Guest post by Steve Goddard
Reading through the recent blog posts of the Catlin expedition, it has become apparent that they have made errors in judgment. Team member Martin Hartley is suffering from frostbite, and hasn’t been able to sleep for nearly a week.
The current temperature is -42C (-44F.) The sensible course of action would be to evacuate Martin to someplace warm where he can receive proper medical attention. Cold and lack of sleep make healing impossible and threaten his health. I have camped in tents in -30C weather, and it is all about survival – nothing else has any meaning when you are that cold.
The wet sleeping bags are apparently the result of a poor decision.
Indeed, the scientific merit of the expedition is questionable.
I made 48 snow measurements after we’d stopped walking today – the best yet.
What is the point of taking a lot of measurements at one location on the same day? Arctic ice continuously shifts and melts or freezes, and the ice they are standing on will have moved hundreds or thousands of miles by next year. The temperature is -42C. No doubt the ice is getting thicker at that temperature.
Meanwhile, the expedition sponsor (HRH The Prince of Wales) has been jetting around South America enjoying the life of entitlement currently reserved for global warming patrons. The formula is simple – as long as a celebrity keeps talking about global warming, their carbon footprint and lifestyle excesses are above reproach. Perhaps if AIG had of named their bonuses “carbon offsets,” they could be partying in South America too.
As of today, global sea ice area is again above normal.
The story will be that abnormal warming so early in the spring caused unexpected melting that got them wet and almost killed them.
hotrod (08:07:34) :
I have personally experienced that sort of wet sleeping bag situation at -30 deg F, and ended up with hypothermia. They are in big big trouble and need to get off the ice. Wet bags at those temps are not an annoyance, they are a life threatening emergency.
Sponsors, take responsibility for these folks ,,,, they are cold, wet and sleep deprived they are no longer capable of rational judgment! Get them off the ice NOW!
Katherine (08:53:36) :
I think they’re running for a Darwin Award.
They need to get the — H, E, double Mann hockey sticks, out of there!!!!!
But of course I am a stupid —CO2 denier, flat earth er, ice age—so they can stay and die….. oh well
God help them.
So they dawn the immersion suits and swim across. How in the world do they get the sledges across?
I wondered about that, too, so looked at their equipment, and they have a Sledge Flotation Device, which attaches to the underside.
Is there a link that plots the actual progress they’ve made?
OK. I can’t sit here and snicker about Darwin Awards. I sent this e-mail to the addresses posted by Arn Riewe (07:53:22) :
Please, for the love of God, you helped put those people out there, get them off the ice now. Please.
R.E. Phelan
I don’t really expect that to happen…
With that level of impairment, they will perish.
3 martrys for the casue of AGW???
I wonder if they have a base camp medical safety officer with the authority to pull them off the ice regardless of their own wishes.
If they are in fact in the early stages of hypothemia, that makes them suseptible to cardiac irregularities if they take a fall. When body temperature is lower than normal and if they are dehydrated which is not uncommon in sever cold, the heart can get a bit cranky.
When in Mountain Rescue they advised us to be very gentle with hypothermic patients because a hard shock such as dropping the stretcher due to one of the rescuers tripping could send the patient into cardiac arrest (actually fibrillation same end result).
The recommended method of emergency warming in the field is the administration of hot IV’s and hot moist O2 as the lungs provide a very effective non-invasive method of heat transfer to the blood stream.
http://www.hypothermia.org/jama.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=KnVu7VNPOP4C&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=rescue+Hypothermia+cardiac+arrhythmia&source=bl&ots=YR3xYwC8aE&sig=5z0yv5OsXPk08bx35qYO770485o&hl=en&ei=2uXOSZu5LdzinQeKuKTeCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
I wonder if their equipment list include any means to accomplish either?
Larry
This just seems appropriate at this time:
http://ak.water.usgs.gov/glaciology/ballad_of_the_ice-worm_cocktail.htm
@Tom in Florida (09:47:40) :
“I wonder who is going to share the proceeds from the books, miniseries and movie that will show how these “heros braved unspeakable hardships” in order to help save the planet.”
Their heirs or assignees. Dead people can’t spend a nickel.
Sponsors: get them the heck off the ice NOW, please.
I hadn’t previously bothered to watch the short piece of video with the Catlin logo part way down this page. But I just did.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/
The video barely seeks to hide that this whole thing is a paid promotional stunt for a large insurance company. Catlin. These guys.
http://www.catlin.com/
The video makes it clear that the aim is to keep the name Catlin in front of the public. Anyone’s guess how much the reports are tailored to produce the dramatic effect to sustain this.
Something has been nagging for a while now. Something’s not right. As many posters note, these people should be hauled off the ice pronto IF their ‘ordeal’ is as described. Why has it turned into a Hollywood-type cliffhanger? Catlin makes clear it wants the eyes of the world on its name, its logo. It presumably ‘directs’ the whole show… there’s no independent verification of anything … the state of the players’ health, the ice measurements and methodology, the reportage of anything and so on.
I wonder whether we’re looking at a staged and scripted ‘happening’. Will there be a miraculous series of ‘escapes’ as out brave trio battle against overwhelming odds, risking their very lives to save the planet, blah, blah…
Now I’m just bored. I’ve already seen that movie dozens of times.
Sigh…
This entire expedition is insane. Supposedly AGW should have ameliorated the weather conditions. But they were blind to see it wasn’t what they were told to expect. Being dropped into -40 degree conditions with howling winds instead of balmy conditions should have woken them up. Someone is going to die.
Steve, (17:09:40)
The Calgary Herald story you provided the link for includes this:
“The parties agreed that long-term conservation of polar bears depends upon successful mitigation of climate change,”
It is interesting to note the use of the newly acceptable phrase “climate change”, rather than “global warming.”
But let’s assume the global climate is now cooling. Will they want to “mitigate” that. How? Produce more CO2?
I think these folks are all smoking something and it is not long-leaf tobacco.
My old Chief Pilot:”Son it isn’t so much the fear of dying that bothers me, its the mortal fear of screwing up WHILE dying…”
John Finn (17:21:12) :
A fellow skeptic says I have to agree. I give them full marks for dumb but I also give them full marks for chicken. I think they’ll be out of the like the Roadrunner once things get dicey.
Lets hope their radios were not made by ACME and have a coyote logo on them.
Larry
No doubt when their “expedition” is finished they’ll conclude the Arctic ice is doomed and it’s all due to mankind.
Katherine (08:53:36) :
I think they’re running for a Darwin Award. I don’t know whether to root for them or not. If they don’t qualify, you can bet on seeing their faces in future AGW articles about the melting of the arctic ad nauseam. If they qualify, they’ll be hailed as martyrs to the “cause” and their faces will show up in future AGW articles about the melting of the arctic ad nauseam.
[snip]
Huh? What was offensive about the polar bear comment? I didn’t put a single imprecation or invective in that line.
alec kitson wrote:
Good call. Yeah, I’ve seen that movie, too. Didn’t both with the popcorn. Time to put Catlin on the block channel list.
insurance companies make huge profits from tihs.
their mathematicians compute much higher costs for their customers due to agw, and later, nothing happens.
The scientific merit is that if they survive or at least if their memory chip get to the hands of others after the polar bear enjoys his yummy dinner, we will know how much snow there was at places along a particular random path that a gang of crazy people chose as the most convenient one in their attempted march towards the pole.
The statistical ensemble of the places will be weighted by the number of sleepless wet nights in their obsolete sleeping bags. 😉
This set of measurements will arguably have a lower objective importance for climate science than the satellite data but it could actually be helpful for historical psychiatrists, at least those who have also learned to analyze the ice data in order to help their patients. 😉
These fools are going to get themselves killed.
I USED TO THINK THAT THE FASTEST WAY TO GET 10 OPINIONS WAS TO PUT 5 PSYCHIATRISTS TOGETHER.
LOOKS LIKE THE MANTLE HAS BEEN SWITCHED TO 10 “SCIENTISTS.” ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO TODAY ESPOUSE “GLOBAL WARMING: BUT WHO, 35 YEARS AGO, WERE DEAD SET ON “GLOBAL COOLING” AND “THE COMING ICE AGE.”
The Telegraph reports that the ice is thinning at minus 40 degrees, and that the explorers had to start the expedition in the winter – before all the ice melts due to global warming.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5061498/Lacy-underwear-secret-tool-of-polar-expedition.html
Something about the mention of global warming causes some people to completely discard with any remaining common sense. If it was minus 40 in London, they would probably expect the Thames to freeze. Not so in the Arctic.
How do they know where they are if their compass and GPS are not working? Following the wind, it’s no wonder they are so off course. Hope they have a nice swim to the north pole.
From their website
Total distance travelled
112.23 km
Average daily distance
4.0 km
Estimated distance to North Pole
806.73 km
Time on Arctic Ocean
28 days
800km to go @ur momisugly 4km/day
200 Days!