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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“If the Polar bear catches thier scent, it will surely find them and begin to stalk.”
“They came back from the ride
With the lady inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger.”
Aron,
If they really didn’t take a gun (rather than simply leaving it out to appease any WWF supporters) then it could be a race between resupply by air from Resolute with a refuelling stop and a hungry polar bear which could be rather a lot closer.
I know which way I’d bet.
If they do have a gun I really hope that they don’t let Ann anywhere near it.
It might just be me but does anyone think that the objective was ever to reach the North Pole anyway?
Surely the headline:
Brave Arctic Explorers in Dramatic Ice Melt Rescue
would suit the agenda better than
Brave Arctic Explorers Prove Lots of Ice Still There
If so, all they need to do is not freeze, starve or get eaten to death until the melt sets in and it will be “Mission Accomplished”.
“If it were that easy to simply walk to the pole, Scott and his party would not have perished.”
Going to th South Pole is actually relatively straightforward as proven by Amundsen. Scott’s party died because of incompetence and unwillingness to learn from others, especially if they are non-English or “natives”. I just hope we are not going to see a re-run of this scenario.
Glad to hear that, Aron. Because without an easy way out, these kind of expeditions usually end up with cannibalism.
in german yahoo, this is currently the top story
“Emergency call from the arctic”
http://de.news.yahoo.com/2/20090318/ten-festsitzende-polarforscher-setzen-hi-1dc2b55.html
Translation:
http://translate.google.co.nz/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://de.news.yahoo.com/2/20090318/tpl-festsitzende-polarforscher-setzen-hi-ee974b3.html&ei=JcDASemnM8nWkAXOjJEr&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DFestsitzende%2BPolarforscher%2Bsetzen%2BHilferuf%2Baus%2Bder%2BArktis%2Bab%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
If they really didn’t take a gun (rather than simply leaving it out to appease any WWF supporters) then it could be a race between resupply by air from Resolute with a refuelling stop and a hungry polar bear which could be rather a lot closer.
I know which way I’d bet.
Hmmm I momentarily forgot they were unarmed. Odd that Prince Charles would support such an expedition without giving some of his hunting guns too.
JimB (15:18:03)
No scientific value whatsoever – but did somebody credit these people with the scientific ability to design a valid experiment?
Manfred (01:35:33) :
I Hope your article is correct.
My posting at (14:11:22) had a quote, “All I want for my birthday is a Twin Otter”
The Catlin web site states, “Resupply planned for tomorrow (18th March)”
I also noticed that Catlin sponsors link contains a Catlin company statement
“We provide creative risk management solutions ”
That is re-assuring.
POI! Ernest Shackleton was in fact an Irishman of Anglo-Irish decent. His courage & heroics were indeed incredible up to & including taken a party of men to the most inhospitable place in the world, (apart from a Green Rally meeting), keeping them alive by all imaginable means, & eventually after several months getting them all home again. The most amasing aspect of the storey was how he took 2-3 others with him to canoe across the south atlantic to get help! It rather reminds me of that other great achievement by mankind, that of sending Apollo 13 into space, & bringing her crew safely home again! Isn’t mankind just wonderful? Well at least I think so!
Hilferufe? Suits them well. I’m feeling especially nasty this morning.
With regard to my previous post, I must apologise – any warmists visiting Anthony’s fantastic website should read ‘prove an inconvenient truth?’ in place of ‘design a valid experiment?’ Sorry…
Roger Knights
I suggest a re-read of ” A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush” and further enjoyable reads in the other Eric Newby’s
On their facebook page they state that their mission:
“seeks to resolve one of the most important environmental questions of our time:
How long will the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice cover remain a permanent feature of our planet?”
Any takers for that one?
The Arabs say ‘Trust in Allah but always remember to tie up your Camel’.
Perhaps and updated version might be ‘Trust in Global Warming but always remember to take an extra pair of socks’.
Has always worked for me.
Very interested to see that they have labeled areas as ‘open water’ on the satellite imagery. At -40?
My experience up there when looking for leads in the ice suggest that this is an elegant, naive and convenient misinterpretation of what they think they are seeing.
They should damn well stop their moaning and get back to traditional survival methods.
Cannibalism.
Just think of the service that they will do to the world. Not to mention the CO2 they will prevent from being released.
Oh no, they forgot the biggest threat in these places – fire.
So can they still cook after tipping over their fuel source and setting fire to the tent? Uncooked frozen human flesh is probably not so good but I bet you have never heard a bear complain.
“Dying is hard, but not as hard as comedy.”
Great comedy thus far from this loony Brit expedition. One step forward, two steps back… … Pythonesque!
50C wind chill – seems to me we were colder than this in Southern Alberta a few weeks ago. Folks in Winnipeg had it worse!
Don’t worry about the safety of these loons. If they get in trouble, real men will have to put their lives at risk to rescue them.
Do these intrepid explorers carry guns to shoot polar bears when they come too close? That’s really great for the environment!
I’m rooting for the bears.
Manfred (01:35:33) :
in german yahoo, this is currently the top story
“Emergency call from the arctic”
http://de.news.yahoo.com/2/20090318/ten-festsitzende-polarforscher-setzen-hi-1dc2b55.html
Translation:
http://translate.google.co.nz/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://de.news.yahoo.com/2/20090318/tpl-festsitzende-polarforscher-setzen-hi-ee974b3.html&ei=JcDASemnM8nWkAXOjJEr&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum
———————–
How quintessentially English.
“Just popping out for a swim in the Arctic dear”.
Compare this to Dr. John Rae who is said to have walked 23,000 miles in his Arctic exploration back in the mid 1800’s.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=402693&pageindex=1#page
Based on today news here, they are struggling for their lives – -40°C cold, storm, almost no food and one of them suffered leg frostbite. Air evacuation not possible because of terrible weather.
Just wondering if anyone knows what the caloric intake must be for a 160 lb person to be able to produce enough body heat to survive at -40C.
“they are struggling for their lives”
A definitive ‘Darwin Incident’.
Judging by Martin Hartley’s Day 18 post, these people need to be rescued from considerable potential danger, not encouraged to prove nothing that could be interpreted as science just for the sake of the blind dogma of Prince Charles, Al Gore and the rest of the cooling deniers.
In AGWland (north of Greenland), ice behaves very differently than it does in the rest of the world. This is due to the massive amount of bull excrement piled on it.
(CNN) –Three British explorers are risking their lives in subzero temperatures to measure the melting Arctic ice cap.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/03/11/arctic.ice.explorers/?iref=mpstoryview
Here is a link to the Catlin Blog. Scroll down for satelite images
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/opsroom
http://panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/news/?159261/Satellite-images-reveal-huge-rift-in-floating-sea-ice
They appear to be in real trouble … Pray. Even though their nutty beliefs have led them into this trouble I hope and pray they make it out alive.
John
There’s never a kayak around when you need one.