Guest Post by Steven Goddard
According to the Catlin website, the team plans to leave the Arctic later this week. I believe that they have done a fantastic job educating the public about the Arctic. Their mission has been followed breathlessly by BBC and Guardian reporters, who previously believed that the Arctic had melted and become a place for sunbathing.
Following the daily reports of ice, cold, frostbite, hypothermia, pain and general misery being endured by the team – even the most daft newspaper reporter must be aware now that the Arctic is a very cold and icy place.
My hat is off to the Catlin team for providing an invaluable education to those of us enjoying the springtime at lower latitudes. Hopefully they will return home safely to their families, and produce a useful and unbiased report of their findings about the ice.
This education for the public on the enduring cold of the Arctic is not marred by the fact that they failed to deliver on many early promises, including reaching the North Pole. Maybe this is why the press is pretty much ignoring them now, with only 14 hits in a Google News search for “Catlin Arctic Ice Survey”.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I think the Catlin Arctic Survey has given a valuable demonstration of what not to do if one wants accurate, unbiased data.
“and produce a useful and unbiased report of their findings about the ice.”
Hahahahahaha….. 😀
Thanks, I needed a lift this Monday morning.
It would appear the height of irony that only WUWT is actually tracking the Caitlin teams efforts.
Speaking of ice the SST charts from NOAA is starting to look like the sensors, especially the ice sensors are starting to go wonky.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.5.11.2009.gif
It looks like the ice sensor for both the northern and southern hemisphere seem to be breaking down and I’m wondering if the SST sensor is starting to malfunction as well.
It’s close to the point you can’t trust anything from NOAA satallites anymore, as with the chart it looks like they desperately need a new satallite, I mean how many years has it been up there with a decaying orbit and decaying sensors?
a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Are they being rescued or is this a planned retreat? Let’s see how much time they get on the BBC and space in the Guardian.
Enjoy.
I am sure they found solid CO2 up there 🙂
It will be deemed a great success, the ice is thinning faster than expected, more new ice than expected, warmer than expected,…
We had better heed their findings for the sake of our children and grandchildren as per Chuck’s (HRH The Prince of Wales ) quote on their website.
Adam from Kansas (11:49:56) :
“Speaking of ice the SST charts from NOAA is starting to look like the sensors, especially the ice sensors are starting to go wonky.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.5.11.2009.gif
It looks like the ice sensor for both the northern and southern hemisphere seem to be breaking down and I’m wondering if the SST sensor is starting to malfunction as well.”
Please forgive my asking, Adam, but what do you see on the SST chart that strikes you as odd or anomalous?
O/T but related. Accuweather just reported that recent cooldown was statistically insignificant . If that is true then why report that its been cooling to begin with????? That’s generally the way the liberal media does.If it’s important just don’t report it so there must be something to theis cooling.I suppose next winter when we’re burried in snow maybe they will wake up.
Just about on topic as we seem to be conflating both the BBC and the Guardian in this report, the cracks are beginning to show in the AGW planet with the BBC cutting back on climate reporters for cost saving purposes, and the Guardian not as concerned by this as one might have expected. Of particular interest is the response of it’s readership in the forum comments below the article, q.v.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/11/bbc-newsnight-science-environment-cuts
Catlin Arctic Ice Survey.
Oh.
Are they still out there?
Enough with the mockery — wait, there’s one more — they might even make it past the halfway point on their trek before getting picked up, I mean rescued, from the melting ice.
Since when has a reporter being aware of some fact interfered with what they actually report? Especially when it comes to this “non-debate”?
jack, in regards to Chuck: I have never before heard of people saying “God Save the Queen” and earnestly, fervently meaning it… not just words anymore!
After all is said and done, we ALL know that what they “found” up there will be completely unrelated to the “findings” we are about to hear. Apparently drilling a few holes in ice will “prove” something.
OK, I am breathless. However, I have regained enough to suggest another mission. After a couple of months rest with their families, they should be ready to Kayak to the north pole in the open water this summer.
The nice thing about science is that even failed experiments return useful observations.
I’m just glad they are all alive and making it out..
enduser (12:13:24) :
The sensor is obviously seeing water in areas where there is nothing but ice, and what’s even odder, it’s seeing exceptionally warm water.
Their site claims they are 503.37 km from the Pole. What this Survey has done is confirm that human interference in the extreme natural world has little effect. And that political agendas are no competition for the forces of nature. That the ice extent is greater than the last several years, and near the 1979-2000 norm is unlikely to be reported. Which demonstrates the failure of such “expeditions.”
Hopefully students and the public who go to the Catlin Website will do so with a modicum of skepticism. Because they will not be reporting the conditions they found. Nor the bias they set out with . Nor the use of home-built electronics in a hostile environment.
The bottom line message for climate awareness is: The arctic is a place of extreme weather. The ice has grown over the last several years and is at the twenty year norm. We need to revise our energy policy to promote domestic energy production in place of foreign imports. You do not need to be frightened into this action by Algore, Jim Hansen, sea level rise or dust bowls. It’s simply the next right thing to do.
Roll credits.
Whoever is choosing those Google ads must have a sense of humor. There is one for fake ice decoration for bars and one for “cold salt hydrotherapy, more effective than ice”!
Looking at the Catlin Ice Survey as they struggle through those boulders and over those peaks, I wonder just what the “average ice thickness” is that they will record for that area?
Humping a sled over raw, rough ice means and drilling with a hand unit means you take core samples at the smooth, flat, low (shallowest !) ice you can find: and the (unbiased) goal of the mission after all is to find melting and shallow ice. Will their answers, their survey points, be biased?
I wonder. Gee, will their surveys be honest or biased? /sachasm – the gaping whole between liberal extremests and reality.
Now they have not made a report for three days.
There is a post today that says the team will be extracted this week. It also says that they take 75 ice and snow measurements per day.
A post last week said they spend “4-5 hours of science measurements per day. Measurements include snow thickness; the thickness of the freeboard (the layer of ice that sits above the waterline, usually 10-15% of the overall ice thickness); the draft (the layer of ice that sits below the waterline – usually 85-90% of overall thickness); the snow temperature and snow density.”
Hmmmmmm, how no they have time to each day to (1) break camp, (2) walk 10 kilometers (they almost never walk less), (3) take 75 measurements for 4 or 5 hours, and (4) set up camp, and (5) cook, eat, clean up, charge batteries, clean equipment, etc.?
Also, when they stay in the same place like they have now for some 2+ weeks, where do they take their 75 measurements each day?
To be fair, they note in their reports: “Measurements biased for undeformed ice.”
That’s my one nod in their direction.
When they start to discuss Global Warming the first question to ask is why the start was delayed almost a week? Was it due to very cold weather?
So, 5 types of measurements for a total of 75 measurements… that comes down to 15 holes DRILLED BY HAND!!! How long would it take to drill a hole by hand depending on an average thickness? I can see why they biasly selected first year ice only.
It might have been more efficient then to settle a permanent camp (with better comfort) closer to the North Pole, with many holes that they could cap for the nights and measure at which rate the ice is thickening as it drifts slowly down.
Enduser: same CT with nordsex ice extent
http://eva.nersc.no/vhost/arctic-roos.org/doc/observations/images/ssmi1_ice_area.png
They simply stopped it because they don’t like the way its going.. lets change it again (down) guys! LOL We/they all know that if NH ice goes “normal” or above… the whole AGW is really dead.
REPLY: No and please stop with this line of thinking everyone. The satellite raw data server has an outage, and several dispensers of the ice extent info are affected, including NSIDC and ROOS. – Anthony