It looks like the “rescued” climate scientists, journalists, and tourists will have to wait on-board the Aurora Australis awhile longer while this episode plays out. There is still a lot of ice ahead according to the webcam on Aurora Australis (seen below) which had been slowed to a crawl, making only 1/4 knot.
![A140030701A[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/a140030701a1.jpg?resize=616%2C494)
Press release: 4.30pm AEDT Friday 03 January 2014
Aurora Australis on standby as a precautionary measure
Xue Long notified AMSA at 1pm AEDT this afternoon it has concerns about their ability to move through heavy ice in the area.
The Aurora Australis has been placed on standby by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s (AMSA) Rescue Coordination Centre Australia (RCC Australia) to remain in open water in the area as a precautionary measure.
The Xue Long has advised RCC Australia that it will attempt to manoeuvre through the ice when tidal conditions are most suitable during the early hours of 4 January 2014.
There is no immediate danger to personnel on board the Xue Long.
www.amsa.gov.au/media
Source: http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/030114UpdateAntartica.pdf
==============================================================
Meanwhile, the beginning of this domino effect has been traced back to a sightseeing expedition by the passengers of the Akademik Shokalskiy that spent too much time getting back on the ship.
Surprisingly the MSM here have suddenly gone quiet about this whole fiasco, apart from National Radio, If I relied on the newspapers, I would be unaware of what is happening
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/232324/chinese-rescue-vessel-having-trouble-in-ice
Good view of the Chinese and Australian ships from the helicopter from about 1:50 in the video here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/03/second-antarctic-rescue-aurora-australis-on-standby
This tracker: http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ shows the XL doing 1.5 knots.
Well at least one of Canada’s national papers has an opinion piece on this fiasco.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2014/01/02/terence-corcoran-science-of-climate-change-not-on-the-same-course-as-reality/
The Guardian would love you to think it was all over.
Yesterday Alok Jha (@AlokJha on twitter) filed a report about the rescue. The subhead said clearly the crew had been rescued. I have brought the ‘error’ to Alok’s attention. They have had 8 hours to correct it.
It is starting to look less like a typical guardian sub’s mistake than a deliberate attempt to deceive.
Nothing to see here. move along…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/02/antarctic-rescue-shokalskiy-free?CMP=twt_gu
https://twitter.com/omotforest/status/419012170676838401
Wikipedia’s entry for Aurora Australis now includes the Stalinist revisionist history of this incident: “an outbreak of old sea ice”.
1/4 knots? It that the current speed of the drifting sea-ice?
Anyway. Because The Guardian has been visible in this latest AGW-fiasco, allow me to post a related story:
Due to some geographical constraints, Finnish right-wing tends to sympathize leftist ideas. Now imagine the popular left. Move left from there and you find a journal called Kansan Uutiset http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansan_Uutiset. Here is the kicker Kansan Uutiset have now accepted The Guardian as their information source.
Regrettably my own source is currently available in Finnish only http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/Kansan+Uutiset+alkaa+julkaista+The+Guardianin+aineistoa/a1388715592390. The good news is that at least Helsinki Times will think twice before quoting the Guardian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsingin_Sanomat.
Looks like a Charlie Foxtrot in progress.
Item from tvnz on the latest here:
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/ship-involved-in-antarctic-rescue-faces-trouble-5790285?ref=rss
Note what it says about who pays and which country would conduct the enquiry.
Update, the Chinese ship is stuck.
only one thing left now…a hat trick
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-03/chinese-icebreaker-stuck-after-helping-with-ship-rescue/5184210?section=australianetworknews
While I am pleased that the crew of the MV Akademik has been in a sense ‘rescued’ and no longer must endure the company of the Eco-tourists I find this whole saga exhausting…albeit still hilarious.
xanonymousblog says:
January 3, 2014 at 12:58 am
Update, the Chinese ship is stuck.
only one thing left now…a hat trick
That would be a Charlie Foxtrot Tango.
“Jason Mundy from the Antarctic Division hopes the Russian ship’s insurers will foot the bill for the rescue.”
I am sure he does hope that …. but it doesn’t mean that the Russian ship’s insurers won’t then come after the Antarctic Division for costs.
I trust Turney’ has contacted a good lawyer. His idiocy will cost millions, and it is all down to the leader of the expedition to carry the can. I guess we will hear very little from the BBC, and the Gusrdian will find it hard to explain the cock up it covered.
Lew Skannen says:
January 3, 2014 at 1:29 am
“Jason Mundy from the Antarctic Division hopes the Russian ship’s insurers will foot the bill for the rescue.”
================
If they can show reckless behaviour they won’t. I’m laying in lots of popcorn.
In other news, the Guardian have updated their page to ‘passengers’ rather than ‘crew.’
The BBC’s main mid-day radio news programme yesterday, the World at One, found an “expert” to comment on this story. She was Sara Wheeler, a graduate in Classics and Modern Languages who is a travel writer who has spent seven months at the South Pole and written about the Arctic and Antarctic. According to her, the ice which trapped the ship was there because global warming had caused ice to “drop off” glaciers and surround the ship. “Nobody knew glacier ice was going to drop off and surround the ship at that time.” Her view was not challenged by the BBC interviewer. Interesting!
theres also the not small detail of the original cargo and a base that desperately need their supplies n fuel..soo, after aurora helps out the chinese ship thats now in trouble thanks to the ship of fools, or waits to be on hand to assist after the american ships gets there..Id reckon the responsible people who caused all this should be made to stay while aurora completes the entire prior critical supply run.
and I sure hope the russian ships insurers hit the uni NSW insurers for ALL the costs and damage incurred.if it means a certain idiot becomes unemployed and the climatecon dept shuts to recover some costs..all to the good!
I’d guess the expedition-ists aren’t happy with the prospect of delaying their own rescue to assist others…uugh…
Regarding ship insurance, it is not compulsory for shipowners to carry any insurance – for example Blue Funnel Line never insured any of their ships – but sometimes there is a clause in the charter party making the charterers responsible for taking out insurance.
I really, really hope that is the case in this instance, if the charterer was the Prof; but most likely the charterers will be his employers, i.e. at the end of the day the Aussie taxpayer.
Of course if there isn’t any insurance then the shipowner will just go bankrupt and resurface with a new name.
My thoughts exactly. Imagine what it would be like to be stuck with them for a month, let alone having to over-winter. Heaven forbid. Oh my, my. Thoughts of axe-murder zombie flicks. Musn’t go there…….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-03/chinese-icebreaker-stuck-after-helping-with-ship-rescue/5184210?section=australianetworknews
“Jason Mundy from the Antarctic Division hopes the Russian ship’s insurers will foot the bill for the rescue.”
I hope the ships owners in turn sues the passengers who would not get back to the ship in time.
This video made me feel sick:-
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-25/15-million-australian-expedition-to-antarctica/5116158
Shows these people getting ready for their high carbon “adventure” and the propaganda used to back them up. Fact of the matter is the fact people are already doing their job at Mawson Bay.
This guy and his acolytes were nothing but baggage, end to end.
Stuck with a Australian Green Senator would be worse than torture under The Inquisition. Another vodka please.
“The cost of the rescue will largely fall to the ships involved – the Aurora Australis and Xue Long – and insurance”
from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/03/second-antarctic-rescue-aurora-australis-on-standby
This helps put it all into perspective:
“Of course if there isn’t any insurance then the shipowner will just go bankrupt and resurface with a new name.”
Since the shipowner in this case is the Russian Government this is unlikely. It is also highly unlikely that they will pay anything if the whole thing was due to negligence by the charterers.
Andyj says:
January 3, 2014 at 2:11 am
Yes, the video was very nauseous. Especially the end when Mawson’s relative says he would be proud of them. I wonder if they are going to ask her opinion on the “expedition” / fiasco now.
Turney should come clean and show the world just what real science the expedition did in between all that knot-tying, learning languages and yoga the various blogs/photos and videos showed.
At some point even this may become a vaguely “scientific” mission as the reality of being stuck in (and seeing nothing but) ice will start to raise the question “maybe we were wrong about GW”.
They certainly have got the message out there that there is a lot of ice this year. Which is great for polar bears and stuff. Remember “it’s not just man that uses frozen water” Thanks scientists. Thants 😀 (relevant link below)
tty:
You are right.
The owners are apparently “Far Easternn Research” with a Registered Office in Vladivostok.
However looking further the Company is called “The Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monotoring”, registered in 1996, owns a fleet of 14 vessels and is regestered as being “federal property”.
I view of this I would guess that the company is fully insured, and that a full Russian marine inquiry board will take place in due course. The maritime lawyers will make a killing.
Whether we ever get to see the findings of the inquiry is another matter.
The University of New South Wales will be in the firing line here for the costs. If Turney was on his annual leave they are his employer and are under Australian law vicariously liable for his negligence. Unless of course they wish to argue a defence to vicarious liability – that he was on a frolic of his own. This will be inbteresting because UNSW is a lavishly state funded incubator for global warming hegemony. Will they put their money where their mouthpiece is? Heroically skating on ice that is not at all thin?
Typo: “Eastern” , only one “n”.
In Marxist Ecology, missing ice finds you.
Is this a case of one entrapment to another. Oh boy! It ain’t over yet I see.
“It is starting to look less like a typical guardian sub’s mistake than a deliberate attempt to deceive.”
As the main progressive rag of the UK, I would tend to believe in deception over incompetence at the Guardian. They have been at the center of the cAGW scam for a long time now.
Oldseadog says:
“You are right.”
Since I have spent several very happy weeks cruising in the subarctic and subantarctic aboard two sister ships of the Shokalskiy, I checked who owned these ships and whether they were seaworthy and solidly crewed and maintained before signing on. They are, but they are no icebreakers as Turney et al. has now demonstrated.
Incidentally they hold fairly solid safety briefings at the beginning of cruises. One of the things covered is that if you get a recall signal, when on shore or off on a Zodiac cruise, You drop whatever You are doing at once and return to the ship as fast as possible.
According to the AMSA Representative (via Associated Press interview over satellite phone) “the cost of the rescue would be carried by the owners of the ships” (note plural) “and their insurers, in accordance with international conventions on sea rescues,”
“Any official inquiry into how the ship got stuck would have to be conducted by Russia”, he said.
And if the AA gets stuck and requires a rescue, Australia will be conducting the inquiry.
Irony to the power of two.
Mods.
And yet another one hits the moderation bucket.
The comment section rules say that one can not change his “handle” otherwise I would try that to see if it is just my name that causes 6 or 7 in a row to go to the spam filter. Oh well, Monday restarts the school year and I will not have time to make many comments anyway.
This is a test of the comment area to see if signing in using Twitter rather than wordpress will stop every comment I make from being sent to the moderation jail or spam bucket.
Of course since I mention both wordpress and twitter this is not a totally clean test. But then I don’t have time to write a computer model which we all know is much better than real world data, just ask a “climatologist”.
I hope someone deletes this as soon as they see it as it adds nothing to this comment thread. I repeat, this is only a test.
[For testing then, use the WUWT “Test” thread. See the link from the WUWT home page. Mod]
AMSA’s view of the cost of the rescue doesnt consider the possibility that the insurer/s may seek to recover from Turney abd his employer their loss due to his negligence. Presumably he or the UNSW had contract with the ship’s owners. I doubt that contract would not have a clause requiring Turney to act responsibly.
Always look on the bright side. Remember Santa and his elves in distress http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr2LCTdIzd4?
Interestingly quite a few people have apparently been “following in Mawson’s footsteps” and visiting (and trying to maintain) his hut over the years. However this has apparently ceased in the last few years due to the deteriorating ice situation:
http://www.mawsons-huts.org.au/conservation/
(Note the many photos showing open water in Commonwealth Bay)
The telegraph in the UK have an article about the adventure.
” one of the aims of the expedition was to track how quickly the Antarctic’s sea ice was supposedly disappearing”
It would appear, according to this, http://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/expedition-retraces-mawsons-footsteps-0 , this expedition was privately funded. I take that to mean the Oz taxpayers will not have to foot the bill?
But Turkey apparently asked, “Is that an order, sir?” and got the captain to back down into making it a request. So who’s to blame?
There are lots of ways to argue this. Lawyers will be in their element.
I’m buying more shares in Laughing Stock.
Is there a “black box” type voice recorder on the ship? There seems to be plenty of web-cams.
Oldseadog says: @ January 3, 2014 at 3:01 am
…. that a full Russian marine inquiry board will take place in due course. The maritime lawyers will make a killing.
Whether we ever get to see the findings of the inquiry is another matter.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oh we will via Voice of Russia and Pravda. Spin this right and you have the heroic Captain and crew who stayed with the ship that was put in jeopardy by idiot western dilettantes.
It is propaganda fodder on a golden plate.
Anything to promote the introduction of the Carbon Tax:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/professor-stuck-in-antarctic-ice-on-multi-million-dollar-taxpayer-funded-boondoggle-supports-carbon-tax/
Is that Chris(tmas) Turkey I smell roasting in the freezer?
I suspect that the Polar Star will be needed or maybe an Aircraft Carrier, something that can get close, and can handle more than 1 helicopter at a time.
For some fun, a sub thread where post on “What would Yogi Beara the NY Yankee Catcher say.” on this cluster bomb mess can be put up.
“Looks like they where Iced in before they were Iced in.” or some such.
We can joke on them a bit but if things do not change with the fate of the wind changing for them it will get worse once more.
The ice, the cold, the wind, the climate ,,, none of those things know or care of these guys even existing.
May the hilarity, contempt and derision continue indefinitely
http://youtu.be/B84O9k1ZX4g
Enjoy, my friends!
Having followed a couple of links in comments on the latest taxpayer funded media stunt,erm, research expedition, erm, voyage, both here and at Jo Nova’s site, I expect that once the scientists, erm, tourists recently aboard the Akademik Shokalskiy return to dry land, their story is going to be something along the lines of their stranding being ‘…unequivocal proof that human caused gullible warming is more alarming than we thought because it shows how Antarctica’s land ice is melting and sloughing out to sea and that once it all melts the sea level rise will be a zillion metres by the year two thousand and frozen to death…’, or some such nonsense.
I forget who posted it, but there was a link in one comment to the Guardian’s indignant article explaining how the escapades of Turney et al are entirely in line with gullible warming, for reference it’s here: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/02/antarctic-ship-stranding-delights-climate-change-sceptics.
The article contains five commandments to the flock when confronted by deniers laughing at the irony of it all and then by two pages of followers patting each other on the back for keeping the faith and linking vaguely to IPCC reports showing how Antarctica is actually losing ice volume and how silly the contrarians all are for grasping at straws and not knowing the difference between sea ice, pack ice, ice and snow. We’re also apparently all quite nasty for laughing at the numpties unfortunate mishap (they were all heroically out there doing important science didn’t you understand?)
It’s quite eye opening reading (as was the link to the ABC Lateline interview with Turney et al).
That is, eye opening in the same way that the sudden realisation one is about to vomit explosively is eye opening.
North of 43 and south of 44 says:
January 3, 2014 at 5:45 am
I suspect that the Polar Star will be needed or maybe an Aircraft Carrier,
**************************
Well that limits it to a very few nations that actually posses aircraft carriers–Australia has none.
I imagine the “scientific junketeers” are finding their new hosts on the icebreaker a bit less friendly than their previous “environmental tourism” crew. They’re probably being ordered to stay below, keep out of the crews’ way and knock off the “group sing-alongs”.
Who’d a thunk … being clueless and oblivious … the gift that keeps on giving.
North of: A carrier is not needed. A helilanding ship would suffice, preferably one trained in cold (very cold) weather.
rogerknights says:
January 3, 2014 at 5:13 am
But Turkey apparently asked, “Is that an order, sir?” and got the captain to back down into making it a request. So who’s to blame?
—-
Do you perhaps have a citation for that bit? If true, I think it will be the rock that sinks the CAGW boat or scuppers Turney (someone has to go under the bus :))
re: Brian H says January 2, 2014 at 11:34 pm
This tracker: http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ shows the XL doing 1.5 knots.
Brian, I just checked and here’s what I get back for info:
XUE LONG
Flag: China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ship Type:Other
Length x Breadth:167m X 25m . . Draught: 9m
CALL SIGN: BNSKIMO: 8877899MMSI:412863000
Received: . . . . . . . 23 minutes ago . . (AIS Source: 1)
Status: . . . . . . . . . StoppedSpeed/
Course: . . . . . . . . 0.0kn / 114°
Destination: . . . . . ANTARCTICETA:
.
Just a side note, that only a few years ago this entire drama would have occurred in a vacuum, only to appear as a sanitized report weeks or even months later (if it ever got reported beyond friend of a friend stories).
Thanks to the internet and crowd sourcing examination of blogs, twitter posts ship position reporting systems and bridge web cams, it is now much harder for blunders like this to go unnoticed by the world at large. The even more delicious out come is much of this reporting is unintentional self reporting of events as they happen by the people immersed in the event, often with little thought by them of the information that they are “leaking” to the outside world that in time will undermine their efforts to sanitize the story or shift the message.
My thanks to all the real time digging folks have done to put together this puzzle from all these snippets of information. As usual the combined skills and life experience of the readership of WUWT have produced a documentary in real time as this story develops.
With regards to “who will pay” and the proximity of Australia to the Antarctic continent relative to Russia and China I suspect this whole thing will be swept under the rug. It would make things more difficult for the more distant countries when they run into their own problems in the future. Proximity is a big advantage when you’re travelling at 18 knots.
See if the Russians will divert one of their big nuclear icebreakers from the arctic to clean up this mess.
http://rt.com/news/world-biggest-icebreaker-russia-275/
Offload the ‘tourists’ to a Chinese or Russian fishing factory mega ship for a dose of smelly reality.
From today’s BBC website and further confirmation (if it were needed) that the ship wasn’t exactly full of climate scientists and fellow their travellers:
“Those Chinese guys are heroes,” added Nicole De Losa, head of Art at Hornsby Girls High School in Sydney. “They made what could have been a frightening experience so quick and easy for us. Without them, we would still be stranded.”
This would be a good teaching moment for low information alarmists to see the scale differences between their notion of glacier ice loss to explain areal ice extent and anomalous continental-scale records of ice increase. There is a difference in scale involved that they have not grasped with their limited talking point lists.
It is, it truly is, more ironic than we thought:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/antarctica-rescue-xue-long-calls-for-help-after-becoming-stuck-while-trying-to-help-akademik-shokalskiy-20140103-309dl.html
Resourceguy says: January 3, 2014 at 6:45 am “Offload the ‘tourists’ to a Chinese or Russian fishing factory mega ship for a dose of smelly reality.”
Martin Cruz Smith’s Polar Star comes instantly to mind, a well researched dark tale of Arkady Renko and peristroika. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Star_%28novel%29
But isn’t the general AGW consensus that warming is occurring mainly in the northern hemisphere and that in the southern hemisphere warming is much reduced (and even negative in some regions)? And this has been the AGW consensus for some time now. If so how does the fact that there is more ice than expected in the Antarctic contradict this consensus? It seems to me that there is nothing in this ‘rescue’ event that provides evidence either pro- or anti-AGW. Nothing to see here.
Just asking 🙂
MattS says: @ January 3, 2014 at 6:44 am
See if the Russians will divert one of their big nuclear icebreakers from the arctic to clean up this mess….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Can’t. They need COLD water to cool the reaction so can not go towards equator.
Richards in Vancouver says:
January 3, 2014 at 5:22 am
I’m buying more shares in Laughing Stock.
Now that is the best stock pick for 2014! Unless one’s short?
Gail Combs says: January 3, 2014 at 7:38 am “Can’t. They need COLD water to cool the reaction so can not go towards equator.”
Was this sarcsm? If so it must be marked so, else it’s just Wikipedia ignorance. The Lenin famously used a S1W modelled reactor plant which 500F highest temperature provided plenty of Carnot efficiency in equatorial waters. (From my personal experience.)
Believe nothing read or heard without verifying it oneself unless it Weltanschauung congruent.
” Larry Ledwick says:
January 3, 2014 at 6:34 am
Just a side note, that only a few years ago this entire drama would have occurred in a vacuum, only to appear as a sanitized report weeks or even months later (if it ever got reported beyond friend of a friend stories).”
Ironically, all of the extra media and communications gear on board was put to good use. Hoisted on their own petard.
Doug, the nuke ice breakers in question are stationed in the Northern Hemisphere and would have to cross the Equator.
Phaaz Spaas says at January 3, 2014 at 7:26 am
Exactly. It is known that Global Warming isn’t Global. That is pretty much the end of the scare.
But these guys still took a load of journalists down there to report on the issue. And strangely didin’t take the chance to say “Look Global Warming isn’t Global”. It was such a good, visual example of Global Warming not being Global.
Funny that.
Rob Ricket says: January 3, 2014 at 8:09 am “Doug, the nuke ice breakers in question are stationed in the Northern Hemisphere and would have to cross the Equator.”
Thank you, Rob, is there an issue remaining? I will be glad to clear up any nuclear power misapprehensions that I can.
Doug Huffman says: @ January 3, 2014 at 7:51 am
That myth is all over the net. (Wiki strikes again.)
Here is a better article 2013 World Nuclear Association: Nuclear-Powered Ships
Doug Huffman says:
January 3, 2014 at 8:20 am
—-
Do you know the most recent date a nuclear icebreaker crossed the equator?
(Not trying to be funny, I would really like to know and I can’t seem to find out from the net – all the references just point to the equatorial waters being problematical.)
I am wondering whether the situation could deteriorate so far that the Polar Star couldn’t cut it and whether they would have a chance of sending down a nuclear icebreaker – if they wanted to 🙂
Perhaps this is all the result of “rotten ice.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/14/a-look-at-sea-ice-compared-to-this-date-in-2007/
But, since we’re talking about the Antarctic now and not the Arctic (I got it right for once!) maybe it’s much worse than rotten ice that continues to maroon our enterprising explorers. Maybe it’s maggot infested ice.
But M.Courtney most pro-AGW scientists would actually say that “Global Warming isn’t uniform”. In fact many anti-AGW people would say the same as pretty much everyone agrees that there has been at least some global warming over the last hundred years, the disagreement being over how much and what the causes are. So why the straw-man argument?
The problem with most anti-AGW comment is that it is often ad hominem (big exception being Steve MacIntyre of course and there are others). It would be more convincing if the scientific case against AGW could be made. While the floundering of the Australian Antarctic Expedition is being ‘enjoyed’ by people who are anti-AGW the incident itself, funny or otherwise (the Xue Long is now in difficulty), provides no evidence for either side of the argument.
Both sides of this discussion need to stick with science to make their point.
I am contemplating the dynamics how one ice breaker would rescue another. As one would approach, there would be extreme danger from the movement of one icebreaker shifting the pressures from the ice and pushing into the hull of the other. There must be something more to it: a distance or angle of approach that has to be maintained? Or does one shift the ice about so the other can proceed? Does someone know anything about it?
Maybe the Snow Dragon needs her name changed to Ice Draggin !
Would surely be more descriptive of reality!
negrum says: January 3, 2014 at 8:31 am “Do you know the most recent date a nuclear icebreaker crossed the equator?”
What is supposed to be so special about a nuclear icebreaker power plant to so limit the question? In general, marine nuclear power plants are not restricted in their operations by environmental concerns, but only political issues. I remember 28F and 87F injection temperatures.
“It would be more convincing if the scientific case against AGW could be made. ”
It is the AGW supporters that have to present a scientific case, not the other way around. . Until today they haven’t , worse, they lie, they manipulate.
Phaaz Spaas says:
January 3, 2014 at 8:44 am
“Both sides of this discussion need to stick with science to make their point.”
—–
You feel that those supporting CAGW (very different from AGW ) have been using a scientific approach?I would be most grateful if you could point out the instances where they have employed scientific standards and methods to reach their conclusions, since I can’t seem to find them.
It may be that you are confusing AGW with CAGW. As far as I can make out this blog does not contest that AGW exists, but the level of catastrophe attributed to it.
Doug Huffman says:
January 3, 2014 at 8:58 am
What is supposed to be so special about a nuclear icebreaker power plant to so limit the question? In general, marine nuclear power plants are not restricted in their operations by environmental concerns, but only political issues. I remember 28F and 87F injection temperatures.
—–
My knowledge is limited about nuclear reactors. I just wondered if you knew.
One intresting point… is the ship is currently @ 67 degrees south. the water is still filled with ice in summer. Here is a webpage of city @ 67 north… http://www.bodo.no/wips/1251439321/
Some aircraft carries have nuclear power plants, and serve around the world, cold, warm, hot ocean waters.
Fred Harwood says:
January 3, 2014 at 9:14 am
—–
Thanks. That seems to cover it.
GaryEssex –
de Losa was interviewed by NBC with no mention of the following detail. u can also find doodle4google in a drop-down from “Science Outreach” at:
http://www.spiritofmawson.com/ –
The 15-year-old’s design was deemed the very best of thousands of entries from across the country in the Doodle for Google competition.
It will now be splashed across the Australian landing page of the world’s biggest search engine operator, Google.
For her award-winning design, Olivia wins a Chromebook and $10,000 worth of technology for her school.
Her teacher, Nicole De Losa, wins an expedition to Antarctica to bring knowledge back to her students.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/the-hills/hornsby-student-olivia-kongs-brain-matter-design-googles-favourite/story-fngr8i1f-1226757525133
@Andyj at 2:11 am
in notice from your second video link (dated Mon 25 Nov 2013 at about 1:20 mts in) the commentator states the expedition will comprise – “an 85 person team including 60 scientists…”
wonder where all them extra scientists are hiding ?
Phaaz Spaas says: @ January 3, 2014 at 8:44 am
…Both sides of this discussion need to stick with science to make their point.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
We did originally and we lost because CAGW is not and never has been about climate but about control the masses and wealth transfer. More over the man on the street doesn’t know diddly about science but they can understand politicians grabbing their hard earned money and giving it to buddies while the poor and pensioners freeze to death. So I am very sure you would like us to go back to discussing science that the average voter can not understand.
If one side (skeptics) is starved for funds and is completely closed out from the discussion in the media while the other side gets lavish funds for idiotic boondoggles and ALL the media coverage, sooner or later people finally figure it out. That is CAGW’s Achillies Heel and that is where the discussion has to be.
It is about MONEY not science and the transfer is from the poor to the rich. Enron, joined by BP, invented the global warming industry. I know because I was in the room.
International Monetary Fund Report September 2012: In many countries the distribution of income has become more unequal, and the top earners’ share of income in particular has risen dramatically. In the United States the share of the top 1 percent has close to tripled over the past three decades, now accounting for about 20 percent of total U.S. income (Alvaredo and others, 2012).
FOLLOW THE MONEY! link and link
I have spent years following the money trail as well as the science. The money trail is glaringly obvious if you bother to look.
Try Shell Oil’s Ged Davis for an example or the World Bank’s Robert Watson.
Both science and politics are involved in the CAGW movement, and the entrapment of the ships in the Antarctic sea raise issues for both that are inconvenient.
It was a deep strategic political mistake for the warmists to bring so much attention to the Antarctic. Regulars at WUWT know that though Arctic sea ice is down since the 1970’s, Antarctic sea ice is up by a greater amount, so that global sea ice is up overall.
This is very inconvenient to the CAGW cause for several reasons. Consider just one: one of the supposed positive feedbacks adding to the fear of catastrophic warming is the albedo effect of reduced sea ice leading more solar radiation to absorbed by the Earth (rather than reflected back into space). But the reality is that more sea ice is now present, hence a negative feedback is in place, contributing to global cooling.
Far better for the CAGW’ers to distract attention away from the South pole, where the news is inconvenient to their case. The news may get worse if the ships are not freed before the Antarctic fall weather sets in and the ice gets worse. The ship(s) could be stuck for years, or at least until next southern summer. Every attempt to free them will be on display in the media and will be bad political news for the CAGW’ers.
The global spotlight will be on the enlarging Antarctic sea. The attempts to portray the rising volume of Antarctic sea ice as a consequence of rising CO2 will be understood by most to be asinine
Doug,
Obviously, I did not carefully read your post before responding. During the process of trying to extricate myself from this rather difficult position, I uncovered some stats on Diesel Icebreaker fuel burn rates, which lends credence to earlier links I posted indicating the A.A. will return to Hobart:
“Even the best ice-breakers with a diesel power plant carry fuel for no more than 30-40 days. In the harsh conditions of the Arctic it is clearly not enough: the fight against ice requires a great deal of fuel. During an hour a powerful icebreaker often burns up to three tons of oil. While fuel accounted for nearly one-third the weight of the ice in the Arctic period, a ship would have to repeatedly enter the base to take fuel. There have been cases where caravans of ships winter in the polar ice only because fuel for ledokolah faded away early.”
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/92m.htm
Other than the Wikki link this is the only other source containing the cold-water requirement verbiage, but I have no reason to doubt your eyewitness account.
“Built entirely for service in the Arctic seas, the Yamal is unable to voyage to the Antarctic because of her cooling system. This requires that it be supplied with cold sea water to operate properly, if the ship were to voyage to Antarctica it would have to cross the equator and sail through the tropics where the water is most definitely warm. Hence the Yamal and her sister ships are confined to the Northern polar region.”
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/ships/Yamal_ice_breaker.htm
Clovis Marcus says: “The Guardian would love you to think it was all over. Yesterday Alok Jha (@AlokJha on twitter) filed a report about the rescue. The subhead said clearly the crew had been rescued. I have brought the ‘error’ to Alok’s attention. They have had 8 hours to correct it. It is starting to look less like a typical guardian sub’s mistake than a deliberate attempt to deceive.”
It’s difficult to believe that the Guardian doesn’t know the difference between passengers and crew except in the more inclusive sense that the Guardian makes no distinction between facts and lies, logic and insanity, freedom and tyranny.
We keep hearing this, it made little sense the fist time, and it soon falls on deaf ears; HOW are funds continually xferred from the poor rich? This defies something in economics on a par with one (or more) of the ‘laws’ of thermodynamics (heat energy xfers from warm objects to cold).
Besides, don’t you or your husband’s retirement accounts/Mutual funds potentially own shares in Exxon-Mobil? So, in that case who are the ‘owners’?
.
re: Rob Ricket says January 3, 2014 at 9:52 am
Rob, some of the Russian nuclear-powered ice breakers seem to use this power plant design: “KLT-40 reactor”. Google returns sufficient information to determine how much ‘cooling’ water would be required to cool a power plant capable of generating the 130 to 170 or so MWt (thermal) energy a KLT-40 plant is capable of producing.
The IAEA reviews a proposal (below) to implement this power plant into ‘floating’ seaside electrical generating stations that could be towed to a pier where it could then ‘feed the grid’:
http://www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/Downloadable/aris/2013/25.KLT-40S.pdf
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The Christmas Gift that keeps on giving! It’s getting to the point where we need a “12 Days of Christmas” (but not the song?) to summarize things. Hmm, 10 penguins leaping? 5 YouTube posts? 3 icebreakers broken? Oh dear.
That “coolantarctica” article is the only place I can find that says the Russian Arktika Class nuclear icebreakers require cool water to operate. Other articles reference that one. Even if not true, all the Russian nuclear icebreakers are in the Arctic anyway; no way they could get half way across the planet to help.
I’ve also read that nuclear powered ships are prohibited in the Antarctic for environmental reasons. That may not be true either. But if so it leaves the Antarctic to some of the most fossil fuel inefficient vehicles on the planet.
These Arctic nuclear icebreakers are used mainly for clearing passages for cargo vehicles, and for North Pole tourism. Maybe there just isn’t enough demand for such a powerful icebreaker in the South.
Best I can tell the most capable icebreaker in the Antarctic is the US Polar Star.
So, when is the peak melting date for this area? Will that be enough to free these ships? Or does it depend on which way the wind blows?
This story seems to be dying in the media…even with the number of WUWT posters.
Phaaz Spaas:
At January 3, 2014 at 8:44 am you say
Clearly, you have not been paying attention, so let me inform you of the fundamentals of the “scientific case against AGW”.
Firstly, there is no evidence of discernible AGW; none, zilch, nada.
Please note the stark nature of my statement: it requires only one item of empirical evidence for it to be refuted. But there is no such evidence. If you can find one item of evidence for discernible AGW then you will surely be awarded at least one Nobel Prize because three decades of research conducted world-wide at a cost of over $5 billion per year has failed to find any. (In the 1990s Ben Santer claimed to have found such evidence but his claim was almost immediately shown to be an artifact of his having cherry-picked a subset from the data he assessed.)
Secondly, the Null Hypothesis applies.
The Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed a system has not experienced a change unless there is evidence of a change.
The Null Hypothesis is a fundamental scientific principle and forms the basis of all scientific understanding, investigation and interpretation. Indeed, it is the basic principle of experimental procedure where an input to a system is altered to discern a change: if the system is not observed to respond to the alteration then it has to be assumed the system did not respond to the alteration.
In the case of climate science there is a hypothesis that increased greenhouse gases (GHGs, notably CO2) in the air will increase global temperature. There are good reasons to suppose this hypothesis may be true, but the Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed the GHG changes have no effect unless and until increased GHGs are observed to increase global temperature. That is what the scientific method decrees. It does not matter how certain some people may be that the hypothesis is right because observation of reality (i.e. empiricism) trumps all opinions.
Please note that the Null Hypothesis is a hypothesis which exists to be refuted by empirical observation. It is a rejection of the scientific method to assert that one can “choose” any subjective Null Hypothesis one likes. There is only one Null Hypothesis: i.e. it has to be assumed a system has not changed unless it is observed that the system has changed.
However, deciding a method which would discern a change may require a detailed statistical specification.
In the case of global climate no unprecedented climate behaviours are observed so the Null Hypothesis decrees that the climate system has not changed.
Importantly, an effect may be real but not overcome the Null Hypothesis because it is too trivial for the effect to be observable. Human activities have some effect on global temperature for several reasons. An example of an anthropogenic effect on global temperature is the urban heat island (UHI). Cities are warmer than the land around them, so cities cause some warming. But the temperature rise from cities is too small to be detected when averaged over the entire surface of the planet, although this global warming from cities can be estimated by measuring the warming of all cities and their areas.
Clearly, the Null Hypothesis decrees that UHI is not affecting global temperature although there are good reasons to think UHI has some effect. Similarly, it is very probable that AGW from GHG emissions are too trivial to have observable effects.
The feedbacks in the climate system are negative and, therefore, any effect of increased CO2 will be probably too small to discern because natural climate variability is much, much larger. This concurs with the empirically determined values of low climate sensitivity.
Empirical – n.b. not model-derived – determinations indicate climate sensitivity is less than 1.0°C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent. This is indicated by the studies of
Idso from surface measurements
http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/Idso_CR_1998.pdf
and Lindzen & Choi from ERBE satellite data
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
and Gregory from balloon radiosonde data
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OLR&NGF_June2011.pdf
Indeed, because climate sensitivity is less than 1.0°C for a doubling of CO2 equivalent, it is physically impossible for the man-made global warming to be large enough to be detected (just as the global warming from UHI is too small to be detected). If something exists but is too small to be detected then it only has an abstract existence; it does not have a discernible existence that has effects (observation of the effects would be its detection).
To date there are no discernible effects of AGW. Hence, the Null Hypothesis decrees that AGW does not affect global climate to a discernible degree. That is the ONLY scientific conclusion possible at present.
Thirdly, all – n.b. ALL – predictions of the AGW-hypothesis have failed.
In science an hypothesis is falsified if the hypothesis makes a prediction which is wrong.
The AGW-hypothesis induced several predictions which have all been wrong ; e,g.
Tropospheric ‘hot spot’ (failed to occur).
Reduced polar sea ice (polar sea ice has increased).
AGW would overwhelm natural climate variability to induce global warming (global warming stopped at least 17 years ago).
Committed warming would induce global warming at a rate of of 0.2°C per decade from 2000 to 2020 (no such warming has happened).
etc.
Now, having done what you consider to be “more convincing” can we now return to the more important activity of ridiculing and reviling the activists who have created the fiasco of the Ship Of Fools?
Richard
A quick read of the ‘Treaty of the Antarctic’ (circa 1959) seems only to prohibit nuke b om b ‘testing’ and/or disposal of nuclear materials there, but, I didn’t study it in-depth so I could be in error on the finer points …
Snapshot of apparently applicable articles:
o Article 1 – The area to be used for peaceful purposes only; military activity, such as weapons testing, is prohibited but military personnel and equipment may be used for scientific research or any other peaceful purpose;
o Article 5 – The treaty prohibits nuclear explosions or disposal of radioactive wastes”
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Sorry that the fromatting went wrong in my post. Richard
Going forward, it will be interesting to see where the new Russian nuclear-powered ice breakers will be used, could include the Antarctic on account of the fuel requirements ice breaking demands as per your post.
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Chris4692 asks about the dynamics of icebreaker shiphandling.
I was a quartermaster on the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Northwind 1975-1978. Made an AWE (Arctic Winter East) cruise up into Baffin Bay in ’76, the annual McMurdo resupply in late ’76 (Operaton Deep Freeze A76), and an unexpected winter in the North American Great Lakes in ’77, escorting ore carriers. Quartermasters are on the bridge all the time.
Northwind was a 269-foot Wind class breaker, built during WWII.
You can google all sorts of info about these icebreakers.
During the McMurdo cruise, Northwind and sister ship Burton Island broke a channel into McMurdo Sound so a freighter and a tanker could resupply the base. I do not recall either cargo vessel being even ice-strengthened.
They arrived, not at the same time, after the icebreakers had cut the channel, which took about three weeks to go 20-30 kilometers. Once the channel was broken, one breaker would continue going up and down it to keep it free of reforming ice. The channel was wide enough – barely – for two ships, so a breaker could even pass the cargo vessel, and if need be, go in a very close circle at very low speed around it.
Top speed for a Wind-class may have been 14 knots, but circling another vessel would be done at much less depending upon the thickness of the churned, reforming channel ice.
A breaker also had to break the ice at the ice pier, then keep the turning basin ice churned after the cargo vessel was moored.
Northwind also broke out the old aircraft runway (on the pack ice) so it could eventually float out the sound.
Temperature was in the upper 30’s F, and we had but one two-day blizzard in early January 1977. Otherwise, 24 hours a day of blazing sun and pristine blue sky.
During the Great Lakes cruise, an ice storm in early January 1978, a handful of Lake ore boats (they’re called boats even if they are 1000 feet long) got stuck in Lake Erie, not too far north of Cleveland. I forget if they were empty and headed back north or full and trying to get to Toledo. Granted, the ice was certainly not as thick as polar ice, but the Lake boats could not move.
Northwind broke them out, sometimes gingerly, sometimes not (we banged bow into the stern of one, causing about $50,000 US damage…to them).
I think some smaller Coast Guard vessels, ice-strengthened tugs or buoy tenders, may have assisted occasionally.
We did this by circling a given vessel, our speed and distance dependent upon ice thickness and how churned up it was. There isn’t any real rule of thumb other than that. Churned up ice acts as a cushion, sort of, and the conning officer must adjust his steering commands to take advantage of that.
It was a bit dicier than working with the cargo ships down McMurdo way, though. So much so that the captain required the quartermasters to do all the steering as well as stand our usual bridge watches.
I remember steering during one watch and we we doing about 10 knots, coming about one ship width (65 feet or so) from a Lake boat as we churned down its side. I could clearly see the churned-up ice cushioning the other vessel and bouncing us off a bit.
Once the stuck boats were freed, they formed a convoy in single-file, usually behind us.
Most of the Lake boats picked up their cargo – ores – in Duluth, Minnesota, on Lake Superior’s western side. Ice-strengthened buoy tenders were the escorts through Superior.
Northwind served as escort from Sault Ste. Marie on that lake’s eastern end down through Lake Huron into Lake Erie, where the ore boats went to different ports on Ohio’s northern shore.
The Polar class icebreakers were built to replace the Wind-class. They are rated for heavier ice than the U.S. Coast Guard’s Healy, which was the service’s only icebreaker for a handful of years.
Google “polar star icebreaker” and you will see many photos of that class in action.
Phaaz Spaas says at January 3, 2014 at 8:44 am
Oh dear. It was going so well until the accusation of a straw-man argument. CO2 is well mixed in the atmosphere. If not then all cAGW theory collapses.
So the effect is well mixed? No, we can agree that other factors overwhelm the effect of CO2 in some places, compared with others.
But that does mean the attribution of anything to CO2 is impossible… unless you can model all the other factors, known and unknown. Hmm, the failure of the models and common sense can tell you that ain’t going to happen.
So the your original point remains. Global Warming is not Global.
And my point remains. The fools sailed down south with a press crew and somehow failed to report your observation.
Why criticise the sceptics for talking about the science and ignore the delusional adherents to a falsified hypothesis for refusing to talk bout what they found?
~~~
We all know that Global Warming isn’t Global. As you state.
QED – We all know that other factors overwhelm the effects of Global Warming in many locations.
QED – It can’t be known where if anywhere, Global Warming is significant.
~~~
Not a straw-man argument. It is the logical extrapolation of your statement..
“While scientists expect and observe more extreme weather with man-made global warming, some say it’s not quite fair to blame the Antarctic blizzard that trapped the ship on climate change.”
HA! Bad enough that almost all news stories conveniently forgot to mention that A. this ship was there to document the loss of ice B. that it is summer in antarctica and C that Antarctic sea ice is at an all time record.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/52-passengers-trapped-antarctica-rescued-21393578
_Jim says: @ January 3, 2014 at 10:30 am
…Besides, don’t you or your husband’s retirement accounts/Mutual funds potentially own shares in Exxon-Mobil? So, in that case who are the ‘owners’?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
WRONG question! And a big red herring.
What is the source of money flowing into stock funds?
The money comes from a variety of sources, including individuals saving for retirement and future education expenses. Although the industry does not trace the source of money used to purchase mutual fund shares, Federal Reserve data indicate that households have been net sellers of individual stocks while acquiring stock mutual fund shares in recent years.
Please note the words “stock mutual fund shares”
So you are not buying stock but shares of the mutual fund who then invest the money. SO WHO votes the stock held by Mutual Fund/retirement accounts? Not the people who forked over the $$$ but the people controlling the Mutual Fund/retirement accounts.
That is the point you consistently refuse to understand. People are told the stock belongs to them in Mutual Fund/retirement accounts but no one mentions they do not CONTROL that stock because they do not vote it. Heck how many Greenies with Mutual Fund/retirement accounts have their money invested in Monsanto stock, or as you point out Exxon-Mobil and do not even know it?
When you think of it it is a really neat idea.
Fidelity Magellan (Johnson family) takes money from a lot of people and invests it. They skim a % off the top and get to vote the shares (control) but if a company they invest in goes belly-up they have nothing invested besides a bit of time that they are paid for. Since the Johnson’s own several Mutual Funds besides Fidelity Magellan they do not even risk their reputation killing off their livelihood.
In the 1980s there were a lot of hostile take overs that resulted in a lot of well run well financed mid-sized companies being destroyed and the value of the assets ending up in the corporate raiders coffers. Again, WHO voted the stock along with those corporate raiders to take a one time lump sum and then move on to the next company?
In general it wasn’t the little people, those who had money in the Mutual Fund/retirement accounts. During that time period I worked for a company who was a target. Because the stock was mostly owned directly by employees/ retired employees out right we were able to tell the corporate raider where to stuff his blackmail.
Surely you could tow a nuclear powered ice-breaker from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere. This is the US Navy not NASA.
Just noticed this, Turkey’s twitter description of himself:
“Chris Turney
@ProfChrisTurney
Scientist, explorer and author of 1912: The Year The World Discovered Antarctica (http://textpublishing.com.au/books-and-authors/book/1912/ …)
University of New South Wales · christurney.com”
That’s right. He sees himself as being an explorer
Nuclear powered vessels are expensive to build and operate, too expensive for use on low profit routes/missions. Notice that the US has not built a nuclear powered icebreaker, or any but one NP cargo vessel – beautiful though she was.
If 50 Let Pobedy were tasked an urgent Antarctic mission, how many hours at 20 Kt and 100% power would it take to sail the roughly 20,000 Km, and every one of those hours would be un-budgeted fuel hours? That would be a minimum of 1000 Effective Full Power Hours, just to get there, from a limited supply of very expensive fuel.
_Jim says: @ January 3, 2014 at 10:30 am
Gail Combs says January 3, 2014 at 9:36 am
…
It is about MONEY not science and the transfer is from the poor to the rich.
We keep hearing this, it made little sense the fist time, and it soon falls on deaf ears; HOW are funds continually xferred from the poor rich? This defies something in economics on a par with one (or more) of the ‘laws’ of thermodynamics (heat energy xfers from warm objects to cold).
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Are you really that ignorant? Who the heck do you think pays for the solar farm and Wind farm boondoggles? Whose electric bills have skyrocketed to the point UK pensioners have to decide whether to eat or freeze?
Here educate yourself:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/wind-farm-scam-a-huge-cover-up/story-e6frgd0x-1226345185075#
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2000/03/01/great-windmill-scam
Stephen Richards says:
December 30, 2013 at 1:37 am
This is a very serious problem and the mirthful responses should probably be toned down until their fate is known
Can we all start jumping for joy after they die ?? then
+++++++++
Mod, I believe this comment is over the line.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/29/saving-the-antarctic-scientists-er-media-er-activists-er-tourists-trapped-by-sea-ice/
The alarmists are using this as fodder for their attacks against WUWT.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Richards isn’t one of them.
A few conversions from the fuel burn rate listed in my previous post:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/92m.htm
A gallon of (middle gravity range) Diesel fuel weighs 7.3 pounds.
Assuming the tons listed were American 6K pounds of fuel/7.3 = 821.91 gallons of fuel burned while fighting ice. In a full day of breaking ice, roughly 19726.027 gallons of fuel are burnt.
U.S. per capita energy consumption is listed here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum at 21.8 bbl/year. While I realize that not all crude can be converted to Diesel fuel, the crude must be transported and refined into useful energy. There are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil. 21.8 X 42 = a U.S. per capita burn rate of 915 gallons.
There are 52 “eco-heroes” aboard the AA. At a daily burn rate of 19726 gallons/day while fighting ice, the enemies of carbon fuel are burning 379.34 gallons of Diesel per person per day. Meaning, in less than three days, they would consume an entire year’s worth of fuel by U.S. per capita standards. Apparently, the cost of “Intrepid Science” is rather dear.
Worse yet, these calculations only account for the consumption of one of the three ships involved in this goat rope. Some pigs are more equal than others!
Doug Huffman says:
January 3, 2014 at 11:44 am
—–
Do you think the towing suggested by Steve could work?
kwinterkorn says:
January 3, 2014 at 9:42 am
You did not say what is the inconvenient issue(s) for sceptics….?
@ Kwinterkorn: Oops – my bad comprehension. Sorry.
Who is throwing herrings now? The oil companies are actually providing useful product, and will for some time to come. Do you drive a car? Use anything made of plastic? Wasn’t that the subject? (or was the subject changed on a whim?)
.
.
Gail, you are very nearly uneducable on this topic (economics), so strong and narrow are the blinders you have on. And that is such a shame. From scanning your response, I could not tell if you addressed the issue of continually extracting wealth from the poor to the betterment of the rich; by any measure, you and I are doing much better than our ancestors on so many different levels, yet you ‘loose’ repeated clarion calls that embrace ‘wealth redistribution’ on a scale that communists and socialists could heartily embrace. That has ALWAYS worked in the past. Not. Makes one think there ma y be screws ‘loose’ above the neck in the cranial cavity …
.
Skating from subject to subject; attempting to address all the worlds ills, inequalities and problems in one post; conflating a poster’s expressed opinion in one area into another.
.
.
Please, pick a subject and stick with it. Look cogent and rational for a change, ‘k?
.
negrum says: January 3, 2014 at 12:12 pm “Do you think the towing suggested by Steve could work?”
The premise that NP icebreakers cannot operate in equatorial waters is false. The cost of an ocean tow of a large vessel would be prohibitive.
The theme of emergent and urgent operations in remote locations is common in hard science space operas.
Gail Combs says January 3, 2014 at 9:36 am
…
It is about MONEY not science and the transfer is from the poor to the rich.
—-
I would agree with you in general but I think it is more a case of the money flowing from the gullible to the crooked. If CO2 trading is built on a mistaken assumption, many scammers are enriching themselves via tenders from government and investment from suckers. Hardly new, just using CAGW as the next bubble (something like dotcom but with even less value.) Running it under the green movement shows their understanding of current global fashion.
My knowledge of international companies is not personal, so I don’t quite follow the rest of the argument, but I think just the above is quite enough to bankrupt countries, unless they turn the brakes on, which does seem to be happening here and there.
Here’s some interesting research just released.
Antarctic ice shelf melt ‘lowest EVER recorded,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/03/antarctic_ice_shelf_melt_lowest_ever_recorded_just_not_much_affected_by_global_warming/
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=2452
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/01/02/science.1244341.abstract?sid=b38e30ea-23a1-49f1-92fa-a807b49036a1
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11181319
But on Friday afternoon, the crew of a Chinese icebreaker that had provided the helicopter said they were worried about their own ship’s ability to move through the ice. The Aurora – which was carrying the passengers to the Australian island state of Tasmania – was told to stay in the area in case the Chinese icebreaker Snow Dragon needs help, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s Rescue Coordination Centre, which oversaw the rescue.
I can imagine how the crew of the Aurora feel about
1/ Having their own supply run to McMurdo disrupted
2/ Having a bunch of “tourists” on board complaining about the lack of banana/peanut milkshakes
3/ Having a bunch of eco-loonies complaining about the delay in getting home, while 3 ships are tied up in rescuing them from their own stupidity
And then add in the actual scientists at McMurdo who have lost at least 2 weeks of study time, instruments still on board the Aurora, food, supplies for McMurdo Base
I’ll stop there, the sheer stupidity shown is overwhelming
Doug Huffman says:
January 3, 2014 at 12:41 pm
negrum says: January 3, 2014 at 12:12 pm “Do you think the towing suggested by Steve could work?”
” The premise that NP icebreakers cannot operate in equatorial waters is false. ”
—-
I got that.
——
” The theme of emergent and urgent operations in remote locations is common in hard science space operas. ”
——-
I fully agree.
——
” The cost of an ocean tow of a large vessel would be prohibitive. ”
——
That’s what I wanted to know. Thank you. I now have a better understanding of maritime constraints.
4. Discussions in the mess about how the world is going to end due to catastrophic global warming whilst stuck in an ocean of ice might be more than mildly annoying.
Xue Long reported dead in the water:
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:144.4174/centery:-66.65576/zoom:8/mmsi:412863000
A couple of years ago this would not have happened. Until the 2010/11 season the Swedish icebreaker Odin was in Antarctica to keep the route to McMurdo open. Oden is the most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker in the World, GL 100 A5 ARC3, i. e. capable of continuous breaking in multi-year ice. It has visited the North Pole nine times. 13,000 tons, 25,000 HP, 31 meters wide.
It was built to operate as an icebreaker in the Baltic in winter and as a polar research vessel in summer. Then in 2006 Swedish politicians decided that there would never be another cold winter and hired her out cheaply to the US, who therefore could mothball their Star class icebreakers.
You can guess what happened. In 2010/11 we had a really bad winter. Swedish foreign trade and the important ferry traffic to Finland was badly disrupted. Business raised hell about the only icebreaker strong and wide enough to assist really large ships being 15,000 miles away when needed.
Consequently our politicians didn’t dare renew the charter contract in 2011, and the US had no choice but to overhaul the Polar Star, despite her advanced age.
Ironically this has been a very mild winter in the Baltic. There is very little ice and only “Ale” the smallest of the five Swedish icebreakers is in operation.
Yet another example of climate scientists “risking their lives for our planet”.
Warren in New Zealand says:
“Having their own supply run to McMurdo disrupted”
Aurora Australis has nothing to do with McMurdo which is an American base, which is due for resupply by Polar Star.
Aurora was resupplying Casey station and still has about a third of those supplies onboard. Once Snow Dragon is freed she will either have to rush back to Casey, and unload those supplies, which will certainly take several days, or head directly back to Hobart, a trip that takes slightly more than a week.
She was due there on Jan. 8 to load supplies for Mawson and Davis, then head south again to resupply/relieve those stations, then back to Casey to collect equipment and personnel to be returned to Australia. Due back in Hobart early in March.
Then unload, and load supplies for the Macquarie Island base, leave on March 5, to start unloading on Macquarie on March 8, and finally back to Hobart on March 19.
Even though there are fairly large margins in the original schedule this is probably impossible now, and some difficult choices will have to be made. It might seem that the Macquarie resupply could easily be postponed since Macquarie Island is ice-free the year around. However there is no port and no airstrip there, and everything has to come ashore across the aptly named “Landing Beach” which can be sticky even in summer (been there, done that).
^^ Apologies, for some reason I keep thinking of McMurdo instead of Casey.
Change the original to Casey, my points still stand though 🙂
There is only a small window in the weather there, 2 weeks at least lost in actual science time, as opposed to sightseeing can mean the total loss of a whole seasons work
A. A. has been release from stand by duties by AMSA::
http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/040114_MediaRelease_AuroraAustralisreleasedfromtasking.pdf
Doug Huffman says:
January 3, 2014 at 11:44 am
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I agree towing a nuclear ice-breaker through tropical oceans from one hemisphere to another would be prohibitive in the sense that most alternatives would be cheaper – even possibly evacuation by Harrier Jet.
However, anything is possible. The Costa Concordia salvage operation will be the largest in history. That ship is roughly 4-5 times heavier than the Russian nuclear ice-breaker and once up righted will be towed to its home port of Genoa a few hundred kilometers away. If the US feels the need to have a nuclear powered ice-breaker in the Antarctic it will place one there.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/costa-concordia-salvage-operation-slated-to-be-the-largest-in-history/article7270508/
Peter Miller says:
January 3, 2014 at 2:30 am
This helps put it all into perspective:
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ROFLMAO
Some more ice history:
In January, 1960, a small icebreaker of the 5th Soviet Antarctic Expedition went easily through fairly open pack ice toward the coastal station Mirnyy. On Jan. 7 it reached the edge of thick land-fast ice about 18 kilometer from the shore and had to wait for the arrival of a larger ship. It moored to the ice, but strong offshore winds and ice pressure forced it to cast off and retreat for a while. The stronger icebreaker arrived on Jan. 15 and began cutting through to the station. It arrived there on Jan. 21 and then escorted the other ship through the passage to start major off-loading of supplies. Meanwhile, the ice was strong enough to support heavy diesel tractors (with extra-wide tracks) pulling heavily-laden sleds, and the landing and take-off of aircraft.
The following year the re-supply ships didn’t reach the station until the end of January. Wind was a major factor both years.
“Steve from Rockwood says:
January 3, 2014 at 2:10 pm
Yet another example of climate scientists “risking their lives for our planet”. ”
Yeah, I think they would much rather have it as us risking our lives for their planet….
(the risk already exists, what with skyrocketing energy prices, knuckleheaded
“carbon taxes” [idiots don’t even know their gas from a coal in the ground…])..
“Another lump of coal, please” is probably being said in a lot more places than
just Bob Cratchit’s office….
hey Warren in New Zealand,
re low level coverage in NZ media, I thought this surprising given that JoNova published lists of everyone onboard, including NZ Journalist Veronika Meduna. I emailed RadioNZ and the Herald asking if she was aboard awaiting rescue. Both replied that she and the Landcare scientists had been aboard on Leg 1 but were not currently on board. Quite interesting but as yet untold part of the story.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/12/antarctic-ice-swallows-boat-media-spin/
Susan Fraser –
yes, Leg One & Leg Two caused some confusion, but only because the Expedition operators, leaders & the MSM did not see fit – & still have not seen fit – to provide the public with a list of who was on board. were they nervous the public would realise this is the way political science & the MSM conspire to create the CAGW narrative?
Steve from Rockwood says:
January 3, 2014 at 11:35 am
Surely you could tow a nuclear powered ice-breaker from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere. This is the US Navy not NASA.
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Let us ponder for a moment that the US navy has many Boomer submarines as well as attack submarines which operate world wide and use the same nuclear technology. There is no need to two anything these ships have the ability to adapt to any surface temperature of water.
One must consider the operational capacity of such ships being able to go world wide and on short notice.
WIki is very wrong in its assessment of these ships and their range..
At any rate, the Polar Star is on its way! Probably still at least a week until arrival.
Steve from Rockwood says: January 3, 2014 at 3:16 pm “If the US feels the need to have a nuclear powered ice-breaker in the Antarctic it will place one there.”
The United States of America and its Navy do not command a nuclear powered ice-breaker. The USN is the maritime arm of the US military social-justice enforcers and is fully overwhelmed trying to incorporate incompetents into its command structure.