that NSIDC has three lines on Antarctic sea ice extent graph:
1) 1979-2000 Average
2) 2008
3) 2009
However the three lines on the Arctic sea ice extent graph are:
1) 1979-2000 Average
2) 2007… yup 2007
3) 2009
This really accentuates the difference between 2007 and 2009…
I bet they wish that they had used the 2008…
Maybe they will change it.

Rhys Jaggar (03:25:46) :
Svalbard webcams at:
http://www.svalbard.com/webcam/
Definitely more ice than normal there.

Falling temperatures, thick ice…
Darn, its hard to be global warming believer.
Mike Bryant:
Your listing of fact followed by “new findings” that saves the global warming theory reminds me so much of the creationists.
I have been lecturing evolution and followed the evolutionist/creationist sad debate for many years. It is so similar:
Every single time evolutionists presents new solid evidence like skeletons ets, then the creationsists comes out with some sick sad explanation.
Creationists and Alarmists seems to share this anti-evidence-routine.
And then its funny, that the alarmists has exactly blamed sceptics for behaving like creationists. But as an evolutionist, I certainly dont see that parallel in the real world.
NASA … so sad.
How many decades will it take to restore your credability??
Why have you made your unique good name a JOKE like this??
I will never understand.
If NASA should preserve just a tiny tiny rest of dignity, NASA should RIGHT AWAY come up with the true story. The more they wait, the worse for their reputation.

Just to clear the air for LOTR fans, I truly enjoyed the books as a youth and the movies when they came out . I re-read the books after seeing the movie, and found them to be even better than my initial reading. The plot hole thing is only a little humor that I found to be quite funny and thought it a great analogy to the Caitlin survey (read fiasco) being made to look so foolish by a real scientific endeavor with very little risk, comparatively. No disrespect intended for Tolken or his fans. You have to admit, it certainly highlights the glaring deception of the Caitlin expedition. You cannot tell me that Hadow did not know this could be accomplished in a much more efficient , less hazardous, scientific manner. I can imagine the plane passing over them and Ann saying “you mean we could have done it that way”?

New interview with the Alfred-Wegner-Institut.
http://www.uni-protokolle.de/nachrichten/id/176043/
I try to translate the most important part:
Serveral flights from different stations to the north shows an ice thickness from 2.5m (two year old ice near the north pole) to 4m (perennial ice near the coast of Canada) . All in all the ice was a little thicker than in the last years in the same region. Therefore we can assume that the arctic ice recover at the moment. At the north coast of Ellesmere Island the reseacher found the thickest ice, it was more than 15m thick.
Mehrere Flüge von verschiedenen Stationen nach Norden ergaben Eisdicken zwischen 2,5 Meter (zweijähriges Eis in der Nähe des Nordpols) und vier Metern (mehrjähriges Eis in küstenahen Gebieten vor Kanada). Insgesamt war das Eis etwas dicker als in den vergangenen Jahren in den gleichen Regionen, was eine temporäre Erholung der arktischen Eisdecke vermuten lässt. Entlang der nördlichen Küste von Ellesmere Island fanden die Forscher das dickste Eis, mit Dicken oft größer als 15 Meter.

It’s going to get thicker thanks to Mt. Redoubt.

For inquiring minds, the aircraft shown is a Basler BT-67. Basler Turbo Conversions starts with a C-47 airframe, completely rebuilds it including a number of modifications (most notably, a 40 inch fuselage stretch to compensate for the lighter turbine engines) and installs the PW PT6-67 turboprop engines. I have visited their facility researching a scale model that I built.
Website: http://www.baslerturbo.com

The BT-67 is a great modification of the immortal DC-3-I have a fondness for
Douglas products anyway.I just hope and pray that the Catlin expediton does not turn out something akin to Earnest K. Gann’s “Island in the Sky”..
Good movie with John wayne too…

After all this discussion about thinning ice it might be interesting to see how thick the ”pristine pre-industrial” ice in the Arctic really was.
Here are som figures from Nansen’s “Fram öfver Polarhavet”, Vol 2, , Chapter “Origin, growth and compression of the Ice” pp. 547-550. (1897).
Remember that this was the tail-end of the Little Ice Age.
The expedition let itself get frozen into the ice off Eastern Siberia in October 1893. The ice that started forming on the leads at this time grew like this
April 1894 2,31 meter
June 9 1894 2,58 meter
July 10 1894 2,76 meter (=first-year maximum)
September 1894 2,00 meter (=first-year minimum)
November 10 1894 2,08 meter
December 11 1894 2,11 meter
February 6 1895 2,59 meter
May 11 1895 3,00 meter
May 30 1895 3,03 meter
Measurements at this spot ended at this time, probably because the ice got scrunched up in a pressure ridge, but continued at a nearby site. There the thickness was
November 4 1895 3,36 meter
May 4 1896 3,97 meter
By this time the ice (and Fram) had drifted all the way across the Arctic Ocean into Fram Strait (guess what it is named for), whereupon Fram got loose from the ice and the latter presumably melted, as all sea-ice in the Arctic does after a few years.
So 2,5 meter for second-year ice in April and 4 meters for “perennial ice” (which really does not exist in the Arctic) may be a little less than that old-time ice, but not much.

@Silver
You are right, the Alfred-Wegner-Institut says about the 2008 ice:
“It cannot be excluded that sea ice is simply mechanically reallocated,” reports Gerdes. “Our model computations show that ice transport from eastern to western Arctic waters caused by wind was an important factor in the great ice-free areas of the Siberian Shelf in the year 2007.”
http://www.awi.de/eng/aktuelles_und_presse/pressemitteilungen/detail/item/minimum_arctic_sea_ice_2008/?cHash=7768f9b4cd

Or as we say in New York, ‘Arctic’.

“”” Capt. L. Oates (15:18:12) :
Dear Pen
Shame about the dastardly Jerries and their rotten old plane, what ?
Just where the deuce was Biggles when you needed him most ?
Reminds one of that pesky Norwegian chappie, Amundsister or something or other, and his dogs, eh ?
Can’t dawdle, I am just going outside and I may be quite some time.
Cheerio and good luck !
Laurence “””
What say old chap; buggered up the foot a bit there I see ! Well get some sleep out there Larry; you’ve earned it.
“To strive; to seek; to find; and not to yield !”
RFS 1912

George, Ron,
A study out in the last year or so in _Science_ showed that during the Industrial Revolution, the soot in the arctic due to industry was seven to eight times that from forest fires. It was very significant. The U.S. cleaned up, then Europe, but industrializing nations like China are creating soot like mad. I don’t know what the ratio of manmade to natural is now in the Arctic, but I’ve read that 25% of the pollution in Los Angelos is from Asia. Analyses also show Asian soot in the Colorado Rockies, etc. You look at satellite photos, and there’s a dark cloud coming from Asia, drifting heavily across the arctic. The soot is layered throughout the ice, and it accelerates melting in the melting season. It’s impossible, without a lot more analysis, to predict the effects of this on Arctic melt, but I’ve seen estimates of up to 85%.
Of course, as you say, sun, ocean cycles and wind patterns could swamp any manmade effect. But if we’re looking for ways we might control the climate, this mechanism of soot-driven Arctic ice melt fits the “global temperature” data set much better (under Ockham’s razor) than the GHG mechanism, which relies on poorly understood proxy data and highly conflicting hypotheses to amplify the insignificant GHG effect of 100 ppm CO2 by maximizing/minimizing the forcings and feedbacks of volcanoes, solar irradiance, convective heat transfer, etc, to match the latest data. The surface temperature and proxy data are complete junk, and it takes wildly imaginitive “science” to use the GHG hypothesis to explain any regional variability, such as antarctica ice growth, the antithetical cooling stratosphere, and the troposphere data, which also showed cooling until it was “corrected.” Basically, whatever is observed is what the models are quickly found to “predict.”
The satellite photos of Arctic melting are more convincing, though, even though they only show a thirty year snapshot. And the temperature stations in the Arctic, which show significant increases in some areas, are less affected by urban heat island effects. Again, it could be all natural, yes. But an arctic-based “change” stands up much better to Ockham’s razor than the GHG convolutions.

In the last week or so Barrow looks like it got dumped on pretty heavily by soot. I’ve tuned in to this webcam every day, and the ice and snow has been pearly white until recently. First I thought it was the changing shadows brought by the Sun, but it’s pretty obvious now it is soot:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/sea-lake-ice/barrow_webcam.html

Phil. (10:26:02) :
…………..
“But not one which is consistent with the data.
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20080717_Figure5.png”
Thanks for the pic, Phil. It clearly says “estimates” which in the real world is not synonymous with “data”, only in the Hansen-Mann-Gore world.
yddar (12:32:41) :
@Silver
You are right, the Alfred-Wegner-Institut says about the 2008 ice:
“It cannot be excluded that sea ice is simply mechanically reallocated,” reports Gerdes. “Our model computations show that ice transport from eastern to western Arctic waters caused by wind was an important factor in the great ice-free areas of the Siberian Shelf in the year 2007.”
Did they really need computer modelling for that?
Hey, this science stuff is easy, I can do from my comfy chair!

New interview with Steinhage from Alfred-Wegner-Institut:
The ice is thicker than expected, but they don’t understand why.
They have not enough data.
The interview ist in german.
http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/forschak/958476/

Pity they didn’t run a survey leg over the Catlin team just to rub it in.
It looks like they did. This from the Catlin site: “Their spirits were lifted briefly today when they heard the distant engines of a DC3 aircraft overhead. They thought their minds were playing tricks on them, but sure enough a DC3 did indeed fly within 13 miles of their camp”
The item does not report that they were also measuring the ice thickness… 🙂

yddar (13:13:19) :
New interview with Steinhage from Alfred-Wegner-Institut:
…………
http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/forschak/958476/
Google translation:
“”When the first results was a surprise for my colleagues, that they come from the satellite measurements have noticed that the further expansion of sea ice has declined. On the other hand, they have but there, in regions where they are in the past have ever measured, whereas thicker ice measured. In the extreme case, they have up to 15 meter thick sea ice measured. ”
What this means is not yet clear. One possibility is that the volume of sea ice still has not increased. The scientists could accidentally when measuring pushed to posts, where the ice by currents, wind drift or is together. Because it’s from the past, relatively few comparative data exist, is difficult to interpret. This allows the geophysicist Steinhage do not rhyme to make the first results.
“So, I think that this trend exists. But in my view, more interesting question is whether the short-term fluctuation or a long-term. It may well be that the amount of sea ice is constant and that the decreasing surface area by an increase in thickness is compensated. And I have no explanation, what physical process behind it that this is so. “”
I have already explained it above. The Arctic Sea is dynamic place and the its “frozenness” can not be judged by a single parameter alone. Ice extent, ice volume, wind, currents, albedo must be taken into consideration.

The Google translation of the interview is imperfect, but it is pretty clear that he is open to the interpretation that the thickness increases observed are due to compaction of the second and multi year ice.
If this is the case, it is not an indication of recovery of Arctic ice.
He also points out that there is not enough data to indicate a long term trend.
REPLY: “If” the sea ice extent was declining or static, your opinion might be valid. But Arctic Sea Ice extent is near normal now, and that is not just compaction.

eric (14:20:40) :
I think you are quite correct about the true test being this summer. Time will tell.
I myself find I’m drawn to look at the ice extent graph on a daily basis, despite the fact I have concluded it is largely irrelivant, and have concluded much of the discussion about the “ice extent” is balderdash.
Rather than “ice-melt” I have concluded we should be talking about “ice-flush.” If winds are perfect, a large amount of arctic ice flushes out and down the right shoulder of Greenland. On the other hand, if winds cause polar constipation, there is a plugged toilet and no flushing occurs. Topics such as “ice extent,” “first-year-ice,” “first-and-second-year-ice,” and even the most-high subject of “albedo” are all determined by how well the arctic toilet flushed in the past few years. In conclusion, Ice-extent seems to have more to do with winds than warming.
I have wasted a lot of time, and annoyed my wife, (who thinks I could make better use of my time,) looking into things such as the driftwood on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, (which, after radio-carbon dating, suggests the Arctic Ocean was reletively ice-free during summers in the reletively recent past, especially when wood from Siberia winds up on the north coast of E. Island.) This has persuaded me that the Arctic Sea goes through “slushy” spells, where it is reletively easy for the correct winds to flush the stuff over and down the right shoulder of Greenland. I assume there are also “rigid” spells, where it is less easy to flush the stuff. (I would use terms such as “constipated” and “laxitive,” but I fear I’ve stretched that particular analogy past the limit of Political Correctness.)
I used to bring up this topic at cocktail parties in in a most casual manner, stating, “I have a friend who heard someone he knew once met a fellow who studied driftwood up on the shores of the Arctic Ocean…” Everyone frowned at me. The entire room seemed to lean inwards in a most menacing manner. Therefore I decided it was unwise to bring up such topics, even casually, in a Politically Correct setting.
If you want to “get along,” ( like good old Rodney King,) it is best to avoid disillusioning people who are firmly convinced that ice at the North Pole used to be 75 feet thick, and only recently has become thinner.
When some fool disturbs such people at a cocktail party, by stating WUWT recently produced photos of submarines surfacing at the North Pole in 1959, you can become amazingly popular and have lots of pretty gals smile at you if you frown at the fellow and state the following:
Those pictures were forged. Just as Saddam Hussian once convinced the world he had all sorts of terrible weapons, (when in fact he had three pea-shooters and a trained attack-duck,) in 1959 the United States attempted to scare the old Soviet Union by claiming it had submarines surfacing at the North Pole.
Actually the forged photos were meant more as a taunt than an actual scare-tactic. The United States was convinced the Soviet Union would see through the scam. They were shocked when intellegence indicated the Russians had attempted to surface a sub through 75 feet of ice, crushed the conning tower, and had wound up sinking to the oozy bottom of the Arctic Sea.
When the sub didn’t return, the Russians assumed it had been sunk by Americans, and sent a fleet of seventeen submarines north. Due to a failure in logistics, all seventeen attempted to surface through 75 feet of ice, and now there are eightteen subs that lie at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.
It is the melt-down of the nuclear power-plants within those eighteen nuclear submarines which has led to the thinning of arctic ice. In the near future this thinning will lead to reduced albedo, and run-away Global Warming. The military is trying to hush this up, because they are very ashamed about being untruthful to the Russians in 1959. Being dishonest always lands you in trouble. Just ask Saddam Hussian.
At this point it is wise to pause and just silently shake your head, at the cocktail party. Look about the room, and gauge how many are swallowing your utter balderdash. A few will be leaning backwards with skeptical expressions, but an amazing number will still be leaning forward, with wide and innocent eyes, and open mouths, lapping it all up.
Then it is time for your punchline. Writhe, in exaggerated agoney, and ask how God could ALLOW such things to happen! Then raise an index finger and say, with a chuckle, that God knew best. God had to find SOME way to stop the next Ice Age, even if it involved eighteen soviet subs and the downfalls of both Russia and the United States. And so it has happened, you should conclude, but then you should raise a finger again, to add to your PS.
Say, “I’m sure you will want a link to a site on the internet where what I say is verified by some peer-reviewed document, but the link I shall give you is to a PEERLESS commentator!” (What this means is that you are making everything up, but never admit it.) Then give them the website;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/inconvenient-eisdicken/
And tell them to scroll down to the comment by “Caleb” towards the end of the May 1st comments.
Few will bother to do so. Instead a crowd of rather pretty women will surround you and treat you like a hero, as the men at the cocktail party hate your guts.
So you see, being popular in modern society has nothing to do with plastic surgery or dying your hair or squeezing into designer jeans. All you need to do is suggest the ice at the North Pole was 75 feet thick in 1959, and you’ve got it made!
Until next summer, that is. When the ice doesn’t flush away, and is in fact thicker, there are going to be some problems at the cocktail parties.
However we-who-know-how-to-handle-such-situations will surely invent a new breath-taking story to tell.
(Sarc Off.)

Subsequent to Anthony’s original post about “Surprising Results”, the Alfred Wegener Institute issued a press release after the Polar 5 mission was finished. It is posted in English here: http://www.awi.de/en/news/press_releases/detail/item/ende_pam_arcmip/?cHash=ff957775e4. A key quote:
“Multiple flights northwards from various stations showed an ice thickness between 2.5 (two years old ice in the vicinity of the North Pole) and 4 metres (perennial ice in Canadian offshore regions). All in all, the ice was somewhat thicker than during the last years in the same regions, which leads to the conclusion that Arctic ice cover recovers temporarily.”
Nothing in the press release suggests that the scientists found anything particularly surprising or unexpected, nor is it ever suggested that the results contradict AGW theory. Those claims were made in the Radio Bremen article, not by the Institute itself. The Institute seems to be rather neutral about the Polar 5 results, noting that it will take weeks to analyze the data.
Several of the comments above made reference to an interview in German in which one of the scientists said his colleagues were “surprised.” However, it seems very unclear from Google and other web translators what exactly they were surprised about. I studied German for two semesters in college and couldn’t make sense out of the scientist’s comment.
I think the message here is “stay tuned.”

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