Well I’ve ignored the “new” Catlin Arctic survey as long as I can. Like last year, they’ve gone off the deep ends of the earth with wacky claims.
Apparently the team isn’t watching the sea ice extent data closely. Me thinks they just like having the insurance company pay them to trek the ice. There’s no real science being done. Just commentary. At least they aren’t pushing bogus biotelemetry this year
From Tom Nelson’s link aggregator, comes this simple set of points:
The Catlin warmists think that we’re stupid
“The conditions we’re experiencing are unlike anything I’ve seen in any of the nineteen expeditions I’ve previously been on,” says Martin Hartley. “There are great swathes of only recently refrozen open water peppered with small snow-covered islands of ice in the distance. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come for Arctic travel?”
The open water is revealed when fields of the floating ice break apart due to underlying ocean currents and pressure exerted on it by winds or tides.
A massive weather event forced the Ice Base to go into lockdown mode for two days this weekend. Starting on Friday evening, the team experienced gusting winds of up to 60mph and temperatures of -45 C, giving an effective ‘feels like’ temperature of -75 C.
[Flashback: If SUVs caused the open leads in 2006, what caused the open leads in 1909?]
Check out the New York Times article here, where Commander Peary talks about Arctic conditions in 1909.
Excerpts from Peary himself:
The difficulties and hardships of a journey to the North Pole are too complex to be summed up in a paragraph. But, briefly stated, the worst of them are: the ragged and mountainous ice over which the traveler must journey with his heavily loaded sledges…
…the open leads already described, which he must cross and recross, somehow…
h/t to Pierre Gosselin
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Perhaps they should visit the zoo – more thin ice to skate on:
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/25/polar-bears-on-thin-ice/
My toes! I can’t feel my toes!
Too much drama and too little unemotional observation and record keeping.
You can’t get grants and funding without the exagerating a little.
This is a proven tactic. The Swine flu epidemic would kill the people. If we don’t act suddenly and swiftly.
They sure get Joe Romm aggitated quickly.
You can see the ice at Barrow on University of Alaska webcam.
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/sea-lake-ice/barrow_webcam.html
Ice thickness is 1.2 metres.
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/sea-lake-ice/Brw10/
Bless you, I LOVE the Catlin survey posts!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…
Yes, they do think that we; or more accurately their devoted fans, are stupid. They also hope and believe that their funders are stupid. this later belief seems to have significant justification, after all they keep right on getting funded.
First post?
Remember, Catlin is an insurance group. Climate catatophism will be used to rationalize increases in premiums due to losses on account of climate change. Sadly, the UK government is stacked to support this nonsense by both the Labor and the Tory parties
Wait a minute, if we were all about to die from AGW wouldn’t there be no refrozen water to worry about? Along with the complaints about the record cold, that poses somewhat of a logical non sequitur.
But, no matter whether it’s freezing, refreezing, or melting (aka the Wiz of Oz), it’s all “worse than we thought” apparently.
That rotten ice just can’t make up its mind.
The Catlin expedition is a legend in its own lunchtime, never before in the history of scientific endeavour has so little science been done by so few adventurers.
The group fronted by the finest media advisors your money can buy and working around the clock to flog their dodgy results to a sceptical world, just look in wonder at their website teaming with..er..uhm stuff and read in awe as they explain the apparent miracle of how ice can break up and melt in temperaures of below 20 and lower.
I sense a contradiction or three here, the media luvvies demanding tales of derring do, heroes in the mould of Scott battling fierce freezing winds and Arctic temperatures while bringing us fresh(pre cooked)data while the funding agencies demand that is interspersed with frightening tales of a dissapearing ice cap and disolving shellfish due to global warming.
So you have a dogs dinner of contradictory information put together by media types more interested in pleasing the expedition funding agencies.
Take a look at the Catlin website yourself if nothing else it will make you laugh, put together by teenagers to be used to indoctrinate 3rd graders.
The Catlin gamers fooled me when they started last year. They proposed to do science the old fashioned way by actually treking across the ice and measuring.
That struck me as an adventure. I thought it unlikely to produce any worthwhile science. But who was I to argue about what they wanted to do?
Then I followed their progress and claims. I won’t again.
Great article. Now after climategate and the crash of ACORN, we will have companies become more bold. Many of thse entertainiers will see a freeze. A freeze on grants for the gravy train.
James Hansen is on the bed wetters circuit crying for money to save the poley bears. This panic fed funding is a bottomless pit. Some folks will send a few letters to the investors and the accountants will say no more.
I can’t bear to read another depressing story about these guys, but that title certainly raised my spirits!
“A massive weather event forced the Ice Base to go into lockdown mode for two days this weekend. Starting on Friday evening, the team experienced gusting winds of up to 60mph and temperatures of -45 C, giving an effective ‘feels like’ temperature of -75 C.”
Strange, DMI records Arctic Polar Temperature as only -23 degC for last weekend!
Off-topic, but relevant: do I understand correctly that each time we click one of those “Fight global warming/climate change” ads up there, the tip jar clinks?
I’m curious at which latitude they’re making these observations from. If they’re making them from the 90th rather than the 60th(exaggerations intended), then we should be concerned about warming. Otherwise, they should be concerned about camping out in the habitat of the only animal known to hunt man rather than ice conditions…
This is SHOW BUSINESS directed to the PUBLIC, the ones who are expected to believe in what they say. This indicates that the global warming/climate change business has not stopped but will continue as planned and it means too that they expect a different result in Mexico.
There is a lot, lot of money involved, as the promotion reaches every corner of the world, and thousand and thousand of media involved all over the planet.
This is quite a high bet and they will get what they want unless a real armageddon happends and we all die, “world government paradise” conspirers and we, stubborn deniers unbelievers, alike.
Didn’t Peary make it to the pole? Were I catlin crew I’d rush to the pole and have at least that success to comfort me. Then collect samples on the way back.that way you would be moving towards a safer pick up point for both rescuers and rescued. Also, you’d be heading toward warmer conditions and to boot, the ice drift would be going inthe same direction as you.
Lead definition
42.
an open channel through a field of ice.
I like how he is seeing something new in the arctic that somehow has a word for the very thing he is describing as new that was being used in 1909.
Chuckle.
“…widely considered to be the ‘other’ carbon problem beyond climate change….that of ocean change”
Here we go again…
As an aside… I believe Jeff is right. So keep on clicking 😉
“only made 3 miles in 11 hours”. How daring. I am sure they have to shut down and have a bikini wax at some point so they are ready to swim.
They complain about progress. But they use a skidoo.
No seriously, I have ice sailing experience and know the artic water accelerates in freezing with strong winds. That means a lot of rocky and tough non smooth surfaces. They act like it is from frezeeze thaw cycles. Surely they use a ghost writer to post comments for them to help them be more vivid and colorful.
The other issue these brave daring life risking warriors don’t discuss is currents. Since the arctic is open sea and not land, there are currents under the ice and that effects ice thickness since the ice is a barrier to the cold surface air.
Ego/eco trips and ice trekking
From a C.V. a member of the team
“Tim will be ensuring that rigorous scientific protocols and data interpretation is maintained throughout the project, and addressing issues peculiar to extreme-condition projects. ”
Impressed?
This info babe explains the writing part of the junket
Communications Manager
Having been an advertising exec, brand manager, sales promotion practitioner, media promotions director and freelance copywriter, Sal has enjoyed a healthy dollop of experience from across the marketing communications spectrum. She has also worked with a host of blue-chip brands including Kellogg’s, Sky, Discovery Channel, Quorn, Vileda and Barclays.
However, when offered the opportunity to do something a little more environmentally minded on the Catlin Arctic Survey, she willingly jumped on board.
When not worrying about the fate of marine organisms that neither know nor care of her existence, she writes comedy. Highlights include a 2008 Edinburgh show, having sketches aired on BBC Radio 7, being shortlisted for the Beeb’s first ever College of Comedy and being invited to attend a writing master-class with David Mitchell at Broadcasting House. David wore top-to-toe brown for the occasion.
All of them mention climate change, environmentally minded and the juicy treeless hugging stuff.
Native Arctic tribes people can do all this, plus build boats, skin seals and do so without padding their resumes.
All this will help sell seal skin lined tinfoil hats and souveniors.
I suggest Dr Watts sponsor them with a handfullof thermometers and get a business card listing on their massive web dog and pony show.
Sean (14:07:21) : You are giving them too much credit – in this case the cock-up theory is more apt than the conspiracy theory. Catlin just wants to be loved by all the nice caring greenies, and get credibility for helping save the planet, just like Bishop Hill’s children’s teacher. He seems to have forgotten that he is supposed to be running a business.
Hadow is clearly wacko – watch this for an idea of what kind of scientist he is:
The NSF, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and the Japanese government cooperated in funding a research project called SHEBA (Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic) back in 1997. Considering the big names in funding I was surprised they allowed the conclusion in the last sentence past scientific proof reading before publication. The bit from ‘melting sea ice…’
“One unexpected finding concerned the salinity of the water. When the scientists first arrived at the Arctic ice pack in October 1997, they discovered that the water was much fresher than it had been when the same area was analyzed twenty years earlier. They concluded that the melting of the ice pack during the summer of 1997 caused the water to be proportionally less salty. Such a change can have serious consequences for marine life as well as for how ocean water circulates and interacts with the atmosphere. In addition to altering salinity, melting sea ice also raises worldwide sea levels, with potentially significant effects for coastal cities and towns.”
http://www.nsf.gov/about/history/nsf0050/arctic/seaice.htm