You may recall Lewis Pugh and his laughable “expedition” in Kayaks last summer to plant flags of nations on the ice. I came a little more respect for this group, since at least they are attempting some science. But given the media coverage and the problems they face in getting any meaningful data, I have my doubts about this project as well. – Anthony
“Occasionally it’s disheartening too when you’ve slogged for a day and then wake up the next morning having drifted back to where you started.” – Pen Hadow
A team of polar explorers has travelled to the Arctic in a bid to discover how quickly the sea-ice is melting and how long it might take for the ocean to become ice-free in summers.
Pen Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley will be using a mobile radar unit to record an accurate measurement of ice thickness as they trek to the North Pole.
The trio will be sending in regular diary entries, videos and photographs to BBC News throughout their expedition.
The Catlin Arctic Survey team started its gruelling trek on 28 February.
From Pen Hadow’s online journal: Conditions have been hard.
We have been battered by wind, bitten by frost and bruised from falls on the ice.
Occasionally it’s disheartening too when you’ve slogged for a day and then wake up the next morning having drifted back to where you started.
The Arctic sea ice is constantly moving, breaking open and reforming into different shapes – which means we can end up moving several kilometres in any direction while we are asleep in our tents.
The wind chill today will slice us up – it’s taking the temperature down to below -50C, so we have decided to take a day’s rest to recharge our batteries and soothe the aches and pains.
We are resigned to several weeks of daily discomfort and general misery, safe in the knowledge that conditions, our progress and general well-being will improve over the coming months.
See a video and audio report from Hadow at the BBC website here
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this reminded me of Calvin and Hobbs’s trip to the Yukon
Calvin and Hobbes Yukon Song
My tiger friend has got a sled,
And I have packed a snack.
We’re all set for the trip ahead.
We’re never coming back!
We’re abandoning this life we’ve led!
So long, Mom and Pop!
We’re sick of doing what you’ve said,
And now it’s going to stop!
We’re going where it snows all year,
Where life can have real meaning.
A place where we won’t have to hear,
“Your room could stand some cleaning.”
The Yukon is the place for us!
That’s where we want to live.
Up there we’ll get to yell and cuss,
And act real primitive.
We’ll never have to go to school,
Forced into submission,
By monstrus, crabby, teachers who’ll
Make us learn addition.
We’ll never have to clean a plate,
Of veggie glops and goos.
Messily we’ll masticate,
Using any fork we choose!
The timber wolves will be our friends.
We’ll stay up late and howl,
At the moon, till nighttime ends,
Before going on the prowl.
Oh, what a life! We cannot wait,
To be in that artic land,
Where we’ll be masters of our fate,
And lead a life that’s grand!
No more of parental rules!
We’re heading for the snow!
Good riddance to those grown up ghouls!
We’re leaving! Yukon Ho!
LOL.
At their current average rate of getting 2.5 km closer to the pole each day, it will take them 2.5 years to get there. That is if summer melting doesn’t stop them entirely.
They should have drawn their exploration team from fit Edmontonians, Yellowknifers or Winnipeggers where 50C windchill happens more than occasionally. OT because its in Antarctica: Winter has been raging more than advertised by “disappearing ice sheet” fretters. A power line was built for the Byrd Station in mid 1960s by ITT and now only 40 feet of the 115 foot powerline towers are sticking out. Here is a picture of a tall crawler crane more than half buried that was used for the PL construction.
http://www.iceagenow.com/Growing_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet.htm
The old Byrd Station is now crushed under 40 to 50 feet of ice. Is it possible that breaking off of the ice shelves is because of movement of glaciers outward under the growing ‘head’ of accumulating ice?
From the article:
“The wind chill today will slice us up – it’s taking the temperature down to below -50C…..”
It would appear that the writer doesn’t know that “wind chill” has absolutely no effect on temperature, it being only an indication of . High wind chill equals quicker reaching the air temperature, but the temperature can’t go lower. (This ignorance is a pet peeve of mine and I spend time every fall alerting various media that wind chill is not the same as an actual temperature.)
What qualifications do these guys have, anyway?
Oh it just gets better.
Their Biotelemetry says they are all dead.
Their Patron is big ears ‘we’re all gonna die in 100 months but we’re all off for a jolly around South America in private jets’ Charlie.
This has the makings of an even greater success story than Pugh the Canoe.
They have 1.5 days of rations left because they can’t land a plane to re provision.
Best of all they seem to be going backwards after 16 days on the ice.
Oh and apparently it’s cold. But to be fair, who could have expected that?
This is all in the true tradition of a long line of British explorers. Ignore the obvious, make a complete balls up, whine a lot and claim complete success.
But luckily, the entertainment value is a thing of beauty.
Makes me proud to be British.
Had those knuckleheaded explorers checked this website they might have had second thoughts about embarking on this stupid adventure.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Or you can check the group’s website, for what it’s worth with its built-in preconceptions (in partnership with WWF):
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/
Let’s see, they hope to cover 1,000 km in 100 days. After 16 days they’ve done a bit over 24 km, or approx 1.5 km/day. At this rate they’ll be lucky to total 150 km after 100 days.
I suppose they chose this time of year and length of time so that they can be off the ice before the melt gets serious.
Time will tell how much science comes out of this.
If it is going to take them ‘months’ to reach the pole, then their data will need to be heavily deconvoluted to be meaningful… The ice mass will have undergone dramatic thickness changes from regional/seasonal temperature changes, ice pack drift (latitudinal) changes, sublimation and melt losses, pack ice geometrical changes, etc. that have occurred simultaneously during this same time period.
Given that I don’t think there is a chance in the world that this could be done accurately, this newly recorded data is essentially unuseable to answer the original questions being sought.
I’m sure the ‘explorer’ is well intentioned in his desires, but lacks anything but a modicum of common sense and a has a minimum knowledge of the experimental process.
“safe in the knowledge that conditions, our progress and general well-being will improve over the coming months”: so warming is good after all?
A team of polar explorers has travelled to the Arctic in a bid to discover how quickly the sea-ice is melting and how long it might take for the ocean to become ice-free in summers.
Will they stay there to observe the melting over time? They might come back blue ….
I wonder how much ice he expects to melt at -50C.
I almost worked for Mr Hadow on a job at his house, never met him, never spoke to him, his other half disposed of the architect because she waned everything her own way & wouldn’t give him any design freedom, or take his advice over planning rules in a National Park etc. Said architect then realised why a man would be driven to spend many months away from his beloved in freezing cold conditions!
That over-pivilegded prat & his air to the Virgin millions mate got stuck & could go no further, demonstrating to the whole world that there seemd to be an awful lot ice up there!
There was also that other half-wit Brit who tried to sail there & got stuck, & told to stay by his boat & watch out for polar bears, although in truth there are only 3 bears up there I know, it’s a scientific fact you know, earning an absolute fortune being photgraphed in provocative poses for the front covers of numerous greenie magazines!
I’ll have a virtual wager that I’ll get my money back that this expedition gets into trouble one way or another. Note: in that wonderful Top Gear programme the fact that the guys were followed by armed guards, & that they were all issued with a rifle/shotgun to deter polar bears, no wonder the poor things are endangered, perhaps they shouldn’t be so grumpy & aggressive towards nasty (or should that read “tasty”) human beings, must be in their nature I suppose! I presume Hadow et al are similarly equipped?
Aron,
those guys are a bunch of hypocrites. Did you see the plastic bag on the table? But I guess their excuse is that it is a GREEN plastic bag.
Do you think they paddle or swim to that island considering that boats are the least efficient transports?
Re “over-privileged prat”, he being Lewis Pugh I hasten to add, sincere apologies!
AtB
I wonder why they did not wait until September to go up in the Artic. That would have been much more powerful to show to the media that there is almost no ice in the North Pole after the summer months.
Monty Python said all that needs to be said about the British elite’s fascination with exploration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F2SJS6B1wQ
I think the Earths climate is primarily driven by variations in the total amount of energy received from the Sun. I see Earth basically as a heating element in a circuit. Turn up the power, it heats up, turn down the power, it cools down. And just like the element on your stove, there is a lag between power variations and heat output.
I hope those folks on their expedition are going to be OK, it seems they’re a bit in over their heads…and misguided, literally.
A bit OT, but since the can of worms has been opened I wanted to toss in a bit of my own compost. lol
I study and practice permaculture, gardening and sustainability in general. There’s nothing wrong with treating the Earth with respect, after all it is our home and so far our only source of sustenance. I know that there’s nothing we can, or should, do about the climate changing, but we can control the toxins we dump into the environment, which really could be disastrous if we don’t deal with it, and curtail our resource consumption, not by making anyones lives miserable but just by being more sensible in how we use them. I think using food for fuel is a stupid idea too, but utilizing used oil actually makes sense.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people in the ‘environmental’ movement that are pretty self-righteous and misguided (and they seem to get all the press) but the rest of us are sensible, caring, unselfish folks that have actually discovered a higher quality of life by coming in closer harmony with nature. Most of us are well above average intelligence and many have earned post grad degrees. My partner is a biologist, for example. We all want a high quality of life for you as well, whatever that means to you. We just ask that you don’t harm others along the way, now is that asking too much?
Our indusrialized agricultural practices are not sustainable so we either learn how to grow our own food or quite possibly face starvation in the near future as the soil is being rapidly depleted and essential soil organisms destroyed. That’s why we advocate local, organic food production.
Anyways, I’m one of you too.
But the sceptic (I must find his name) would have none of this nonsense and pointed out that at the beginning of the last century 95% of scientists believed in eugenics.
Probably Philip Stott. I think he’s a regular on the programme. He has his own blog here:
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/11/29_A_New_Blog.html
though it doesn’t appear to be very current.
From earlier posting you may have realise that I have been enjoying “The Catlin Arctic Survey”.
The BBC is no longer keeping up to date. I pay for this service.
Their last up date was Thursday, 12 March 2009.
Fortunately the Catlin web site keeps us up to date.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/
“We’re all very, very cold and have lost feeling in our fingers and toes.”
“Even the tent offers little sanctuary, since the team’s breath freezes to the tent inner overnight and they wake up entombed in a cavern of ice crystals, whilst their low temperature-rated sleeping bags struggle to offer even a modicum of warmth during the bitter Arctic nights.”
This does not sound good to me.
As John Laurie used to say “They are Doomed, I tell you dooooomed!!”
At the foot of the web page there is a short account of their progress.
Total distance travelled 24.45 km (15.3 miles)
Average daily distance 1.53 km (0.95 miles per day)
Estimated distance to North Pole 930.07 km
Time on Arctic Ocean 16 days
At this rate it will only take 607.8 days.
It check this yesterday and it was only going to take 500 days.
So why the slow progress, well “utterly bombproof Martin” has a blister and they have to keep stopping. They are also stopping to take photographs of someone taking photographs as well as rest up for a day on the ice which is drifting south.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/We_are_not_alone!
All this does not sound good to me.
As John Laurie used to say “They are Doomed I tell you. Dooooomed.”
I do hope they get off the ice on one piece.
Last year William Connelly or as we call him “The Big Yin” made a short series “A Scot in the Arctic”. Yes it was quite good. Billy did not freeze, he took the advice of one of the locals who shook his head when he saw Billy Connolly’s London designer low rated survival gear.
Billy did point out that he might offend a few friends but “he was warm as toast”.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/410965/1218565
50 below zero and we have melting?
Yet another amazing British expedition
And the rescue team will find some of their equipment and their diary. Last entry: “Noticing more polar bears lately. Surprised there are still so many of them……………”
Sending it to the BBC? You mean the “media department” of the EU which sponsors the IPCC and is the main driver outside of the USA’s Gore and Hansen for all this global warming/climate change alarmism?
Yeah. This should be interesting. I wonder how they will spin it. You can be sure that if it goes against the Church of Climate Change’s official doctrinal stance that it will be edited or spun somehow to fit. Count on it!
Re: Ken Hall (07:28:50) :
“Additionally, every measurement taken is rendered moot within hours as the ice is constantly moving, melting-refreezing and changing. Find a spot with ice one foot thick and within a day the same GPS co-ordinate could be 2 meters thick!
All they are recording is a series of snapshots of a section of noise.”
HA! Well said – this excercise is all about propaganda and nothing about science. As it turns out, reality is biting them on the a#@ur momisugly and the message the public receive will be very different than what they had hoped for. I’d almost bet the BBC will turn off coverage off this fruitless excercise in stupidity before long…
Regarding elitism, Spiked has a fantastic review of Age of Stupid that perfectly conveys the elitism and racism of current environmental groupthink.
I was shocked but not surprised to see that the movie suggestively advocated that Indians and Africans should remain poor and never advance, while middle-class westerners should destroy their economies while allowing themselves to be monitored and taxed to death by an all surveilling government.
And of course, the movie exploited the Holocaust.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/6359/