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
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
Weren’t they supposed to be one of the star turns at Copenhagen? Anyone know what happened?
“Our Explorer Team have reported another day of walking on ‘flippy floppy ice’, the likes of which none of them have experienced, despite clocking up years of Polar Travel between them.”
Why don’t they just come out with it and say “it’s rotten ice“? Meanwhile, according to their website, the temperature on the 25 March 2010 is -18C!!!
““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.”
What?!!!
“Our Explorer Team have reported another day of walking on ‘flippy floppy ice’, the likes of which none of them have experienced, despite clocking up years of Polar Travel between them.”
Why don’t they just come out with it and say “it’s rotten ice“? Meanwhile, according to their website, the temperature on the 25 March 2010 is -18C!!!
“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.
(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817
Rotten ice in 1817?
OT – shows
Apologies might soon be in order for the UK’s Channel 4 which aired the “The Greenhouse Conspiracy ” (1990) and the “The Great Global Warming Swindle” (2007). The channel seems to have been one of the MSM outlest to have been years ahead of its time.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070308093308/http://www.washtimes.com/world/20070306-122226-6282r.htm
http://fufor.twoday.net/stories/3428768/
I hope this year’s Catlin survey is as entertaining as last year. For their own safety, however, I hope they’ve learned how to read a GPS, bring at least one person who knows how to perform chart calculations (especially directional and distance), remember to make at least one or two changes to the fake data logs they copy and paste, remember to bring a few spare batteries, and, oh yes, remember to bring some flare guns so they don’t have to wait so long for rescue this time.
“Me thinks they just like having the insurance company pay them to trek the ice. ”
If the insurance company can convince people that the icecaps are melting and sea levels will rise and there will be floods, then they can sell more flood insurance policies to the people who take the bait. This works particularly well for the insurance company that knows that there, in fact, is no melting and there won’t actually be any floods that will result in their paying out claims on these policies.
They are doing the same thing the politicians are doing only from a different angle.
The politicians want to convince you that if you part with more of your cash and grow the bureaucracy, they will save you from roasting to death. This works really well for them when they know you aren’t really going to roast to death and that the “evidence” is all contrived. Then when it becomes obvious the world isn’t warming they can congratulate themselves on what a wonderful job they did in “saving” the planet!
I love these guys, they are endlessly entertaining.
Jeff Wood (14:29:48) : “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?”
You lucky, lucky person you! The advertising space often shows something different here in England: “Rajendra Pachauri at the London Speaker Centre”. Poor guy must need the money if he’s moonlighting now.
http://londonspeakerbureau.co.uk/rajendra_pachauri.aspx
Did Ice Station Ztupid offer an explanation as to what caused the open water to flash-freeze?
They were there, weren’t they?
Ah yes, there it is, -45C air travelling at 60mph.
So much for the GISS barbecue Arctic Anomaly.
That should relate back to the Ice Extent Anthony has been keeping an eye on.
Oh really!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8352469.stm
—-
They still give the habitual nod to Co2 warming of course.
“Catlin Group Limited is an international specialist property/casualty insurer and reinsurer which operates through six underwriting hubs: London, Bermuda, the United States, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Canada. The Group underwrote gross premiums of US$3.7 billion in 2009.”
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/Sponsors.aspx
Hey, get working on lies for 2010.
Is this science compromised, conflict of interest or what? What if Catlin reports back to their sponsors that the ice is thicker than average, it’s bloody freezing and nothing out of the ordinary? Would they get to go on another Arctic expedition sponsored by the insurance company Catlin?
With this sentence alone you immediately realize you’re dealing with congenital exaggerators, PR flaks, and stuntmen:
“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.”
Gosh, that “effective ‘feels like’ temperature” is really very intimidating…. if you’re standing naked in the Arctic and in the full force of the wind. Put on some warm clothes, stand in the windbreak of your tent, and the phony baloney “effective ‘feels like’ temperature” instantly goes back to the “effective ‘real’ temperature” of -45 C.
Man *does* control nature, so long as it’s phony and contrived nature.
Steve Goddard (13:53:53) :
Thanks for the heads up on the Barrow webcam. Nothing like sitting here on a warm Sydney morning watching others freeze their backsides off. The videos of each years recordings are most impressive.
And thanks Anthony/Pierre Gosselin for bringing us the Catlin show. There is nothing quite like reality TV.
At their FAQ page here:
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/faq.aspx
“Aren’t there better and more accurate ways to measure the sea ice, such as satellites?”
“Airborne equipment has trouble determining the difference between ice thickness and snow depth and can experience difficulties in adverse weather conditions such as heavy cloud cover.”
Just like they ‘failed’ with their ground radar due to cold. Just like they avoided built-up-ice and chose flatter, thinner ice as admited by Hadow. Meanwhile Polar 5 did the work in much less time:
http://www.awi.de/en/news/press_releases/detail/item/polar_aircraft_polar_5_starts_antarctic_season/?cHash=0ced91bbb71bcc0fa07217188c5f4861
or was it “as admited by Hadow [Penn]”? Can’t be bothered to look, just remembered that one of these climate criminals mentioned it.
Gary Hladik (14:14:39) :
I can’t bear to read another depressing story about these guys, but that title certainly raised my spirits!
The first sentence may not apply here, or maybe change it to ‘unimportance.’
Enjoy.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/faq.aspx
Using their language, it should mean that the September Arctic sea ice extent has been recovering since 2007 regardless of melting.!!!!!! [Note: official warmist scientists don’t consider the 2009 September sea ice extent as a recovery]
If nothing else, we now have new terminology for arctic ice:
1) Rotten
2) Flippy Floppy
What’s next: “unrobustfulness” ?
Isn’t this a waste of time, except for the comedy of it all?
“As well as the great stretches of open water, we’re also experiencing some rather frustrating drifting that’s hampering our progress northwards. It’s got to the point at which I’d rather turn the GPS off in the evening than watch the figures click away, indicating that we’re steadily move back in the direction from which we’ve come!
But morale is good because, on the plus side, we’ve managed to undertake all the science we’d hoped to at this point. ”
Yeah, right!
Sorry, forgot the link:
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/blog.aspx?postId=107
[ Jimbo (16:55:50)]
There is a new bird on the birdfeeder, a Catlin’s warbler. Yes, I know warblers don’t normally eat seed, but I put out suet which attracts small insects which attracts warblers. Catlin’s warbler features a very heavy plumage because it breeds in the far north.
Warblers are, in general, noted for their beautiful songs. Catlin’s however, emits a continious stream of disjointed, discordant notes. Catlin’s warbler has no song.
This is a good site to follow the daily progress of various polar expeditions:
http://explorersweb.com/polar/
Here we go again — our intrepid explorers have struck off to do …
What is it they’re trying to do again? Oh yeah, they’re honing their communication skills. And they’re off to a great start, finding conditions they’ve never seen before. Which raises the question, what were they doing in all their previous adventures? Sleep walking?
Here’s a hint guys — it’s sea ice. It’s not some huge, monolithic ice sheet. It breaks up from time to time, exposing the ocean, which in turn refreezes. If you keep looking for the easiest travel route you’ll keep finding areas where the ice has split open. Try hiking over some of those ridges and see how solid the ice is. That ought to keep you busy.
In the meantime, try looking up some old US Navy submarine photos from the pole showing all that open water. It’s an old story, no matter how hard you work at trying to spin it as something new.
Jeff Wood (14:29:48) – Some ad services forbid discussion of the ads because there should only be natural and valid behavior. That usually works well, although it can cause awkwardness if one wants to discuss changes.
Oh come on… gives these guys a break. It’s f..ff…f..freezing cold because of global warming. And it’s only poor and new thin ice and the POlar \bears are extinct as they haven’t seen one.
Where are they supposed to be, by the way?
“By reviewing the distance and direction that the team’s campsite drifts each night as they sleep, we can roughly determine how mobile the sea ice has been over the course of their first 9 days of the expedition. It would seem the extent of their drift due south is around 42km.”
How about turning on the ol’ GPS?
@ Stephen Skinner (15:23:37) :
“…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.”
It makes you feel all warm and cosy when a scientific report says something that stupid and nobody notices until its published.
I have to say I much preferred the Top Gear expedition when they drove to the North Pole.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNkvASxfEWQ&hl=en_GB&fs=1&]
Are they wrapped up nice and warm this time with real furs? Last year, if I remember aright, they were complaining of the cold due to 100% synthetic clothing (no animals were harmed in the setting up of this “expedition”).
PS I don’t love these guys at all – their inanity is depressing. One year they’ll leave their hides there. The media will love that:” Just going outside for minute….” recorded on a cell phone.
These intrepid explorers wouldn’t know “science” if it came in a white fur coat in the middle of the night, pounced and ate them.
Why don’t they just do what the “Top Gear” crew did and drive there?
old44: That was the magnetic north pole.
As for Caitlin, on their summary of last year’s trip they say their data contributed to a group that thinks all the ice probably will be gone in 20-30 years. Well, they’d better get paid now to camp on the ice.
Here is a great graph from that link that Steve G provided above
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/sea-lake-ice/Brw09/Melt-out.png
Notice just how much cloudier it was last year than in previous years. Also note the anomaly of 2007.
Interesting
So, are we going to be blessed with another German research DC-3 flight that collects scads of more useful data than these meandering maritime merkin merchants?
04/28/09
“This is a news story from Germany outlining another Arctic ice measurement expedition. This one was conducted by flying the scientists across the north polar ice cap using the WWII era workhorse Douglas DC-3 airplane equipped with skis, and towing an airborne sounder twenty meters above the ice surface. It makes the Catlin Arctic Ice Survey look rather pointless, but then we knew that. BTW “Eisdicken” translates to “ice thickness”. – Anthony”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/inconvenient-eisdicken/
AnonyMoose (17:57:16) :
Jeff Wood (14:29:48)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_per_click
Hey! Look at the good side at least now we can get real temperature readings from the arctic for the GISS data base instead of the normal fakie recordings we get now!
Speaking of Way up North:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/Sitka.GIF
Sitka, Alaska going back to 1833 via CRU 99 for the orange line, and COOP from 1948 to 2008.
Note the station jump in 1972-4.
1973 was too messed up to plot.
All the stations in Alaska have huge holes in their data, makes it really messy.
With that big ugly mess, it’s hard to tell what’s really going on up there.
Too bad the Russians are down on handing over thier raw data, can’t blame them.
p.g.sharrow “PG” (22:37:24) :
Oh, you mean those temp guages mounted next to the shelter exhaust?
Or is it the propane torches used to defrost windows for readings?
SSam (21:50:08) :
Great, I haven’t seen the word “merkin” mentioned for about 40 years. Glad it’s still extant.
Are the Catlin crew using merkins?
No use bringing up Peary in 1909. Catlin explorers don’t believe in history, they believe in CAGW. It is apparent, their minds can’t handle the complexity when the two are mixed, even if the history is just four days ago! They like to keep it sweet and simple, anything implying colder is weather, anything implying warmer is climate.
The Catlin effort is rendered absolutely asinine by comparing it with the Clarkson and Mays’ ‘Top Gear’ effort in driving a relatively standard Toyota ute to the North Pole, while the third presenter on the show drove a dog team. Sadly, after it was completed, the British Autombile Association publicly criticised the Toyota pilots for encouraging “drink driving”! The two intrepid Toyotaists cracked a celebratory bottle and toasted their feat as they reached the North Pole.
If you send astronauts to the moon to find cheese, they can hardly come back with lumps of rock.
… but they can find rocks and all them “moon cheese”, thereby justifying the huge expenditure to send them to the moon to look for cheese.
well, as we all know out of personal experience how -75°C feels like… [/sarc]
@Disputin (01:48:18)
Dr Strangelove had Peter Sellers as Merkin Muffley, the President of the USA.
You can also check out:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkin
(Wikipedia has its uses in areas Connolley doesn’t get to – in more ways than one)
But I guess you already know all that.
I thought this expedition was out to prove WAGTD from ocean acidification.
If so, then how do they titrate their sea water samples at -45C?
Inquiring minds want to know.
I’m glad you mentioned that movie (Ice Station Zebra). Most of America and all the world’s journalists must have formed their impression of the Arctic from watching it.
The depiction couldn’t be more wrong — vast, flat plains of solid ice as far as the eye can see.
RHS (14:31:09) : “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…”
Strange, I wouldn’t think there’d be many mosquitos at their latitude this time of the year. 🙂
At least this year they are using using a motorized drill instead of Pen’s hand crank from last year.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/assets/photos/m_e206df4e-b727-4c75-8627-818fa0ef0ac9.jpg
For the experts perspective on trekking to the North Pole I’d refer you to http://www.explorersweb.com/ specifically http://www.explorersweb.com/polar/ where you will find blogs from teams making the attempt this year.
There is also this description of leads and how common they are
http://www.thepoles.com/expguide/arctic.htm
Basically if you are going from Canada to the true North you are pretty well guaranteed to have to swim a bit when you get close to the pole. They carry survival suits for just this purpose and their sleds can convert to canoes.
Speaking of which…one of this years teams taking a dip
http://www.explorersweb.com/sitemedia/TSthumbs/20100325swimlarsen.jpg
@JER0ME (19:40:03) : You very much made my day. I am still laughing.
When I was taught chemistry at school in the 1960s, the process of adding an acid to an alkaline solution was termed neutralisation.
How times change.
old44 (20:00:53) :
Why don’t they just do what the “Top Gear” crew did and drive there?
Probably because the Top Gear crew didn’t do so?
I believe, based on the geometry and locations described (near islands off of the Arctic itself) , that the Top Gear driving team actually got to the north magnetic pole, not the geometric north pole.
however, they did more useful “science” than any of these yokels have done.
RACookPE1978 (13:37:47) :
I believe, based on the geometry and locations described (near islands off of the Arctic itself) , that the Top Gear driving team actually got to the north magnetic pole, not the geometric north pole.
Actually they didn’t even do that! Not even 80ºN.