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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just checked the Catlin website is some detail; yes, they are continuing. I am still baffled that there is no mention of having trained with any of the successful explorers who have made the trek in previous years during similar winter conditions, but with much less equipment and support (as mentioned before, it’s worth checking Matty McNair’s feats: http://www.northwinds-arctic.com/matty.html).
Their physiology monitoring experiments are interesting and the CTD (conductivity, temperature and depth) casts to 300m depth have some merit. However, given the fact of continuous ice drift (a well-known fact), these salinity/temperature profiles compare to quasi-random measurements taken from a rudderless vessel. A much more useful contribution to Arctic oceanography would be mooring a number of ADCPs (upward looking acoustic doppler current profilers) in a line to the Pole on the seafloor and retrieving them after a year, complete with accurate data on the movements of water masses. I hope this has been done during the IPY (International Polar Year) that just ended (I will look into that).
As for this survey, I hope that they’re not allowed to become martyrs in the name of AGW – let’s pull them in during next re-supply.
deepslope,
“…I hope that they’re not allowed to become martyrs in the name of AGW…”
And that’s what would happen, isn’t it?
Only in Orwell-speak of black is white, down is up, wrong is right, evil is good, and global cooling is global warming, would these fools be martyrs for AGW at –50°!
It is interesting that with all their Polar travel they did not learn (apparently) to build igloos. A candle can keep you quite comfortable. The armed forces used to have the Inuit instruct them at Resolute. I peeked in but did not make myself at home.
For those worried about it taking them 2yrs to get there, take heart. They stated on their website that now that they’re not in total darkness, they can really start to make some headway.
IOW…Get OUTTA the WAY, Polar Bears!!!…We’re haulin’ ass…or a tobogan, or something…
JimB
“Gerald Machnee (16:47:52) :
It is interesting that with all their Polar travel they did not learn (apparently) to build igloos. A candle can keep you quite comfortable. The armed forces used to have the Inuit instruct them at Resolute. I peeked in but did not make myself at home.”
No time. They apparently are not using any form of “base camp” concept where supplies could have been dropped/stashed ahead of time and then located by a beacon.
Maybe next year…
JimB
In the immortal words of Captain Oates:
“I’m going outside now – and I may be gone for some time”
There resupply plane came and they are off again.
Should be in Tuk in a few weeks.
“Resupply complete and the team waste no time in getting some miles under their belt and push on northwards…”
About .64 miles according to Google Earth. Unless of course they drifted even farther south during the night. Either way, they’re still about 6 miles south of where they were 11 days ago. Not exactly what I’d call forward, or northward in this case, progress!
Going backwards with each passing day. They may end up on a floe adrift if they don’t get past the nightly moving zone. Or plunged into the icy sea at night. And there’s that Polar Bear. What’s it doing there? Hunting for food.
Don’t know about Polar Bears, but most bears make a route and return on it after some time. No fear of humans, that is what people who have spent time in Alaska tell me. Sounds like an invitation to be aggressive in my book.
I’m puzzled with that drift speed that makes them actually go back when going forward. Is this expedition so slow or did they chose a particularly fast drifting area for start?
They are up and running.
Ann Daniels:
“This was never going to be an easy journey, but it’s clear now that some of the conditions that could have favoured our progress are not going to oblige.”
Some of the conditions that could have favoured our progress are not going to oblige does this does she mean Global Warming. That is the problem of believing your own propaganda.
“At the end of a 10 hour sledging day we put up the tent and have our supper but the cold is all consuming and refuses to go away.”
The cold is all consuming and refuses to go away, for heaven sakes it is the North Pole and it is cold? What are they expecting?
I just do not get it. As I said earlier Billy Connolly went to the Arctic and endured temperatures of -40 and he was as warm as toast. If a banjo playing Scottish comedian survived without complaining then why can’t these experienced Arctic Explorers?
During the first few days, they were only making between 1-3km of distance per day. According to the website, this was due to “total darkness” conditions, and rough terrain.
It is impossible to make any sense of this, on any level, other than pure self-granduer and publicity.
A pox on their ice fields.
I’m backing the bears.
JimB
I wonder when we will see the new series “Survivor: Arctic”.
EW (23:19:33) :
I’m puzzled with that drift speed that makes them actually go back when going forward. Is this expedition so slow or did they chose a particularly fast drifting area for start?
Just a guess, but maye the sudden stratospheric warming event in late jan and the following splitting of the polar vortex has made a nonsense of their maps of expected ice flow direction.
If this is an example of how man can adapt to extreme weather it’s no wonder global warming alarmists are terrified.
It is occurring to me that these increasing frequent Arctic sojourns with expectations of needing waders rather than real warm weather clothing is another example of the Gore Effect.
There is a compilation of a few of these at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ARCTICCOMPILATION.pdf courtesy Marc Morano.
Re. the Gore Effect, I have added to the Wiki entry the Gore effect of the increased rate of falling global temperatures apparently resulting from the release of his movie The Inconvenient Truth in Jan 2005. 🙂
Does anyone know why the day 18 map (on the BBC website) shows their location on day 12 very near their position on day 6, but the day 12 map (reproduced above) shows their day 12 location much closer to their day 1 position than the day 6 position? The day 12 position is quite a bit different depending upon which map you are looking at.
Frankly I view it all as a stunt, a “classic” stunt used by environmentalists for decades. In my past work, one project was to look in detail at the metro area’s “Toxic Release Inventory” data (USEPA reporting scheme). Environmental activists count on the public to forget last year’s reports and then scream and shout about how big the number is THIS year. Key questions our project explored was what about trends? is it getting worse? Better? What are the substances? what kind of adverse effects and longevity do they have in the environment at the concentrations seen?
In this case, I only need to ask a few questions, such as:
* Do we have similarly precise past measurements?
* To what other data can they compare these data?
* What about the other 360 degrees of approach to the North Pole? Are they being hiked as well?
* Will the trek (or treks) be repeated again? When?
* How will the information gathered at the start of the trek compare to that gathered 6 weeks later, or at the end of the jouney? Or will it simply be a snapshot in time.
Tom: Re Map plots.
I believe the map here on WUWT is the distorted version.
Looking at the latitudes only, and knowing that a minute in latitude is exactly one nautical mile – neglecting the E-W difference:
Day 1 81-04N
Day 6 82-00N = 56 NM north of day 1
Day 12 81-55N = 5 NM south of day 6 & 51 miles north of day 1
A little cosine trig would allow you to plot the longitude too, but I think your question is answered above.
Rod Smith (14:27:45) :
I believe you have misread the latitude reading for the start. It’d 82.40 not 82.04. They haven’t made anything like 50 miles of progress… ever. There own site says something like 24 kilometers of forward and about 7 backwards I think. They also state an average forward progress each day of less than 1.5 kilometers.
Oops 81.40 not 82.40 for the start. They haven’t drifted that far back…. yet. The distance traveled set out in my post still stands though. Just a few k’s not 50 miles by any means. Sorry about the typos I’m typing in the dark here for some reason.
AnonyMoose (09:31:52) :
A few days ago they blogged that they found a polar bear’s tracks.
Their website’s equipment page does not show a rifle.
Rifle is a bit heavy and you don’t really need the range. I’d have a couple of cans of bear pepper spray per person and a last ditch Giant Revolver or .50 AE Desert Eagle… but with the lube stripped out for low temps. Much less weight to carry.
What concerns me more is that they make it sound like everyone goes to sleep at the same time… Not wise in bear country in a snack bag, er, tent…
Jeff Alberts (11:54:19) : So can someone tell me again why warm is bad?
Because your beer looses it’s fiz. You need to put it in the beer fridge.
(You were talking about beer, right? 🙂
Is there some reason you can’t use a sno-cat or snowmobile? Why all this struggle with tents and walking? Is the ice so thin you can’t put a decent tracked vehicle on it and be done with a couple hundred klicks in a day?
Are they technophobic or is the ice such that you can’t use “heavy equipment”?
What are going to do with all the re-supplied?
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/First_Resupply
The image on this page shows a twin otter and as the article would imply the re-supplies. Do I see correctly, 33 or 35 drums?
Are they going to pull all this behind them along with the radar?
Or is it a library image of an Otter being refuelled and has nothing to do with the re-supplying?