Stuck in the arctic ice that doesn’t exist. (file photo: EcoPhotoExplorers)
Last year as arctic sea ice melted to record levels, panic set in for many. But then, as the sea ice rebounded and froze again quickly in the 2007/2008 winter, making up for that record loss and reaching heights not seen for several years, many exclaimed that even though the ice areal extent had recovered, this new ice was “thin” and would likely melt again quickly. There were also many news stories about how the Northwest Passage was ice free for the first time “ever”. For example, Backpacker Magazine ran a story saying “The ice is so low that the photos clearly show a viable northwest passage sea route along the coasts of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska.”
Cashing in on the panic that has set in with the help of some climate alarmists, tour operators like Quark Expeditions of Norwalk Connecticut are offering polar expeditions catering to that “see it before it’s gone” travel worry. One of them is in fact a trip though the Northwest Passage on a former Soviet Icebreaker called the Kapitan Khlebnikov which is a massive 24,000 horsepower Polar Class icebreaker capable of carrying 108 passengers in relative luxury through the arctic wilderness. Here is some background on this icebreaker:
Kapitan Khlebnikov – The Kapitan Khlebnikov was built in Finland in 1981 and is one of three vessels of this class. Not simply an ice-reinforced ship, the Kapitan Khlebnikov is a powerful polar class icebreaker, which has sailed to extremely remote corners of the globe with adventurous travelers since 1992. It was the first ship ever to circumnavigate Antarctica with passengers in 1996-97. See more on this vessel at Wikipedia
According to Quark Expeditions, they’ve even fitted this icebreaker with a heated indoor swimming pool, exercise room and sauna, and a theater-style auditorium for “Expedition Team presentations” ( presumably so you can watch Gore’s AIT polar bear tears while in situ ). It is quite a difference from the travel conditions that Robert Peary experienced just 99 years ago when he reached the North Pole.
One of my alert readers, Walt from Canada, pointed out this story in the Globe and Mail on may 24th in the travel section. It seems the irony of a polar expedition to see such things as record sea ice loss being stopped cold by the very ice that doesn’t exist was not lost on the editors.
From the Globe and Mail article:
I am on the bridge of the massive Russian icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov, and the tension is palpable. We have hit ice – thick ice.
The ice master studies the mountains of white packed around the ship while the 24,000-horsepower diesel engines work at full throttle to open a path. The ship rises slowly onto the barrier of ice, crushes it and tosses aside blocks the size of small cars as if they were ice cubes in a glass. It creeps ahead a few metres, then comes to a halt, its bow firmly wedged in the ice. After doing this for two days, the ship can go no farther.
The ice master confers with the captain, who makes a call to the engine room. The engines are shut down. He turns to those of us watching the drama unfold, and we are shocked by his words: “Now, only nature can help this ship.” We are doomed to drift.
What irony. I am a passenger on one of the most powerful icebreakers in the world, travelling through the Northwest Passage – which is supposed to become almost ice-free in a time of global warming, the next shipping route across the top of the world – and here we are, stuck in the ice, engines shut down, bridge deserted. Only time and tide can free us.
What irony indeed.
They eventually had nature on their side, and on the seventh day of being trapped in the ice, winds and tide moved the ice pack enough that they could continue. But, I have to wonder, will the pampered eco-tourists on this trip see the irony that we do?
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Interestingly there is less ice in the arctic compared to a year ago, but far more in the Antarctic. Hope you find these helpful.
yes. even after the “cool january” arctic sea ice is lower than it was 1 year ago. (compare left and right ending points of the 356 days period…)
as thee is a lot of fluctuation over the year, it is still unclear if we will get a new minimum again.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
the problem with the comparison to the antarctic is, that the arctic sea ice shows a pretty clear trend over a long term, while the antarctic tends to fluctuate wildly:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.jpg
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg
…
The article isn’t specific about where they got stuck in the ice, but it sounds like it was in the Bering Strait, i.e. they didn’t even make it into the Arctic Ocean.
The Bering Strait/Sea has had a lot more ice than normal this year, which is only now melting.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.2.html
And even though the ice is melting, sea surface temperatures in the area remain well below average.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
I remember my first visit to Texas to see my now wife. First week of April of 1963, and it was 103 to 105 for 3 or 4 days. Set the record for warmth that still stands. And I remember sometime around 1978 in Dallas when there was 40-50 straight days over 100, which set a record. It would get to 100 by 10 am. And my last month in the Army, May 1965 in Minneapolis. Still has the record May 27 and May 28 with measurable snow. And the winter of (I think) 1978/79 in Dallas when the ice storm hit around New Years eve, and the Cotton Bowl was played in about 10 degree weather – Joe Montana had hypothermia and did not start the 2nd half, but came back to bring the Irish from 21 points down in the 4th quarter to a victory over Houston. A couple of days earlier – December 30th, I think – my wife and I went to Texas Stadium to see the Cowboys play Green Bay, my wife’s favorite team, and we froze our butts off and did not warm up for several hours after athe game and GB lost to boot. Weather has always gone in cycles, always will, and I firmly believe that we are headed into a cooler period.
In 1969 the steam turbine tanker “Manhatten” made two exploratory voyages across the top of Canada to test the feasibility of opening up such a route for commercial oil transport.
At the same time the (same) oil companies pipeline divisions completed some sections of Alaska pipelines and it appeared that pipelines were a more viable system than ice-breaking tankers (which would have required about 5 times the power of normal tankers).
Peter Melia
In the last year, 2 separate cruise ships viewing ‘the melting Antarctic ice’ have struck icebergs. The recent record SH sea ice extent means there is now ice in areas where in previous years there was no ice.
Pierre Gosselin,
I re-read Alfred Lansing’s “Endurance” about once/year, and have given copies as gifts.
There’s an interesting comment in it from one of the diaries regarding how no one had studied the Antarctic ice as “intimately” as they were doing.
I followed a link from another commenter to Modis Rapid Response System, finding it most fascinating–and more. Then, I followed a link to Earth Observatory, from a link under Observatory. OK. This then tells of collapsing sea ice in the Antarctic , here. Instead of the frankly alarmist header–‘Disintegration. Antarctic Warming Claims another Ice Shelf’–I frankly could see only more ice, with a line showing the previous edge.
True, I’m probably looking at it from the wrong angle but surely it’s more ice, not less. The top right of the pictures suggest another activity of disintegration but that’s not the subject of the comparative pictures. Help, please!
Here’s the most recent picture of Baffin Island from the Terra satellite. Looks pretty well iced up to me.
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?T081491715
C. Paul Barreira
Iceberg B-15 brokeup due to measured wave action (from a storm in the Gulf of Alaska). If an iceberg breaks off but is pushed back into the shelf by waves, it will be pummeled into an expanding icechunk field.
[…] H/T: The venerable Watt’s Up? […]
I’m pretty sure this happened last year too. I think I read about it on ICECAP.
Mark & Leebert of Austin:
I’d be surprised if this summer is cooler than last year in South Texas (San Antonio). We had a crap load of rain last year which kept the temps down,
and revived my St. Augustine lawn.
I thought we had a mild spring this year though, whereas usually we go straight from winter to summer without much spring.
They should da have used a submarine.
LOL
C. Paul Barreira wrote: “True, I’m probably looking at it from the wrong angle but surely it’s more ice, not less. The top right of the pictures suggest another activity of disintegration but that’s not the subject of the comparative pictures. Help, please!”
I agree Paul. I don’t follow their logic (if they’ve ever had any) at all.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Here in Southern Montana, our beautiful Beartooth Mountains just got another nice dump of snow. I don’t think the high parts have even started to melt out yet from the winter. Our trees down here in the foothills are not completely leafed out yet. It feels like some of our springtimes back in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Cool!
C. Paul Barreira, there are 2 kinds of ice here, from different origins and subject to different processes.
The ice shelves like Wilkins are the extension over water of glaciers originating on land (mostly). The ice is thousands to millions of years old. They react slowly to climate change over hundreds to thousands of years. And irrespective of whether the climate is warming or cooling they will disintegrate at their edge.
The claim is that warming temperatures and decreasing sea ice is causing these icesheets to disintegrate much faster than in the past. Firstly, we don’t have enough data to support this claim, and secondly even if it’s true it only tells us that the climate has been warming over a long timescale, probably thousands of years.
In contrast, sea ice is mostly seasonal and an increase or decrease tells us whether the last 12 months has been warmer or colder than normal.
So in summary,
If the rate of icesheet disintegration is increasing (and it’s by no means clear it is) then it indicates the climate has warmed over the last few hundred to few thousand years.
The increase in SH sea ice shows the last 12 months has been significantly cooler than the last 30 years or so.
Otherwise, the Warmers are desperate for A Day After Tommorow type catastrophy they can hype and this can be tortured into looking like one, for the uninitiated that is.
[…] not for the climate touring icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov. Watts Up With That? has details on the ship and more: According to Quark Expeditions, they’ve even fitted this icebreaker with a heated indoor […]
leebert
Thanks for comprehensive reply. As a skeptic of AGW, i still believe both skeptics and AGW’s are completely off the mark when we/they make statements about climate change in our parents and our lifetimes’ 30-100 year period. If we look at the original IPCC 1 report the figure there suggested maybe once every 1000’s years one could even contemplate saying there was a significant change in climate. However now were all saying its warmin’ or its coolin’! LOL My bet is for short term cooling then back to normal then after maybe a bit up then down etc….
Hi Rex,
Just like the cartoon, why worry about “out of control climate change” since it’s never been in our control to begin with?
But seriously, the LIttle Ice Age was caused by the sun, and we’re facing the possibility of a new solar grand minimum. Whether it’ll be a big one or a mild, short one is anybody’s guess. The sun’s multi-decade dimming cycles can last anywhere from 45 to 90 years.
If it’s the Full Monty – a full solar grand minimum – then we can expect harsher winters, etc. If it shows long spells of no sun spots we might expect a big reversal of global warming in at least some cooling, if not an absolute cooling trend.
Then there’s soot deposition on ice. Soot has had a big impact on the Arctic, 80% – 90% of the Arctic thaw of the past two centuries appears to have been due to snow-darkening soot. After having seen black icebergs I became a big believer in soot. Why the enviros refuse to mention black icebergs … it’s anybody’s guess.
The’ Kapitan Khlebnikov’ uses diesel fuel to start the engine only, after it has ‘warmed -up’ it is changed onto “heavy fuel” ;
Density at 15°C 920.0
Viscosity at 40°C 380.0
Sulfur 4.5%
Al./Silicon (mg/kg) 80
Do not bother the Mother Nature with that ship, please.
since the comments were more or less started with an idiot overusing quotation marks, I’m going to assume the ridiculously long comments are arguing about something… probably (cant be bothered to read them)
seriously, scientists don’t know everything, they’re making educated guesses.. they might be completely wrong in their assumptions. Skepticism is fine, but seriously… the whole POINT of predictions such as global warming and climate change is to publicise the poor condition of the earth’s environment… and its a very well proven fact that the earth’s environment has been steadily worsening for a long time.
this might be irrelevant because i didn’t actually read the comments, figured it would be too painful
You seem to have forgotten to mention that most transits of the Northwest Passage begin 5 weeks late than this one.
This blog is part of the Cult of Deniers whose brothers in the denial of the Holocaust and 9/11 are also frequently mocked.
[…] for disappearing ice, tell it to the passengers of this Russian ship that got stuck in Arctic ice–while on an eco-expedition to show off the horrible effects of […]
[…] RLY? Arctic Sea Ice Traps Climate Tour Icebreaker Related […]