A group called http://www.coolemotion.org/ got funding from WWF to build a giant sculpture on an iceberg. As of May 6th the iceberg was still trapped in pack ice;
http://coolemotion.blogspot.com/2010/05/iceberg-still-stuck.html
But now they claim that the iceberg sunk/melted after just a few weeks:
http://coolemotion.blogspot.com/2010/06/no-iceberg-anymore-comments-of-ap-1.html
Iceberg disappeared, GPS signals from Satut. What happened?
“In the very early morning, 2nd of June, we could see at our GPS tracker that something was going on. Later we noticed that our signal moved constantly to the South East faster than the iceberg ever moved , and then suddenly moved to the North into the settlement of Satut.”
You have to read this below to really experience the cool-E-motion of it all:
The iceberg sunk………. Can you believe that an iceberg like this one disappears in only a matter of weeks? Last week I interviewed my very good friend Ole Jorgen Hammeken, standing in the sun, sweating because of the heat, while normally they can go for dogsledding untill [sic] June. It raises some questions… The whole day and night you can hear icebergs exploding, or collapsing because of this heat. What is going on? I am an artist who travelled [sic] many times through the Arctic and every year it becomes warmer and warmer. I am not a scientist, but only listen to the stories that people tell me. I am not interested in the question: Who’s guilty at this situation? Is there global warming? Not at all, I am asking the question: What if Climate Change enters my world: Can we anticipate on these fast changes? In Uummannaq the extremes started only a couple of years ago, and now it is warmer as ever before, with all consequences. I am personally convinced that we soon will experience what is happening over there, even if we only feel the tail. We need all energy and focuss [sic] on the future. My question is: How can we create a more flexible society? Climate Change is from all times, people always adapted to these changes, but are we now capable to cope with these extreme changes? We have to stop naming, blaming and shaming, and put this energy in another direction.
“What is going on?” he asks. Gosh, exploding icebergs! Gaia must be really angry right now. Since we are talking about “art” here, let’s venture back to artists of the past that traversed the Arctic, like this one.
From the website: In Search of Icebergs: Tracing the 1859 expedition of the painter Frederic Edwin Church to Newfoundland and Labrador
An excerpt from the link above, reading from the book:
Reading from the book: After Icebergs with a Painter: A Summer Voyage to Labrador and Around Newfoundland, 1861, by Louis Legrand Noble
Warnings passed down through local lore flowed with stories of exploding and capsizing icebergs. The author registers a sigh of relief each time the captain signals the return to a sheltered cove. On one occasion, the two companions enjoyed the sounds and sights of a collapsing berg from a safe distance. The painter, known throughout the book merely as C—, contributed a sketch of this astonishing event to Noble’s book.
Huh, exploding and capsizing icebergs in 1859. Whooda thunk?
Some in the press are eating this “iceberg sculpture cum Titanic disaster” up:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/06/08/iceberg-sculptures-sink.html?ref=rss
What’s really funny is the pic of the sculpture, iceberg and boaters for reference in this article: http://www.adn.com/2010/06/08/1313027/global-warming-sinks-dutch-artists.html
The iceberg looks to extend about 3.5 meters above the waterline. According to DMI, Arctic temps have been trending below average and are still mighty cold;
Thus it seems likely the sculpture probably slid off the iceberg when it tipped/flipped something like this:
or this
or this
Mega hat tip to WUWT reader “Just the Facts”, who gathered most of the content and links and placed them in comments.
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A brain hooked on CAGW stories and hype is a terrible waste.
The researchers were evacuated from the station one month ahead of schedule
by a nuclear icebreaker because of a powerful ice stream(!!?)
moving toward the station.
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/06/10/9558839.html
Perhaps a passing Russian nuclear icebreaker
nicked the sculpture.
Five metres of ice instantaneously melted. The temperature in the Arctic must be several hundred degrees.
I find it hard to believe that the iceberg melted in a matter of less than a week. May 28th it’s still huge, June 3rd it’s melted and gone?…
Holy flipping icebergs!!!!
Why does part of the sculpture look like a spermatozoa? Can any artists enlighten this philistine earth scientist?
Great, we had tipping islands, now we have tipping icebergs. Anthony, is this a subliminal attempt to get us to hit the tip jar?
I love this site. So much to learn here everyday. Today I found out that icebergs sink. Brilliant.
/sarc
Mike.
What’s really fascinating it that the WWF had so much extra money to hire someone to create……….art? What the heck is that? We should sue the WWF just for the bad taste, not to mention the junk they left littered on the ocean floor.
How does one put the words “iceberg” and “sank” together? I like that angle. We can invent a whole new area of science to study how ice sinks in water!
He asks “What if Climate Change enters my world:(?) ” I wonder what world he’s been living in and what color the sky is in his world?
It sure sounds to me like some local fisherman saw some metal that might be of use.
Apparently the GPS tracker device was broadcasting its position as being inside a house in the settlement of Satut.
The website says that the GPS apparently was taken off just before the iceberg “sank”, but to me it seems more likely that once the GPS tracker was taken off, that it became nearly impossible to relocate the same small iceberg.
Sounds pretty fishy.
I’m going out on a limb here …
My guess is that some starving-due-to-global-warming polar bear ate it.
8^)
No way that iceberg melted in weeks. After this “global warming” winter, we had so much snow that at work they piled it up in half the parking lot and we all parked in the other half. The mound was about 100 feet in diameter at the base and about 20 feet tall (much smaller than this iceberg). At the end of the winter, we had a few weeks of warm weather (60-70F) and lots of sun. This thing is sitting on black asphalt and after a few weeks, they finally brought in front-end loaders and hauled the pile away because it just wasn’t melting fast enough. So there is no way that iceberg is melting in 33F arctic water even in full sunlight and 70F air temps inside a few months!
“Later we noticed that our signal moved constantly to the South East faster than the iceberg ever moved , and then suddenly moved to the North into the settlement of Satut.”
Maybe a passing fisherman liked the look of the GPS transponder and took it with him to the “settlement of Satut?” Maybe the berg yet lurks somewhere South of Satut?
Or perhaps the Heat Miser took a like to the berg and melted it just for fun.
Maybe we should examine how you scientifically determine the top and bottom of an iceberg. Can we get a government grant and make a scary movie with the money?
Or maybe — Did anybody see the GPS float by and stop to pick it up? You can get a lot of money for scrap these days.
Need bigger iceberg.
If anybody else would have mounted some useless steel structures on an iceberg the WWF would have called it pollution.
Mike Odin says:
June 10, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Making the dot over i:
1. http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/06/05/9175021.html
2. http://en.rian.ru/infographics/20100524/159136732.html
Regards
The iceberg reached a tipping point and then it tipped.
Reminds me of the photos in the report: “Melting snow and ice”, presented by the Norwegian Foreign Minister Støre and Al Gore at Copenhagen, where there were photos of icebergs with clearly photoshopped penguins on them, at strange angles.
stevengoddard: your
Five metres of ice instantaneously melted. The temperature in the Arctic must be several hundred degrees.
More than 5 meters of ice there. Assuming the guys are about 1.8 meters tall, the ice above water is over 5 meters alone. That means there is about 45 meters of ice underwater.
50 meters of ice melted in 1 week? My BS detector is going off.
Especially as their website states:
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Iceberg disappeared, GPS signals from Satut. What happened?
In the very early morning, 2nd of June, we could see at our GPS tracker that something was going on. Later we noticed that our signal moved constantly to the South East faster than the iceberg ever moved , and then suddenly moved to the North into the settlement of Satut. At the very moment that something happened with the iceberg, the GPS system was taken into a fisherboat that continued fishing untill he finally went home. ( Ap’s version )
We contacted our friends in Uummannaq, who took a boat to have a look, but they couldn’t find our iceberg anymore. What happened we never will know. Too many options are open.
In other words, a fisherman “liberated” the GPS device, and they have lost the iceberg.
Much better story to say that it “sunk”.
Idiots.
Hey, don’t laugh! That could be Guam some day!
Iceberg sinking = new laws of physics.
Well when I see four idiots standing up in a rubber boat; or even one idiot for that matter; I can’t help thinking about their rubber boat tipping over in a teachable moment.
Well unfortunately; in this case they all survived; and will likely reach breeding age; so we can continue to have new generations of idiots in the future.
These folks probably have ancestors related to those of the Catlin expedition.
Oslo says:
June 10, 2010 at 2:33 pm
photos of icebergs with clearly photoshopped penguins on them, at strange angles.
Maybe the penguins were drunk on the appearance fee money?
Does remind me of a Salmon that was equipped with a tracking device by scientists years ago in order to do research on migration patterns. It remained very static at one place for longer period of time, at closer inspection that location appeared to be a freezer of a fisherman 🙂
“In the very early morning, 2nd of June, we could see at our GPS tracker that something was going on. Later we noticed that our signal moved constantly to the South East faster than the iceberg ever moved , and then suddenly moved to the North into the settlement of Satut.”
Never go for the easy explanation, its all global warming, what else could it be. I bet that someone in Satut is making better use of this sculpture than the artist ever could have thought off.
It is well know that when there is a global warming ice sinks. This was the sort of science back in the 60’s. Remember the story of “Voyage at the bottom of the sea”? It was another kind of global warming though!!!
Anyway, in the movie, the Seaview was casually going along under the Arctic cap when suddenly big icebergs started to sink and crash against its hull…. they soon found out that the sky was on fire and the ice melting was sinking…
You should read the plot. It is amazing how it sounds like today’s rhetoric.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_to_the_Bottom_of_the_Sea
Look at 44 seconds…
“I am not a scientist, but only listen to the stories that people tell me. ”
Uh-huh