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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Aron: Thanks! That is hillarious!
The Catlan teem has an objective to measure the “decrease” in ice thickness. This is science at is best. No pre-conceived assumptions there!
How does ice melt at -50c???????????????????????????????????????????????????????This one statement alone should tell you the ice can’t melt unless it ‘s something under water ,under water volcano’s.
I hope someone pulls the plug on this “quest” before someone gets killed. They obviously aren’t prepared for that they are facing and are in WAY over their heads.
Something doesn’t add up though. The website shows 3 re-supply locations and yet here they are desperately waiting for the re-supply plane and they are only 12 days into the expedition. They can’t really have expected to make the journey is less than 30 days – could they? At this rate they’ll need 15+ re-supply drops if their supplies last only 10 days!
A few days ago they blogged that they found a polar bear’s tracks.
Their website’s equipment page does not show a rifle.
My thanks to Pete Stroud. I just listened to “Home Planet” online. I don’t know if this can be listened to internationally, but here’s a link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/homeplanet.shtml
The question Pete refers to is at the end, about 21 minutes into the show. The ‘sceptical’ view came from Philip Stott.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Stott
A bit more Marxism from the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/mar/17/climate-change-denial
“Daly proposes that a steady state economy means a global redistribution of wealth and a fundamental revaluation of what constitutes ‘value’. But as well as its incredible potential for social transformation, a steady state economy removes the instability of a system of perpetual growth. It both requires and ensures that we live within our psychological and ecological means.”
Are people so daft that they have forgotten that the Soviet Bloc had already tried this type of redistribution of wealth in a highly planned steady state economy? It led to low productivity, unpaid wages, thought police, behaviour control, defections, oppression and the demise of the Soviet Union.
Yet they advocate the same system on the grounds that money does not equal happiness (yes it does! money buys you time, time buys you happiness) and that growth does not equal development (so how do you develop without something somewhere growing?)!
Speaking of impulsive amateur British adventurers, one of them wrote a wonderful book 50 years ago, 99% of whose details I’ve forgotten, called “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.” He was a bored fashion designer. One day he read a story about how K-9 (I think) hadn’t yet been climbed. The next month he rented a car, persuaded a buddy to accompany him, and drove there. Here’s the link to the Amazon page for it:
http://www.amazon.com/Short-Walk-Hindu-Travel-Literature/dp/1741795281/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237310808&sr=1-2
Here’s a snippet from one of the the reader-reviews:
“The trip starts with a climbing trip to Ben Nevis where the would be climbers are given a pamphlet on how to climb in ice and snow, which is their only introduction to high climbing. They drive a car from Britain to Afghanistan and manage to do everything wrong in a very earnest and English way. Their death defying attempt to climb the mountain has the best of intentions, the worst training and some rather dodgy gear.”
Peter Stroud: that will be Prof Philip Stott. He’s a regular on Home Planet (been on it for years) and a great sceptic. He’s usually very careful about what he says on the programme. Bur he’s eminently sensible and a good guy.
The lack of polar ice is getting bad.
This Google Earth animation shows the extent of the Arctic Ice Sheet.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/route_googleearth.aspx
They will have to walk a lot faster to get to the North Pole before it melts.
JimB
I am still looking for the photo of the team falling through thin ice at -40 (C or F does not really matter).
Do you have a link?
“safe in the knowledge that conditions, our progress and general well-being will improve over the coming months”
Actually this is the GOOD time for ice travel. The worst winter cold is over (yes, it is), but the ice is still solid so the going is as good as it ever gets in the Arctic ocean. It will get much worse when the melt starts and you have slush, melt pools and leads to cope with. Even Nansen simply laid up and waited after the serious melt started until enough leads had opened so he could continue by kayak (110 years before Mr Pugh). Incidentally it was ice drift which also defeated Nansen’s try for the north pole, though he started from the drifting Fram and was consequently walking across the main drift directed.
The pain Pen Hadow is feeling is cognitive dissonance. It can be very uncomfortable.
or i am just going outside, may be gone for some time..
part of me wants them to turn back because of the snow and ice, the other nasty part wants them to stay there and prove there is no AGW. by freezing to death.
this survey will find what they want to find, its to too cold its climate change, if its less ice climate change.. for them its a win win situation.. and the sufferers are science and rational thought
As an Alaskan, i shake my head in wonder. Did these people bother to talk with anyone living in the area? Breakup does not really start in earnest until between end of March to mid April. Many of the towns/villages far further south/south-west of they area do not have the sea/rivers ice free until May !
It was a Yank who back in ’07 tried to sail from Vladivostok to Norway,and ened up nearly being Polar Bear Crunchies….
Love that Python routine….
The stubborn nature of the british is legendary
Ron de Haan (07:44:36) :
It would be convenient if the team got flash frozen or eaten by polar bears.
On the other hand the alarmists would probably blame Global Warming for both events.
Of course it global warmings fault. The polar bears were starving since they couldn’t find any fish or seals to eat because the water was all covered by non-existant ice. The poor bears were swimming around looking for anyplace to stop and rest and happened to get to the only piece of ice left and the “scientes just happened to be on that piece, so they were eaten.
I have a very bad feeling about this.
They will win the Darwin Award.
“Every living moment currently hurts for the Ice Team. I believe it was Robert Swan who once said, “Antarctica wants you dead,” and the same is most definitely true of the Arctic. There is a reason that nothing lives far out on the floating sea ice. The conditions are simply too torturous.”
Uhhh….Excuse me!
The Arctic doesn’t care about you. I hate to break this to you, but you are as irrelevant to the Arctic as (ad hominem snipped by correspondent)
http://reconciliationecology.blogspot.com/2008/06/rip-george-carlin-planet-will-surely.html
Sorry,
Steamboat Jack
“We have been battered by wind, bitten by frost and bruised from falls on the ice. ”
Reminded me of the misquoted words of Edmund Gween: “comedy is hard”
I believe his actual words were:
“Dying is hard, but not as hard as comedy”.
But no matter. The team seems to be interested in gathering data not propaganda and I wish them well.
“We’re all very, very cold and have lost feeling in our fingers and toes.”
In a day or two “utterly bombproof Martin” won’t be feeling the blisters.
Every silver lining has a cloud.
One of the unfortunate results of this expedition is the further confusion of the public re: arctic sea ice. There is a good portion of the public that thinks the North Pole is a permanent ice cap. That if the North Pole sea ice is melting, then the planet is doomed. This expedition exploits those fears and is meant to “prove” prima facia that Arctic sea ice is thinning.
But the Winsor study from Earth Sciences Centre, G¨oteborg University, G¨oteborg, Sweden says otherwise. And again supports natural variability as the primary driver of earth’s climate.
http://www.whoi.edu/science/PO/people/pwinsor/pdfs/winsor_2001.pdf
Few lay people realize that the vast Greenland ice sheet represents the northern polar ice at the top of the world. It averages some 3500 meters in thickness and appears to be growing thicker at its center even as the periphery appears to melt.
On a purely technical level one might wonder how accurate the data set from the homemade SPRINT radar will function given only 18 watts of available energy and -50C temps.
“Such quiet courage!”
I wish.
Can I put some better perspective on some of the comments here.
Pen Hadow is a relatively near neigbour of mine. He is probably one of the most experieced Polar explorers in the world so he knew what he was getting into. He wants to be out on the arctic ice because that is what he likes doing and helps to fund and promote his activities as a motivational speaker.
I am sure he genuinely thinks he is collecting useful information and will report on what he finds in an accurate fashion as of this moment in time.
Having said all that, I dont believe the expedition has any scientific validity as he is just taking a snapshot of ice thickness through a narrow line 900 Km long during one particular period in time. I dare say he hopes he will be asked to repeat this on a regular basis.
However even a hundred years of data proves nothing other than the thickness of the ice over one location which is much affected by wind and currents just as much as any cooling or warming. I am sure the information collected will be used to promote the agenda of those sponsoring the expedition. So Pen Hadow ten, validity of expedition zero!
TonyB
Tim R (10:05:17) :
As an Alaskan, i shake my head in wonder. Did these people bother to talk with anyone living in the area?
Why should they, they have a Martin, yes the one with a blister,
Pen:
“Operating in such debilitating conditions comes at a price, however, and Martin more than any of us is at risk of sustaining cold injuries, such as frostbite, unless he is very, very careful. Fortunately for all of us, he’s spent nineteen previous polar assignments honing his skills.”
Nineteen previous polar ASSIGNMENTS.
Yes, honing his skills, so why speak to the locals.
What does polar assignments actually mean?
Is Pen his real name or is it a nom de plume?