An Icy Blast Of Scepticism Greets Climate Expedition
Rescuers in Antarctica have safely transferred all 52 passengers stranded on the ice-bound research vessel Akademik Shokalskiy. The Shokalskiy has been trapped since Christmas Eve. Its 22 crew are expected to remain on board to wait until the vessel becomes free. The ice-bound research vessel has been trapped since Christmas Eve. One of the aims is to track how quickly the Antarctic’s sea ice is disappearing. —BBC News, 2 January 2014
Reporting on the environmental movement has always required a certain sense of humor. In an earlier age, explorers who so badly underestimated the expanse of polar ice would surely have perished. But the 74 passengers and crew of the Akademik Shokalskiy are thriving. In this season of new beginnings we have here a chance to appreciate the amazing technologies created by free people. For they allow us to laugh at the folly of our fellow humans, rather than having to mourn their passing. —Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, 2 January 2014
The aim of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, led by Chris Turney of the University of NSW, was to prove the East Antarctic ice sheet is melting. Its website spoke alarmingly of “an increasing body of evidence” showing “melting and collapse from ocean warming”. As they are transferred to sanctuary aboard the icebreaker Aurora Australis, Professor Turney and his fellow evacuees must accept the embarrassing failure of their mission shows how uncertain the science of climate change really is. They cannot reasonably do otherwise. —Editorial, The Australian, 2 January 2013
Climate scientist Chris Turney’s team of embedded global media and paying science-minded tourists has spent the festive season trapped in sea ice instead of exploring what melting ice caps mean for mankind. Turney is lamenting that he has become trapped in his own experiment. But the bottom line is, once again, nature has drifted from the script. Unfortunately for Turney the take-out of the mission for a legion of sceptical bloggers worldwide has been “global warming scientists forced to admit defeat because of too much ice”. –Graham Lloyd, The Australian, 2 January 2014
Who pays for the rescue of the Akademik Shokalskiy? According to the Age: The operators of a ship stricken in the southern ocean are facing a multimillion-dollar expense bill, as a third vessel began a rescue attempt five days after the tourist ship became trapped in sea ice. Under the Treaty of the Safety of Life at Sea, vessels are required to respond to a distress message, with the costs incurred a matter for the ship owners after the event, the AMSA said. These can include fuel costs, crew costs and loss of revenue. –Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 30 December 2013
Winter sea ice cover in the Antarctic has grown to its largest extent since satellite records began in the late 1970s, defying most climate models and muddying the waters of the global warming debate. The data runs contrary to the projections of many climate-change models. Scientists appear unable to definitively explain the phenomenon, but believe increasingly strong winds in Antarctica and an increase in rain and snow on the Southern Ocean are the most likely factors. Some fear the findings may fuel climate-change scepticism, given that sea ice is said to be the “canary in the coalmine” of global warming. –Matthew Denholm, The Australian, 24 October 2013
Thanks to The GWPF and Dr. Benny Peiser for the compilation
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Next they’ll probably be headed to the Arctic to show the world how all the Polar Bears are dying.
I am very glad that the passengers have been rescued. I hope the crew will remain safe.
Let’s just wait and see what sort of spin they put on it once they get back on dry land in front of the world’s media. I don’t suppose there is much doubt about what the BBC and the Guardian will say (if they say anything – will it be allowed to go away quietly or will it be spun into proof of global warming?), but I do think we need to be ready to write copious quantities of letters to the newspapers and make sure the public is not fooled by this fiasco.
So our intrepid explorers win an (all expense paid?) trip to the Casey station on the continent. I wonder what they’ll be doing while there. I’m sure they won’t get a great reception from the researchers there who were hours away from getting their gear for their summer’s work before the Australis left in haste to rescue Turney’s folly.
Perhaps they can be put to work helping to unload the ship. Beyond that, if I were the ship’s master I’d be inclined to confine them to the ship. There seems to be little reason to let them off.
“safely transferred all 52 passengers stranded … Its 22 crew are expected to remain on board”
___
Phew, at least it is not sinking. There could have been some cruel metaphors there too.
It’s been said that Winston Churchill once stated that the best argument against democracy is to spend about five minutes talking to the average voter.
After this fiasco, perhaps the best argument against CAGW is to spend five minutes talking to the average, government funded (just a guess, but almost all of them are), partisan (just a guess, but almost all of them are), agenda driven (just a…), climate scientist.
P.S. A lot of commenters in the previous thread expressed rightful concern for the safety of these marooned scientists and recommended toning down any sarcasm about their plight until they were safely rescued. I think those were thoughtful viewpoints.
But, now that they’re rescued – let it rip!
For nearly a decade, the global warming cultists have perpetuated fear of their own version of the apocalypse by pointing out the ice loss in the western Antarctic peninsula.
Me mum bought into this. She sent around an email abt it one day. I answered back that the Antarctic, overall, was gaining ice, and its overall ice volume trumps the Arctic.
So, overall, years ago, it was easy to show one person that the issue is spin and propaganda.
This event will shift the attention away from the WAP and to the entire Antarctic ice and sea ice volume and trend. The general public, trusting but not indoctrinated, will one by one continue to give up on the communist version of the apocalypse.
If Turney claims the sea ice extent was as expected because of gw, he’s admitting criminal culpability
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/abc_whitewash_dont_mention_warmists_are_on_board_the_ice_bound_ship/
The ABC’s 7.30 last night filed an astonishing report on the ship load of warmist scientists and journalists trapped by ice as they tried to prove global warming was melting Antarctica.
What was astonishing was that not once in that report did the ABC mention “global warming” or “climate change” or even “climate scientists”. It did everything humanly possible to cover up the most embarrassing PR disaster in years for the global warming movement.
How different it was last November, when the ABC in a two-part report eagerly presented Professor Chris Turney’s Antarctic expedition as a serious scientific quest to prove how global warming was damaging Antarctica. Back then it couldn’t mention climate change enough…
I hope the tourists, journalists and scientists will offset all the carbon emissions caused by their cruise, and by the rescue efforts, by producing an equivalent amount of money on dynamo-equipped bicycles, OWS-style? At 1 kWh output a day they only need to bike for 7 years to offset one barrel of oil. (ca. 2000 kWh energy content)
Tom J says:
January 2, 2014 at 6:48 am
“It’s been said that Winston Churchill once stated that the best argument against democracy is to spend about five minutes talking to the average voter.”
More self-aware than I thought. Churchill got elected.
* How did a thinly veiled activist jolly like this get taxpayer funding?
* What formal operational planning was done ?
* Where’s the research and how does it stack up in the related research community?
* Why did they dally longer and get caught?
* Why did they not have any aerial assets in a known dynamic ice area (cheap / disposable CCTV drone)?
* Where’s the accounts?
* Where’s the charter document?
* What have the stranded vessel’s owners got to say?
Will P&O / AAD + China + France be billing for the response ?
elmer says:
January 2, 2014 at 6:38 am
“Next they’ll probably be headed to the Arctic to show the world how all the Polar Bears are dying.”
Nah, they’ll participate in the annual getting-stuck-while-trying-to-cross-the-NW-passage olympiad.
Why were they rescued at all? Were they in imminent danger? The crew seems to be fine to stay on the ship until it is freed of ice. Why couldn’t somebody have air-dropped a load of supplies and said see you in the spring?
The crew of the Akademik Shokalskiy remain on the ship pending further plans at saving the ship. Good luck to them on getting improving weather, sea and sea ice conditions from the naturally occurring Antarctic forces.
It will be interesting when the crew starts getting interviewed by Russian reporters about why / how they let their ship Akademik Shokalskiy become icebound.
John
We all know that had they sailed into Commonwealth Bay in the exact same conditions as Mawson did ~100 years ago they would have spent the last week pumping out wall to wall alarm.
elmer says:
January 2, 2014 at 6:38 am
Next they’ll probably be headed to the Arctic to show the world how all the Polar Bears are dying.
The MSM views Polar Bears as cute, cuddly, Coke drinking, Christmas celebrating, cell phone using, pleasant creatures while the Polar Bears view us as a tasty snack.
Just an observation.
I’m looking forward to their paper on how this event was fully consistent with global warming and why all the icesheets present a clear and present danger to out children and grandchildren. And why they really need to go back to do further research.
I hope their grant providers will say: NO. Enough is enough.
From 10:40, a radio interview with Chris Turney from before he set off on the voyage of blunder.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03jfc49
Douglas Mawson was a hero. Chris Turney is not.
Chris Turney says he will follow the same route, reproducing a lot of the same measurements (temperature, salinity, looking at fauna) but using modern equipment.
Sadly, he was not using old-school competence.
It’s worth hearing about Douglas Mawson to remind ourselves what real explorers did.
I admit I thought it was funny in the first few days, the irony of it all. I truly began to worry for these people as the days passed and the situation became complicated. I also worried for the rescuers. The actual helicopter ride must have been the worst, or it would’ve been for me. Knowing you were choppering over all that ice and extreme bitter cold, your moral low, living with secret fear for days on end, then putting your lives in the hands of foreigners, your life in the fates of the helicopter itself, flying through those conditions with the very real possibility of crashing or having to land on the “ground” in Antarctica, all the while knowing about the coming bill and the fact that you put people in jeopardy, knowing there would be a wall of shame waiting for your return. (Ice) burned hands teach best. I will not seek to chastise these people. Their punishment has fit their crime.
The Assoc Press report includes this pull-quote from Turley, “I’m a bit sad it’s ended this way,” he said. “But we got lots and lots of great science done.”
No doubt this great science will appear in Nature Geoscience next week, all peer-reviewed and ready for prime time.
Totally delusional
Oh, and about the fate of the 22 Russian crew, Herr Doktor Turley is conspicuously silent
Congratulations to Snow Dragon and Aurora Australis crews for a rescue operation. They rescued among others a Green Party Senator Janet Rice, whose video is definitely worth remembering:
Every time I see the name of the ship my brain translates it to Shloky Academy. Seems to fit. God watch over the mariners left behind by the self important and self anointed.
pbh
Michael,
Think about this for a minute….
January in Antarctica is SUMMER
Couldn’t these “climate scientits” (I’m using the term very loosely here) come up with a less-expensive tool to measure evidence of ice sheet melting than their own icebreaker?
Besides, it might end up being a news story so embarrassing most AGW-leaning news organizations would refuse to cover it!
Oh, wait!….
That’s exactly what’s happened!
I submit it’s Nature’s way of laughing at their hubris, ignorance, and stupidity.
And they wonder why respone to a recent poll had “Climate Change” getting just 1%.
They blame Skeptics but they really are a Ship of Fools.