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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Jsut saw someone yeterday here in Youngstown,Ohio wion a bike with a sign on their back about save the Earth ride a bike,and reduce your CO2, funny. people are getting desperate.
Someone should fly Al Gore up to the ship and have him explain in only the ways he can about trading carbon. That should free the ship in just a couple of minutes.
Bruce Cobb, I’m in the same camp as you. I was worried about global warming and wanted to educate myself on the issue. I did, and I no longer believe in catastophic AGW.
[…] Anthony Watts: What irony. I am a passenger on one of the most powerful icebreakers in the world, traveling 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. […]
Well, its over:
http://minx.cc/?post=265284
Now that Ace ‘o Spades has discovered Anthony’s blog, the pleasant tour with engineers and science-dabblers is about to end. Get ready for the barbarians!
Don’t you know that global warming is in a 15 year hiatus, and that the 15 year hiatus of global cooling is now overwith? Will we be talking about this same thing again 30 years from now? Of course we will! Talk about irony!
😛
Queen of the Swashbucklers, GG, is Sue. Waves.
::grin::
====
Gees. Can’t we just be “thinkers” without the political labels Rush loves to throw out? There are global warmers who are ultra conservative and there are natural climaters who are ultra liberal. Labels change as time goes by. During the Civil War, Democrats used to be conservative religious Southern slave holders and Republicans used to be liberal forward thinking free lovers. The labels have come to mean nothing. The GW panic isn’t the fault of liberals. The Iraq war isn’t the fault of Republicans. We don’t get closer to gold standard science when we politicize it, no matter proud you are of how small your carbon “footprint” is, or how much you laugh over the ice that has crammed itself up the backside of a ship.
One point about Cryosphere Today is the graphs at the top of the page are all NH but are not titled as such leading the casual reader to think they are global values. SH graphs are tucked away at the bottom of the page.
This has been pointed out to them and they refuse to label the graphs accurately.
Pierre Gosselin, the NH/SH sea ice divergence is probably due to local/regional factors in the NH, mainly particulate pollution (black carbon). At lattitudes in the NH populated by tens to hundreds of millions of people, there are just a few thousand people at the same lattitudes in the SH.
Which is why I maintain that you should look for any global effect in the SH especially south of 50 degree lattitude. What records we have from this area show cooling over the 20th century, for example Punta Arenas and Macquarie Island.
[…] Ice Breaker Stuck In Ice […]
[…] Cold Irony: Arctic Sea Ice Traps Climate Tour Icebreaker […]
Hey Anthony!
This is the company that is now operating the ship I traveled to Antarctica in ’93!.
http://www.quarkexpeditions.com/antarctic/crossing-circle/expedition-dates-and-rates
A similar, if longer tour than I took.
Thanks for the memories.
Hmmmm… there goes another unsinkable theory.
Phillip_B says:
“One point about Cryosphere Today is the graphs at the top of the page are all NH but are not titled as such leading the casual reader to think they are global values. SH graphs are tucked away at the bottom of the page.
This has been pointed out to them and they refuse to label the graphs accurately.”
This is not true.
“Current Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area,” “Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area,” “Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Anomaly,” and “Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent.”
Those are the legends on the graphs at the top of the page. They all begin with the phrase “Northern Hemisphere.”
NOTE: Please pick a new name (or preferably, use your real name to comment) so that your comments are not confused with mine, the blog moderator “wattsupwiththat”.
[…] Cold Irony: Arctic Sea Ice Traps Climate Tour Icebreaker […]
wattupthat, I was refering to the titles on the front page. None of the NH graphs are labelled as such. Whereas all of the SH graphs (all tucked away at the bottom of the page and out of sight when the page loads) are labelled ‘SH’.
I can think of no other reason for this rather glaring discrepancy than to confuse the casual reader into thinking NH data is in fact global data.
And I know for a fact this happens, because I have come across instances in other blogs of people posting this data under the impression it is global data.
Just another example of the deception culture that permeates the Warmer side of the debate.
Re: wattupthat (20:51:50) :
Cool – I love the irony that you’re trying to clarify some graphs while obfuscating things with your screen name. A great thread for you to post in, to be sure. 🙂
Phillip_B
“I was refering to the titles on the front page. None of the NH graphs are labelled as such.”
Still not true. “hemispheric ice area” and hemispheric anomaly” are clearly not global data – those are labels for the data at the top of the page, taken directly from the site.
And if people are “people posting this data under the impression it is global data” then they are posting graphs they haven’t opened and read, because the legend for each of those graphs, in large text across the top of the graph, clearly identifies them as northern hemisphere.
“Just another example of the [obfuscation] culture that permeates the [Denialist] side of the debate.”
Looks like great fun. You can’t have any fun in life without leaving a carbon footprint. If I took this trip I don’t think I would call myself an eco-tourist.
If you believe what geologists tell us, a warming globe is a lot better prospect than one that is recooling.
another_name, now ICECAP has linked to this thread it will get more readers so I’ll respond to your continued denial of the facts.
People should go to the Cryosphere homepage to see the deceptive labelling for themselves.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
This in microcosm is the heart of climate debate. Warming Believers deny inconvenient facts and obfuscate in the hope of confusing others, while Sceptics encourage others to verify the facts for themselves.
I looked at the Cryosphere homepage.
There were five graphs at the top of the page in the title area. All were for the Northern Hemisphere, however to find that out you have to click on the graph. Their titles are “Recent Ice Area”, “Hemispheric Ice Area”, “Hemispheric Anomaly”, “Seasonal Sea Ice” and “Tale of the Tape”.
There were only three graphs at the bottom left of the page. All were for the Southern Hemisphere. To find out they are SH you do NOT have to click on the graph. Their titles are “Recent S. H. Ice Area”, “S. Hemispheric Ice Area” and “S. Hemispheric Ice Anomaly”.
There is ONE graph on the bottom right of the page titled “Global Sea Ice Area”.
In summary, all graphs that show a lessening of sea ice are located in the title section of the page. All graphs that show that sea ice has increased are relegated to the bottom of the page.
The question is: Is this just incredibly sloppy or is it deceptive??
Since people are definitely being deceived, I have to say it is deceptive.
[…] From Watts Up With That? [here] […]
Why not put the global sea ice area at the top of the page, and the NH and SH beside each other? Also don’t put extra graphs that emphasize the NH unless you also use the same style graph for the SH.
Is that too much to ask?
[…] of actualy conditions in the Arctic after a brutal winter and backward spring, a chartered Russian icebreaker set out for the “Northwest Passage.” It was full of rich Western liberals in full climate panic, who had paid dearly for a last look at […]
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