From the you’ve got to be effin kidding me department comes news of the epic journey to Antarctica. What do they hope to prove? I don’t know, it seems like nothing but a publicity stunt, especially since the sea ice trend in Antarctica is up in the last 30 years:
I predict what will come of it will be much like this joke of a new report by Scott Pelley of CBS News who went to Antarctica at the peak of the southern summer to capture images of melting ice. Here’s the transcript. Antarctic summer is opposite that of the northern hemisphere and runs roughly from October through February.
Gore, Hansen, and Trenberth and more than 100 fellow travelers will depart from Argentina late next week and arrive in late summer in Antarctica, just in time to witness melting ice, put it on video, wail about the tragedy, and ask for money to combat climate change. Basically, they are going to lie with seasonal visual aids..
Scientists, celebrities to cruise with Gore to Antarctica
Lauren Morello, E&E reporter
E&E News
“This winter we will be talking about Antarctica as part of our ‘Living on Thin Ice’ campaign which will focus on how people around the globe are being impacted by the melting of the world’s ice,” Climate Reality Project spokesman Eric Young said. “As part of that effort, we are journeying to Antarctica with our chairman, Vice President Gore, and leading scientists and thinkers to see firsthand how the climate crisis is unfolding.”
Antarctica is not the only stop for Gore’s campaign, Young said, which has convened events in Ecuador, the Sierra Nevada and Brooklyn and is planning trips to Nepal and the Alps.
You guys are quick!
You think they might jet pool to Argentina?
Get ready for another Climate FAIL and the Al Gore effect.
Who is paying for this? What kind of carbon footprint will they be leaving behind…. Oh an yes we can but hope the weather turns dastardly cold……… pleaseeeeeeeeee
Waitaminnit… A boat trip organized by Gore… taking Hansen and Trenberth… to view declining Antarctic ice… and to celebrate the Scott expedition (-blink- well, maybe they’ll emulate that little adventure completely).. with stops in Nepal and the Alps (by boat?)…
A quick look (which is about all I can stand) at Gore’s blog doesn’t seem to mention this. Are you sure this isn’t satire?
Gore effect + Antarctica = Climate Disaster
Maybe they’ll end up at this antarctic base which would fit well their their co2 doomsday rapture thing:
[;)]
Would it be wrong to suggest that Francesco Schettino captains the vessel?
Poetic Justice envisages the Gore Effect bringing a record-cold storm that strands their hapless ship for all of 2012, after which a slender but frostbitten crew are rescued by a nuclear icebreaker, their harrowing ordeal causing them to recant the error of the Warmista ways.
I assume they’ll also be there to observe the decline in penguins (supposed) and of course all of those poor great whites going hungry…
Are people really not aware enough to know when it’s winter up here it’s summer down there? Please tell me that people won’t fall for it. Please.
Is this one of those times where we wish the Al Gore effect makes this a one way trip?
Ok, I am not really serious on that (it was supposed to be a really bad joke…)
But really, knowing Al Gore’s luck with his own effect…it really must be possible?
“Lew Skannen says:
January 22, 2012 at 7:37 pm
Would it be wrong to suggest that Francesco Schettino captains the vessel?”
Yeah considering.
There’s already been that rescue for the Russian Fishing boat being trapped in the ice down there.
Then there was also another rescue for a Korean Fishing boat that also caught fire aswell.
So the odds are looking fairly healthy for a Gore Effect Antarctic shipwreck!
You just know they will report that by not sighting any Polar bears,
it will be more proof of global warming.
🙂
Reporter Lauren Morello must be rather young. She’s obviously on the same ideological side as Gore and Hansen, but doesn’t realize how beautifully appropriate her phrase “fellow traveler” is!
This actually makes me laugh. It is becoming apparent that to be a Vice President of the US, you have to be a caricature of some type: imbecile (Quayle), imbecilic zealot (Gore), warmongering demon (Cheney), bumbling dolt (Biden). Now, I don’t believe that Quayle was that stupid, Cheney was sent from the underworld, or that Biden is that much of a dolt (bumbling a bit, yes). But Gore just continues to come through with actions that back up his caricature. It’s like watching Jim Baker (preacher) spiral into PR oblivion.
Are Hansen and Trenberth using vacation time to take this trip? Are they paying for the value of the trip?
I think I know just the captain for a cruise such as this, he’s a bit of a celebrity and is recently unemployed! But unlike his esteemed passengers he abandons a sinking ship.
The SS Global Warming sailed serenely on. I sense a James Cameron movie coming.
Seriously though, this must be the first time in history that rats have been observed jumping ONTO a sinking ship…
…and global warming has already wiped-out the penguins at the North pole.
“We’re going on a boat organised by Al Gore”
___________________
It’s summertime down there, so maybe they won’t need to travel in a Russian or Chinese icebreaker, however apropos for comrade Gore.
It’s a cinch they won’t make the trip on the Oden, which you may remember was recalled by the Swedish government due to the large increase in sea ice affecting northern navigation.
LOL
Gore, Hansen and Trenberth: Ladies and gentlemen, your Washington Generals starting lineup
“We’re going on a boat organised by Al Gore to learn as much as we can from scientists and experts about where we are in the worrying cycle of Global Warming.”
Unexpected candor from the profiteers of doom, admitting that they are tracking the cycle of worry that they have whipped up with their “global warming” meme.
I can save you the carbon spewing trip to penguin land, Branson. Here is where we sit in the in the “global warming” worrying cycle:
From the peak of the “global warming” worry, which occurred in about 2007-2008, the worry has been trending strongly downward. Issue fatigue kicked off the fall, which was rapidly accelerated by the recognition that “Hope and Change” was more about the preying on the former than the providing the latter, along with a series of unfortunate extreme cold weather events coincident with a number of “global warming” PR confabs. Then came Climategate and frozen Cancun, and worry dove even faster.
Cyclically, the worry got a minor bump up around the summer of 2010, but that year ended with blizzards in Europe, Snowzillain in NY and a white Christmas in Atlanta. Since then, there have been many promises that global temperatures and economies would be trending up, but both are flat to declining. That puts worry over “global warming” off the bottom of the chart. People have real problems to worry about now. They cant afford to worry about imaginary problems, and they understand that the draconian energy and tax policies you guys are pushing as solutions to that imaginary problem will only make their real problems worse.
So don’t figure on the worrying cycle of “global warming” heading back up anytime soon. It is on the same trajectory as global temperatures, and both are sitting at their lowest point in more than decade.
Too funny. I sent the link to a global warming, ice cap melting friend to follow.
Frankly, he’s too smart for this. ….Lady in Red
Mock all you like, but when that boat is stranded and crushed, Al Gore will prove himself another Shackleton.
Bwahahahahaaaaaa!
Perfect time for an inconveniently placed Iceberg ;0)
Ego-tourism.
I just hope they don’t leave Gore alone with any penguins. I don’t think they can run fast enough to escape that sex poodle.
Perhaps Al Gore can stay there and keep on ‘reporting’ until he actually finds some facts
Maybe he has gone to look for drowning polar bears? Oh hang on they don’t live in the Antartic. I know a bloke working down at Casey and the last thing he needs is a visit from Al, unless he is bringing more beer.
And, you can bet they’ll pick some place in West Antarctica (which has been trending warmer).
Also, if you check the source, they had this to say:
“…Antarctica is not the only stop for Gore’s campaign, Young said, which has convened events in Ecuador, the Sierra Nevada and Brooklyn and is planning trips to Nepal and the Alps…”
Brooklyn?
To discuss climate change?
“Gore, Hansen, Trenberth to make Antarctic PR expedition”
The book of this expedition has already been written, under the title “Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog).”, by a gentleman called Jerome K Jerome.
But I thought it was Antarctica everywhere Gore went.
Isn’t this trip a bit redundant?
And are Hansen and Trenberth just going along to witness the debacle, or to add to the effect?
LOL!
what is it about stupidity that these three haven’t figured out yet?
no trees to cut down….lots more ice…. and three stooges… all we need now is to add Mann into the mix…. instant hockey team…
I realize these comments are jokes, but they are uncalled for IMHO. It’s one thing to look down upon someone for having/promoting stupid ideas, but it’s sick to wish death upon someone for their ideas. Charge and try him for fraud, sure, but don’t forget he’s a fellow human (I think).
[SNIP: OK, enough of wishing disaster on the warmists. It’s stopped being funny several comments ago. -REP]
We need some light relief. Hansen should chain himself to an iceberg.
It may be summer down there but stuff happens:
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/01/14/292221_todays-news.html
“Former Vice President Al Gore is taking his fight against climate change to Antarctica next week…”
Er, what’s he gonna do? Persuade the ice not to melt? Sell carbon credits to penquins? Install freezers?
It would be quite funny if they got stuck there as a result of a sudden blizzard for about six to eight additional weeks. That would be interesting, those guys being cooped up with each other in the scientific huts.
This is truly incredible. Gore, Hansen, Trenberth, the Gore Effect, Blair’s Law (the ongoing process by which the world’s multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force), all destined to meet at Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness in Antarctica, Gore lurching like Frankenstein’s monster in the chaste icy waste and raving about how civilization must change its carbon ways or else when the stars are right, Gaia will rise and all mankind will tremble! and wagging his green squid cap for emphasis, while the Gore Effect calls down super-freezing like in The Day After Tomorrow. This is beyond The Onion, will Josh or Elmer be able to do it justice?
In 2005 an Antarctic cruise ship struck ice and sank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Explorer
I recall another Antarctic cruise ship struck ice and was seriously damaged a couple of years ago.
“…I’m going to Antarctica with [my family] to celebrate that trip and also Capt Robert Scott (who was a relative of ours)…” Branson.
I hadn’t realised he was so well connected — Capt. Scott I mean.
Trip motto: “We’ll go to the ends of the earth to perpetuate this fraud and protect our paychecks!”
Oh, so they are going down for the centennial anniversary of the founding of the Cape Denison camp. And of course they will compare ice conditions then to ice now.
Gore ” There are no polar bears here!They must be drowning!”
Trernberth: ” it’s worse then we thought!”
Antarctica has been way colder than normal for weeks now – always all blue in the daily anomaly chart:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/ANIM/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.30.gif
The poor penguins are missing a whole summer because of the Gore effect!
South of Cape Horn is not a good place to go. It is not responsible to bring children and people that do not need to be there. Rescue personnel and equipment are exposed to real danger for no good reason. Rescue may not always be timely or possible even in the summer. The Chilean navy and PANC are tired of this. The Chilean Air Force lost one of their planes with all on board last September attempting to land on Juan Fernandez. The weather in that part of the world is unpredictable and violent. On the bright side, maybe Big Al will lose some weight chumming the fish.
Talk about a ship of fools.
I think that it’s a great idea. January through February is the best time of year for skinny dipping, and for communing with cute and cuddly Leopard Seals in the waters off Antarctica.
No one else has said it, so I will . . .
This is a “jumping the shark” moment.
Al Gore should stay there and stabilize the ice shelf with his Gore Effect powers for the time being; you never know.
Here in Switzerland the snow fall is so great that one radio commentator suggested the Alps we sinking under the weight of it. If Gore comes it’ll only get worse.
Climate Reality Antarctic Project.
C.R.A.P.
I dont think I need to say anymore.
I wonder if they will need to use the services of the icebreaker that was recently used to get people to the spot where Mawson first arrive in the Antarctic? There was no ice at the spot where Mawson first stopped his ship in 1911.
Gore effect working already 😉 New Zealand southern Alps had snow last night.
23/1/2012 max temp at scott base in antarctica was -7 deg max today I hope they take there warm undies with them otherwise it will fall off,
They’ll be on sun loungers, wearing their budgie-smugglers and complaining that there’s no ice to go in their drinks!
I wonder if Nasa/Noaa are going to launch another satellite turned anti-penguin ballistic missile during that timeframe….
This could get good.-
Do you think they will stay there? It might be unkind to point out that Captain Scott set a precedent.
Will they reenact an historical event??
“Captain Lawrence Edward Grace (“Titus”) Oates (17 March 1880 – 16 March 1912)[1] was an English Antarctic explorer, known for the manner of his death, when he walked from a tent into a blizzard, with the words “I am just going outside and may be some time”.[2]
His death is seen as an act of self-sacrifice when, aware his ill health was compromising his three companions’ chances of survival, he chose certain death.”
Oh silly me – of course it’s summer.
It would be really funny if when they arrived on Antarctica there was no snow or Ice, the look on their faces would be priceless. Who would believe them when they got home?
Summer temperature in central Antarctica rarely climbs over -30C. Perhaps this boat will get too close to a calving glacier.
Big Al has become Mother Gaia’s God of winters discontent. Even mentioning visiting Antartica has caused unseasonal snowy wintry conditions in nearby NZ.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10780390
There they go again, why oh why do these millionaire numpties never think?
“worrying cycle of Global Warming.”
So, Branson confesses indirectly that there is w Global Warming Cycle! Cycles imply circles going round & round, or at least they used to do in the old fashioned days when people tended to “think” before engaging their mouths! Sarc off 🙂
Just more data points being generated in the falsification testing of the Gore Effect Hypothesis.
Interstellar Bill says:
January 22, 2012 at 7:42 pm
Poetic Justice envisages the Gore Effect bringing a record-cold storm that strands their hapless ship for all of 2012, after which a slender but frostbitten crew are rescued by a nuclear icebreaker, their harrowing ordeal causing them to recant the error of the Warmista ways.
——-
Bill, gore’s on board, how slim could the crew be afterwards?
Seriously, though: if they wanted to be truthful about ‘this winter,’ they’d visit the Antarctic in August.
But I understand ‘truthful’ is pretty much impossible for these people.
Any chance of hiring an Italian cruise ship captain…..
Perhaps Al Baby could try and match that Brave Brit, Felicity Aston, who just crossed Antarctica alone. He’d be able to survive on body fat for at least two months; a reduced carbon footprint he could be proud of!
Well, they have The Professor (Trenberth) The millionaire (Gore) and Gilligan (Hansen) on board. And it looks like Mary Ann is along to report on things.
This should be an interesting “3-hour tour.”
I don’t get it, I really don’t. Knowing what tend to be a trend line with “cold front” Gore and “Ice age” Hansen and “We’re doomed” Trenberth, why would anyone in their right mind want to go to one of the coldest location on earth during the years of catastrophic climate change/disruption?
Gore, standing proudly in the bow, stretching his arms far and wide, “I am like a God!”
Trenberth, exclaims in a shiver, “Well, by my calculations, the evil gas we emit during this trip should be enough to keep us warm against all insta-freeze moments.”
Looking puzzled at his wireless pocket super duper model calculator, an abacus without strings, essentially just a bag of balls without the bag, Hansen looks above the rim of the boat looking at the reality of the present local, “My God, what is all that white stuff?”
Gore, standing blue in the bow, arms never moving, “I…ik…Go…!”
Alan Robertson on January 22, 2012 at 8:21 pm said:
If the icebreaker Oden still would be at Antarctica, the Swedish government would be happy to assist at no cost …
Old beardy Branson is going. Is he the same chap who own the airline? How does he get that one past the crew?
You can just predict what they will find: “Polar bears extinct in Antarctica – it’s worse than we thought.”
“The Thing” (all three versions of it) was based on John W. Campbell, Jr.’s “Who Goes There” (1938): Everybody gets done in by a really vicious alien critter. The other classic South Pole SF yarn from that period was H. P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness” (1936): Everybody gets done in by a vast horde of vicious alien critters.
If only…
I suspect Al Gore may have secretly visited the Sahara recently :o)
May Shackelton’s ghost spoil the wine
In any reasonably sophisticated photo processing program, you can change the apparent temperature of a scene. In Adobe the setting is in Kelvin, even. Notice how all of the propaganda pictures from the Arctic regions appear so warm? Full of oranges, etc? Well, it is a slider in photoshop what does it.
I thought it was illegal to allow pollution into the antarctic
Jenn Oates says:
January 22, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Are people really not aware enough to know when it’s winter up here it’s summer down there? Please tell me that people won’t fall for it. Please.
————————————————————————
Most people aren’t going to be watching or reading about this with their forensic heads on. Most people are barely interested and/or pretty convinced by the propaganda anyway. It will wash by as another, albeit photogenic (when the ghastly people going aren’t in shot) addition to the mountain of CAGW slurry.
The relatively few people who are critical will point out the sleight of hand but it won’t make the MSM so the job of misinforming the mainly uninformed has worked.
Or would have done if people who aren’t particularly interested weren’t bored with the whole thing anyway.
can we just leave them there?
We’re all going on a dumbass holiday
No more lying for a week or two.
Fudge and disaster on our dumbass holiday,
No more anomalies for me or you,
For a leak or two.
We’re going where the sun shines brightly
We’re going where the sea is black.
We’ve al gored it on the movies,
Now let’s see if it’s true.
Based on lyrics by Welch/Bennet rewritten by Kevin Trendberk.
Last verse removed because the lyrics did not conveniently fit.
Al Gore’s favourite word may be ‘inconvenient’.
So here is something inconvenient for him: The day before yesterday the global temperature, as measured by AMSU, was the lowest for ten years – and it’s not even a full-fledged La Nina!
See: http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
One thing is for sure, the amount of BS that will be spouted by Gore and the other sundry attendees on the perilous state of Antarctica and elsewhere on the non-event of ‘global warming’ will be one of the greatest polluting events of all time for that distant continent.
One of his greatest BS statements will undoubtedly be something about calving glaciers – along the lines of “this is not supposed to happen – at least not like this”. It would be truly memorable if he did indeed say something like: “and global warming has wiped out Antarctica’s ploar bears”, but even he is not that stupid. He will definitely lie and/or grossly distort the facts about what he sees in Antarctica – after all, he is a politician and that’s what politicians do best.
Google some of the keywords from the original Lauren Morello E&E News article above and you’ll see that this has been posted more than 40 times around the Internet. Oddly, no one seems to care how this “expedition” was arranged, how much it costs, who’s paying for it, who’s paying Trenberth and Hansen (both public employees) and how much they are getting, and related questions.
Not to mention which boat (Linblad lux tours?), how long, and where. Basic reporting stuff that in this day of pal reviews and pal reporting gets swept under the rug of the press release and back room (email) logrolling.
Just another day in climate science and “green” news reporting.
Readers might find this history of the Antarctic interesting as it puts the efforts by Gore and co (assuming that article isn’t a spoof) into historical perspective.
http://www.antarcticaonline.com/history/history.htm
Captain Cook got to within 80 miles of the Antarctic continent in 1771 and completed his first circumnavigation of the continent in 1775. The first landing was as far back as 1821 and Weddell in 1823 got further south than anyone else would in the Weddell sea for another 80 years despite a great deal of exploration in subsequent years. In this respect there are interesting hints of ice pack retreat that coincided with the substantial arctic melting I wrote about here;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/
I am currently writing part 2 of ‘historic variations’ and it seems apparent that the Arctic melts with astonishing regularity (the last time being 1918-1939) I think it will be impossible to write a similar article for the Antarctic as it is much less well documented and is an altogether fiercer environment.
Quite what Gore and co hope to achieve by going in summer to a place which has seen an increase in ice over the decades is somewhat baffling.
tonyb
hmmm. A guvmnt employee going on a cruise on the invitation of a lobbyist. On our time clock or is this a vacation for Hansen? I am sure he will be gifted for his speech as well. Okay, dems in office, I want to hear your outrage…(crickets chirping).
Your silence is the one and only reason I will not vote for anyone on the democratic ticket, no matter how much any one individual democratic candidate seems a hopeful choice for an independent like me.
Welcome to the Gorebull Warming pilgrimage. Will any masseuses be sacrificed?
Espen says, January 22, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Antarctica has been way colder than normal for weeks now – always all blue in the daily anomaly chart:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/ANIM/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.30.gif
The poor penguins are missing a whole summer because of the Gore effect!
******************************************************************************************
About that chart: see, that’s what happens when there are too many weather observation stations! No chance of using that nice red colour, like they do up North.
Al Gore on ship headed to the Antarctic in 2012 just after a gigantic solar flare and just before the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.. buying popcorn.
A ship full of rich people sailing around with Martine’s firmly in hand telling poor people how to live.
Any chance this boat full of pirates of public money can go investigate the Bermuda triangle?
[snip – violation of site policy]
In the spirit of truth and reality as shown by Scott Pelley’s linked CBS “60 Minutes” report, I would like to caution Mr. Gore and his fellow travelers to avoid rescuing any dogs being chased by Norwegians.
Maybe they should invite Dan Rather to come along… and Kurt Russell.
What if they offset their carbon footprints by bringing ice in with them? According to them, CO2 causes warming, which is melting the Antarctic ice, which blah, blah, blah, blah — the CO2 released from their travels melts the ice.
So bring a bunch of ice with them, dump it on the glaciers and claim that as an offset.
~More Soylent Green!
Is this going to go as well as the Greece-Israel Blockade “SS Audacity of Hope” sailing hippie-fest?
I love this line..
“Gore, Hansen, and Trenberth and more than 100 fellow travelers”
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellow_traveler
How appropriate for these watermelons.
“It would be quite funny if they got stuck there as a result of a sudden blizzard for about six to eight additional weeks.” — We already know what’ll happen. They’ll run like pussies to the nearest helicopter after tying the dogs outside as sacrificial lambs to the AGW gods.
Ok, if there is a god. Here’s your big chance!
After a week of daily lectures by Al Gore they may intentionally crash the boat into an iceberg just to end the suffering.
My favorite irony story is the guy who was searching for a ghost train and ended up killed by a real train. There is a lot of potential for this boat trip to top that.
Forget the Antarctic for now, there does not appear to be a problem down there. But look at what is happening in the Arctic, now that is worrying. http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Gore in Antarctica could trigger the next ice age!
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gore+Effect
“Al Gore, Jim Hansen and Keith Trenberth go to Antarctica” sounds like the start of a good joke. And it turns out it is!
Oh, also, these folks are tempting fate… Gore has a known history of bringing unseasonably cold weather with him where ever he goes. In Antarctica that can cost people their lives.
Looks to me to be the vacation of a lifetime on someone else’ dime (donations).
I started to think that it was a hoax (MSM seems to be ignoring it and there still seems nothing on it at the Website of the sponsor the Climate Reality Project.) But I found that on Dec. 14, 2011, Branson did a blog post on it at virgin.com: Antarctica anniversary.
I wonder if Capt Schettino is available to helm the cruise? Do you suppose that any of the PRs that flow from this effort will get around to mentioning that the annual max-min sea ice flux in the Antarctic is close to twice the area of the entire lower 48 States? Or that that has been the case for as long as we’ve been paying attention and for centuries before. Of course, the “journalists” of the MSM, who have turned themselves into biologically based fax machines for whatever Algore and his minions produce, won’t bother to add this significant bit of backround info when they faithfully regurgitate this nonsense for their viewers and readers.
Garethman says:
January 23, 2012 at 8:08 am
Forget the Antarctic for now, there does not appear to be a problem down there. But look at what is happening in the Arctic, now that is worrying. http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
WHY?
Lauren Morello, E&E reporter
E&E News
Former Vice President Al Gore is taking his fight against climate change …
###
I think Lauren should have written “fight against human civilization”…
Anyone want to bet Pine Island and Thwaites is on the destination list?
http://takvera.blogspot.com/2011/11/global-warming-in-antarctica-thwaites.html
Anyone in favor of sending Christopher Monckton to Antarctica to debate them in situ. It would be difficult for them to avoid the event considering the small size of the community. It would probably be a welcome break, from the monotony of isolation, for many. GK
Eh, he’s going to film a sequel… an “Incontinent Truth”
That grim realization that you have a problem… and you probably aren’t gonna make it to the toilet.
Rather than snide comments, would it not be more appropriate to applaud this effort. After all, if you are really a “sceptic”, finding the truth of your claim that warming is having no effect in the polar regions, will be best ascertained by “going and seeing” with a smattering of measurement thrown to solidify your points. Why don’t you accompany this group, or organize your own “exploratory” voyage? Is this not the way to find truth?
Changes in ice extent are just natural variablility. If CO2 was the cause, the Antarctic would be losing ice just like the Arctic. It isn’t.
The Antarctic is right at its 30 year average. And there is nothing to be concerned about with global ice cover.
Climate models predicted that both poles would lose ice due to “polar amplification”. As usual, the predictions were wrong.
And the Arctic was ice free 6 – 7 thousand years ago, when CO2 levels were very low. In the early 1800’s the Arctic was losing ice fast, as reported to the British Admiralty. As shown here, there is wide variability in ice extent at both poles. Even more extensive melting occurred in the 1920’s than now.
Looking at actual satellite maps, it’s hard to discern much change in Arctic ice cover. The scare is due to the y-axis used, which magnifies the smallest changes, and makes natural variability look alarming. But the current variability is entirely routine, and has happened many times before.
Gore, Hansen and Trenberth are just grant trolling. They will come back with wild-eyed scare stories. Count on it.
Bon voyage – may you all feel the ‘gore’ effect in route – and need a rescue or body retrieval.
Harsh perhaps, just not feeling very charitable towards any of these very rich liar(s) at this point.
JustMEinT Musings said
Oh an yes we can but hope the weather turns dastardly cold……… pleaseeeeeeeeee
————————————-
On the road to Concordia, perhaps a second shipwreck predicted by the one below
http://www.space.com/14273-satellite-photo-costa-concordia-cruise-shipwreck.html
E&E reports that “Gore is taking his fight against climate change…” and I’ve just discovered that Branson is founder of Carbon War Room. Perhaps they will be traveling around by battleship. I’m guessing that this trip is a showboat opportunity for one of Branson’s green technology businesses described at http://www.carbonwarroom.com
Hugh Pepper says:
January 23, 2012 at 9:46 am
Rather than snide comments, would it not be more appropriate to applaud this effort. After all, if you are really a “sceptic”, finding the truth of your claim that warming is having no effect in the polar regions, will be best ascertained by “going and seeing” with a smattering of measurement thrown to solidify your points. Why don’t you accompany this group, or organize your own “exploratory” voyage? Is this not the way to find truth?
This effort is obviously not about “going and seeing”, but is entirely about “going and being seen to have gone”. As to a smattering of measurement thrown in, none of these clucks has ever demonstrated the capacity to even read a thermometer competently, let alone perform any actual scientific investigation, which given the brief duration of there tour, would be completely meaningless, even if performed at the highest standards. This a PR exercise, undertaken as a desperate attempt to revive a dying fable by displaying out of context photos and videos of ice behaving exactly as it has for longer than we can possibly know.
Hugh Pepper says:
“Why don’t you accompany this group, or organize your own “exploratory” voyage? Is this not the way to find truth?”
Hugh, since you purport to want to find the truth, you must be willing to provide financial assistance for an exploratory voyage. How much are you pledging to donate? I’ll match it.
What do you want to bet that the ship goes about halfway along the Antarctic Peninsula, barely across the Antarctic Circle, and then they send back reports about the dire state of conditions in “Antarctica”. It worked for Alanna Mitchell so that CBC radio programs gave her plenty of publicity.
I was down in the Peninsula early in the season, and it was definitely not a good year for ice. We barely got through the Lemaire Channel. But I suppose Gore and friends.can at least get as far as the Bransfield Channel this late in the season, so they have at least technically visited Antarctica.
And actually it isn’t really that dramatic to visit the Antarctic Peninsula, provided You are in reasonable health and travel in a suitable ship with a competent crew (with a captain who is a good ship-handler).. But you had better not suffer from seasickness, because crossing the Drake Passage from Tierra del Fuego can be quite an ordeal.otherwise.
They should get Piers Corbyn’s forecast before setting off.
saltspringson says:
Anyone want to bet Pine Island and Thwaites is on the destination list?
I would say almost certainly not. The sea-ice is very bad in that sector this summer, and they would almost certainly not get close to the coast without icebreaker assistance. Though they might chance standing-off a couple of hundred miles offshore and hope nobody notices..
Concerned.
I hope these wonderful planet saving saviors don’t fall through hole in the ice and suffer an agonizing cold / drowning death or even worse the get attacked and eaten by an angry too warm polar bear. We would miss them badly.
Maybe they will all fall down a crevasse! 😉
This is great! Algore goes to Antarctica. I mean what could go wrong? Haven’t Hansen and Trenberth heard about the Gore effect? Maybe Trenberth will find his missing heat.
The sceptic side needs to get out one basic “fact”: The Total Global Sea Ice Anomaly has been oscillating around zero for the last 30 years. The Earth is in balance, even if the Arctic ice cover is down.
By drawing the Antarctic into the conversation, these Warmists are placing themselves on slippery ground.
[the comment has been deleted – thus this reply – moderation occasionally misses some comments that are out of bound with policy – thanks for pointing it out – Anthony]
Jenn Oates on January 22, 2012 at 7:46 pm said:
Are people really not aware enough to know when it’s winter up here it’s summer down there? Please tell me that people won’t fall for it. Please.
————
Sadly they will fall for it 🙁
It would be funny if there ship got stuck in Ice.
“This winter we will be talking about Antarctica as part of our ‘Living on Thin Ice’ campaign which will focus on how people around the globe are being impacted by the melting of the world’s ice,”
Now that is strange as the Antarctica has never had any natives , nobody lived there at all until the European explorers set up camp. So how can people be people ‘ be impacted by the melting of the world’s ice’ in the Antarctica especial given its not be melting but growing ?
But once again the ‘gods of green’ do the very thing they attack others for doing , totally unnecessary travel that creates a load of CO2
The group will probably take one of these cruises. http://www.antarctica-cruises.org/antarctica-dream.html. No matter how you go across Drake’s passage it is seldom pleasant. I imagine some will come back with a greenish cast to them.
Not to worry about the ship’s carbon footprint, Al will be bringing along a steamer trunk of
CCX carbon credits and, for his fellow travellers, their own gas emission credit cards.
My first thought was it is a fundraising cruise, because fundraising cruises are one of the hot things in recent years. Or he could be after a captive audience for the length of the cruise.
Hey, let’s get a WUWT fundraising cruise together. Lectures every afternoon by Anthony, McIntyre, Spencer, and others.. . . . par-tay at night. Where are we going?
Everyone should take a cruise like this while they are young, also spend a winter in the arctic, and a summer in a place like Saudi Arabia out in the desert. They will come to the realization that day does not follow night and that the environment can be deadly hostile. But the biggest lesson learned will be that humans can survive, adapt and thrive in extremes where few other creatures can. We are successful as a species because we can adapt to a wide range of environments.
The people going on this tour are going to experience the raw beauty of nature and may actually learn something about the Earth. The only one I don’t worry about is Sir Robert Branson. He seems to be quite intrepid. It would also not surprise me if he also is a distant relative of Sir Francis Drake as there are some behaviours in common.
“Sir Robert Branson”
That would be Richard!
Dave: There are no polar bears in Antarctica. Giant penguins ate them all. GK
John F. Hultquist says:
That would be Richard!
I was thinking of Sir Richard’s doppelganger, the fellow with the eye patch. sorry for the confusion.
I certainly would not like to offend Sir Richard if he took it as an offense.
I believe a sail-by “salute” to the glaciers would be in order. Hopefully they’ll get real close!!
I wonder if this could be a secret family reunion. They could be honoring a common ancestor by crossing the passage named after him. They do seem to have a certain behaviour in common.
You give a chart for the Antarctic sea ice, but there is also the Antarctic ice sheet to consider. It doesn’t seem to be melting, or to melt anytime soon, and may even be gaining mass — which is what you might expect in a still-below-zero region in a globally-averaged warmer-planet. The Antarctic is tricky….
Should start a pool on where they will show up down there. Does each guest aboard the S.S. Hyperbole get a climate starter kit? Need to find out if there are any ‘news’ organizations going. Can’t find much info atm, hopefully it won’t be cancelled.
The perfect opportunity for the Gore effect to kick-in and they are never to be found again…
BTW Who’s paying for the trip?
If you ask me, I think Soros is a big trouble maker
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/22/george-soros-on-the-coming-u-s-class-war.print.html
>>By drawing the Antarctic into the conversation, these Warmists are placing themselves on slippery ground.
Tee hee. No pun intended I’m sure.
I am betting the Gore Effect will make another “inconvenient” appearance. New Zealand’s south island has been getting some unusual midsummer snow and cold recently. (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10780390)
It would be a hoot if Gore’s boat got stuck in an ice jam or had to turn around because of a bad blizzard or crippling cold weather.
Or, take a ride on a US Coast Guard Icebreaker and help some fellow citizens that have been iced in for months.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hfgt-Gkww6UucYr128SuxzRfI5_Q?docId=f753b10172ac44359d9da0d635725f49
michael hart says:
January 22, 2012 at 8:15 pm
…and global warming has already wiped-out the penguins at the North pole.
Actually n the Arctic they were hunted to extinction, I very much doubt there were any at the North Pole.
We are just going to Antarctica and may be gone some time ???
The rest of us can hope…
The CBS transcript says: “Here, 60 Minutes found there’s green where the white used to be; on the coast, in summer, THERE IS GRASS WHERE THE SCIENTISTS USED TO SKI. The area is called “Paradise Cove,” and it is home to fur seals, lazy elephant seals and the Chinstrap penguin.”
The problem with that grass is it has been there for hundreds of thousands years. Back in 2007 Ban Ki Moon, went to Antarctica before going to Bali IPCC’s Climate summit. So he saw grass in King George’s Island, off the coast, west of the Antarctic peninsula, and said: “At the same time the grass is growing for the first time in King George’s Island where it rains with more frequency than it snows.
About King George’s Island grass: the island was discovered in 1819. If you look in Google you’ll find that the grass there is called Deschampia antarctica, and is a indigenous variety original of King George island. It’s been growing there for hundreds of thousands of years, so when you hear someone saying “for the first time in history”, you can remain sceptical about the claim.
If you want to know about the heat budget of King George’s Island, this paper will give you an idea, however, precipitations have not been separated into rain and snowfalls: http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0954102095000435
And if you believe a warming world will affect penguins, you should see the biggest penguin breeding place in the Earth, Punta Tombo, in Patagonia, where 1 to 2 millions penguins share their habitat with guanacos, foxes, rabbits, and human beings wearing T-shirts… See here: http://www.patagonia.com.ar/chubut/puntatombo.php
Sorry, that link to Punta Tombo has changed: http://www.puntatombo.com/index.html
Or this one where you’ll see “guanacos”, llama like camelide: http://www.patagonia-argentina.com/punta-tombo
Phil.?? Making a funny?? The bind moggles.
In case you were serious Phil., there have NEVER been penguins in the Northern Hemisphere, so hunting them to extinction in the Arctic would have taken exactly zero effort.
I think Phil is probably confusing penguins with the Great Auk which has the scientific name Pinguinus impennis. This was the “original” penguin, the name is Welsh and supposedly means “white wing”. It was indeed hunted to extinction in the 1840’s.
And it is not quite true that there are no penguins in the northern hemisphere. The range of the Galapagos penguin extends just north of the equator. Of course it can only live on the Galapagos islands thanks to the cold waters of the Humboldt current.
[SNIP: Enough of this, already! -REP]
tty says:
January 24, 2012 at 11:57 pm
I think Phil is probably confusing penguins with the Great Auk which has the scientific name Pinguinus impennis. This was the “original” penguin, the name is Welsh and supposedly means “white wing”. It was indeed hunted to extinction in the 1840’s.
No confusion at all, that was exactly what I meant, by the way it means ‘white head’ in Welsh, my native language.
Thar she blows…. http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/shipdetails.aspx?imo=8019356