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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Joe, don’t forget the all fish have cancers in them and are being deep fried to the bone by oceanic acidification, so the polar bears must be starvin’ like Marvin!
Back in 2000 Sir Ranulph Fiennes attempted to walk solo to the North Pole. He sustained frostbite and had to amputate his own fingers. Fortunately he made it back alive. I say fortunately because he’s a free market libertarian with a sound mind and brave heart. If he was some sort of Green trying to prove the world is melting I would not give a toss.
The closing lines are amazing in their prescience…
“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.”
Maybe they know something we don’t? As in when the summer comes, the ice will start to melt? 🙂
I have no idea why radar is necessary as it will only give a tiny data point and can’t be used to extrapolate the ice thickness over the entire ice cap…but then reading Steig’s paper on Antartica maybe they can?
This is grandstanding. It’s physical, they are making an attempt that is dangerous, but nonethelss grandstanding.
Professor Stott’s blogs may be accessed at http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/A_Hot_Topic_Blog.html
Read his archives and be cheered by his outpourings.
Somehow CNN missed reporting these “minor” setbacks. It wouldn’t match their “Earth in Peril” theme.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/03/11/arctic.ice.explorers/index.html
I see from today’s update that they’ve now been waiting for resupply due to bad weather for 3 days.
Someone really should stop them now before anyone’s got to risk their lives trying to save them.
B Kerr (11:07:14)
Is Pen his real name or is it a nom de plume?”
Its obviously a pen name!
Do you think his sister was named Pencil? That way his parents had a set.
Just about 17 days in. Distance covered 25km, 930km to go. Now they are waiting fro a resup as they only have 1.5 days rations and fuel left
Pen Hadow in 2003 he became the first person to walk the 478 miles, solo and unsupported, from the northern coast of Canada to the North Pole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_Hadow
I thought this exped would be doing a lot better.
There’s another expedition next year at this time to the pole of Inacessibility
http://www.ice-warrior.com/ArcticPole.htm
“Jim’s real motivation is to convey the reality of global climate change with unprecedented reporting direct from the Arctic Ocean.”
“Throughout the journey, Jim will be measuring the thickness, density and roughness of the sea ice, providing crucial datasets to validate the measurements taken by NASA’s Icesat satellite. He’ll also be counting polar bears for the Norwegian Polar Institute.”
“since the team’s breath freezes to the tent inner overnight and they wake up entombed in a cavern of ice crystals”
I would think this innocent remarkt makes a good case that ice thinnng (if any at at his time) is done from below not above.
This whole thing reminds me of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the icelandic arctic explorer. He always claimed that adventure is a sign of bad planning.
I posted on a similar article about this group a few days ago http://whatcatastrophe.com/drupal/node/6
So can someone tell me again why warm is bad?
At the Catlin site they say that the expedition is led by an experienced polar explorer. Hmmm… also I read that they are hauling their sledges. I wonder, why Amundsen used always dogs for the purpose, even taking them to the South Pole, when doing the hauling alone is aparently the preferred way to do it today ;-).
Somehow people hauling sledges are in my mind associated with the poor guys from Scott’s team…
True!
If I may coin a new word they would be the environihilists, wanting no trace of mankind to be upon the face of the Earth [well, …except as you said maybe for a few hundreds or so of them].
Interesting biog on the Ice Warrior.
I’d imagine given the degree to which the poles have warmed over the last few years he’ll be even more worried about falling through the ice again.
Does anyone know if he’s planning to take a kayak, just in case?
Oh, and maybe a gun in case he finds polar bears that haven’t already starved to death. Again just in case.
Is he British, by any chance.
On the plus side at least we know what we’ll watching this time next year.
Pete Stroud (07:44:31) said:
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. Whoever he is, he will not be allowed on the BBC again I bet. I must listen to the programme again.
UNFORTUNATELY, the Eugenics Movement is a very good model for AGW (and quite independent of what the National Socialists used it for).
Me mum was a product of that Movement, and was convinced til the day she died that “racial purity” was a desireable thing.
I used to argue with her on principle; I called myself a “mogrelist”, as I believed (still do) that the best folks I ever met were genetic misfits (or, as mah N’Orleans buddies say, from the “genetic cesspool”). Even if you disagree with his policies, I think our current President is a good example of what I mean.
Years later I was having a Guiness with a degreed Agronomist in Aberdeen, explaining my notion, and he said “well of course you’re right; agronomists call that ‘HYBRID VIGOR’. Farmers have known about it in practice since before we understood genetics.”
Apparently, then, Eugenics took over the popular imagination DESPITE the fact that common sense, at least common AGRICULTURAL sense would have told everyone that “pure breds” get hip dysplasia (to use the Golden Retriever analogy) or bite the mailman (Dalmatian) and that mutts are best. Much like the fact that RURAL common sense about CLIMATE is being ignored today.
Today, geneticists talk about “consanguination”, or the measure of how closely related your ancestors were; healthy populations have LOW levels of consanguination. What folks used to call “new blood” (cf certain Middle Eastern and South Asian populations). It turns out that modern (carbon fueled) transportation and the general mobility of the population has decreased consanguination in the US to a very low level.
Beyond the pure evil practiced in the name of Eugenics, because the THEORY became a “common currency” and a near religion (what The Goreacle would call now “settled science”), a couple of generations of school children were raised to believe EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of the scientific truth. It polluted their lives and set civilization back 4 or 5 decades. I know, me mum was one of those school children.
Unfortunately, the only thing that stopped Eugenics cold was the Holocaust. Absent that, we’d likely still be blathering-on about “sang pur”.
If you doubt this applies to AGW, talk to a college freshman today, particularly an innumerate one (say, in a nice liberal arts program at a top-25 school). See if she will accept either (a) a free SUV or (b) a lucrative job offer from Exxon-Mobil.
solrey (08:59:34) :
Many people here are environmentalists, just not writ large.
Sensible changes at a pace we can manage are just that, sensible.
Trying to force change before technologies are properly matured is ‘plane stupid’.
I know that’s plain but it seemed sort of apt lol
DaveE.
Ah ha!
“Pen Hadow (born Rupert Nigel Pendrill Hadow on the 26 February 1962) ”
M White (11:47:43) :
Thanks for the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_Hadow
Rupert as in Rupert the (polar) bear.
http://www.rupertbear.com/ecoExplorers/
Yes the EcoExplorer.
No I am not making this up.
So Pen name is a nom de plume!!
QED
===
Bit of history for you all, regarding the question of why the British don’t use dogs in their polar expeditions.
Dog use was common until the woefully planned and executed expedition to the North Pole lead by Captain George Nare in 1875. Not long after leaving their ships and heading onto the ice, due to incompetence/inexperience in their handling, the dogs either escaped or died. This put the explorers in a quandry – but they decided to press on pulling the sledges themselves. Even though dietary science had established what was necessary to survive in the Arctic, due to the problems with thawing out their lime juice they had decided to leave the stuff on the ships, with a result that they all suffered from scurvy during their ten weeks on the ice. They reached a distance of 400 miles from the pole before turning back (a record which stood for 20 years) and fortunately all but one of their number survived the dreadful, and partly self-inflicted, conditions.
Since then dogs have been distrusted and the prime mover for British polar expeditions has been muscle-power. You would think one of the current crop of explorers would decide to try it with dogs again, but it has probably reached the point of “this is how we always do it” and so anything else is dismissed out of hand.
DaveE (12:25:30) :
Well said.
I mapped the coordinates for day 1, day 6, day 12, and day 16 (current position) into Google Earth and got a differeent results from both the graphic shown here on WUWT and BBC. The graphic here shows day 12 more than half way back to their starting location while the BBC graphic shows day 12 much closer to day 6. I got a result that showed day 12 to be about 1/3 the way back towards the start from day 6 and their current position just very close to the day 12 position showing no forward progress.
Google Earth screenshot: http://yfrog.com/05catlinj
Can anyone explain? Which graphic is correct?
Ice moving south that rapidly at that longitude, a very good sign. Whereas, the Western Arctic was quite light on ice a couple of years ago, it looks like things have changed quite dramatically.
DaveE.
I have noticed that many folks here are at least environmentally conscious, if not active which I’m sure quite a few are.
I was responding to some of the ridicule directed toward ‘environmentalists’, some of it deserved, btw, not only by some here but in other venues as well.
My goal is for sensible changes, not trying to force things.
Interesting that you said ‘plane stupid’ because basically I agree with you but also the irony that I’m an aircraft mechanic, lol. You must be psychic.
Tim
I know this may be a bit off topic, but remember how Gore and his merry band of warmers always say global warming will increase the number and intensity of hurricanes and that is not working out. Also how modeling, never seems to work out, and the models always have to be changed to match the real world, well here’s a good one. I was looking up Wikipedia’s definition of AMO and if you read under definitions, it says, In 2008, new models revealed that global warming should reduce the frequency of hurricanes overall, while intensity might increase in some areas. Because reliable records of hurricane strength and frequency only extend back to approximately 1970, researchers have faced difficulty in developing reliable models.
Well the models, they are a changing again. Have a look yourselves. I thought the science was settled.
This may be a bit OT, but how does Arctic ice get thicker anyway? As ice is a pretty good insulator of heat, the ice thickness can’t really grow substantially from the bottom, so the major thickness growth must happen at the top – from the precipitation of snow. So multi-year ice should really get thicker with each winter’s accumulation of snowfall, provided this accumulation is greater than the summer melt.
Also, as continued accumulation of snowfall adds to the ice thickness, it should also add to its mass – so displacing a greater volume of seawater. Could this perhaps be a factor in sea level rise and fall?
Let’s not forget this elaborately promoted expedition as well from two years ago.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/12/AR2007031200997.html
sod,
You seem rather confused about what the models do. If you take any GCM and plug in decreasing CO2 values, decreasing TSI, etc. in the future, you will get cooling.
Hansen’s scenarios were based on three different CO2 levels. The only one which was close to what actually happened was scenario A. B and C are irrelevant, and even if they weren’t, B shows rapid warming over the last decade.
Do you just like to argue?