Guest post by Steven Goddard
From the Catlin web site today – a first hand description of what motivates the explorers, and what they are learning about Arctic warming.
Thursday, 02 Apr 2009 10:04
“Men wanted for Hazardous Journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”
Thousands of men (and three women) replied to Ernest Shackleton’s advertisement, which (the story goes) was placed in a London newspaper in 1913, ahead of his Antarctic expedition aboard the Endurance.
Polar expeditions have moved on in terms of technology and equipment, but the motivation and commitment to research that fuelled Shackleton and his team seem not to have altered.
“There’s a cocktail of motivational forces at work”, commented Expedition Leader Pen Hadow from the team tent, huddled over the sat-phone at the end of another long, cold day. “You can sum it up by saying we feel a commitment to represent the Arctic Ocean as an eco-system and the three of us have the skills that allow us to gather the information that will enable people to be better informed about the state of the region and its future“.
But given temperatures of -40 degrees centigrade with a wind chill factor in the minus seventies, does the motivation that fuelled the team from their warm UK base in the planning stages, diminish?
Photographer Martin Hartley who’s been crawling into a frozen sleeping back that becomes a wet sponge overnight for longer than he cares to remember, remarks “I’m getting extremely frustrated with the stupidly cold temperatures that are making my life a misery, day after day. All I can think about, 24 hours a day, is getting a new sleeping bag on the next re-supply”.
But Hadow says he’s speaking for all three team members, himself, Hartley and Ann Daniels, when he concludes, “We’ve absolutely no regrets about being here. Given that it’s so awful, our commitment to the research and our motivation is in fact what keeps us going”.
With a team currently preparing the next re-supply, Hartley should get his new sleeping bag within the next few days.
What I find interesting is the use of the word “But” and “stupidly cold” highlighted in red above. It appears that what they are experiencing on the ground is not what they were expecting to find.
“The team covered a staggering 16.7km today, the biggest distance achieved to date. By covering so much distance since the last resupply (134.5km in 13 days), the team have observed the ice they are crossing is getting significantly older and thicker“
So it is extremely cold and they are finding old, thick ice. That does not sound like the sub-tropical Arctic as portrayed by The Guardian.
Flashback to February, 2008 OSLO, Feb. 29 (Xinhua) — The polar cap in the Arctic may well disappear this summer due to the global warming, Dr. Olav Orheim, head of the Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat, said on Friday.
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Sooo, it was made to look that they were in dire straights just a week ago. But they’re still there. So, maybe the dire straights were exaggerations for effect? There’s a lot of exaggeration in AGW already—why not a little more.
But maybe I’m jaded.
http://cnn.com“
Wow, two motivational speakers and a photographer exploring the Arctic!
I’m getting motivated just thinking about their upcoming seminars! I hope Ann and Pen take Martin with them to the seminar to take the pictures. It would be so fine to have a picture with Pen and Ann taken by Martin. I better take lots of money.
I sure hope they get back ok…
Mike
Instead of the 3 stooges go on a Sunday hike to the North Pole, they should have sent 3 Arctic Rovers and gotten some consistent data. They could use the Arctic Rovers year after year. All they have to do is ask the Mars Rover team.
No, they had to send Larry, Curlie, and Moe.
You can send in a helicopter to fix a busted Rover. You have to send the coroner for a frozen Arctic Wanderer.
Dumb move: recently they chose to jump over a narrow passage instead of putting on thier exposure suits. The haste to make up for lost time will take it’s toll. Dulled senses.
Ron de Haan (15:53:51) :
…
I thank America for this act of sanity in difficult times.
Hopefully Obama and his clan of “Super Greenies” get to their senses and back off from renewed attempts to cash in on biggest scam in history.
Ron – I expect them to continue fighting until their political careers are kaput. Don’t underestimate their commitment to the cause…
stupidity, arrogance and ignorant nature of human being is destroying the planet and its environment. its a shame for this current civilization!
Tim Channon (17:33:54) :
“What satellite-based sensing system can be used to measure Ice Cap thickness?”
altimeter… the ice is floating, thicker ice, more above ocean mean
Yes it’s called ‘freeboard’ and it has been applied to estimation of ice thickness, see:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFM.C11B0418F
Presumably the results from the current expedition can be used for comparison with the freeboard measurements.
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/200804_Figure6.png
DJKP, Ric
A few abstracts on using satellites to measure sea ice thickness:
Validating Satellite Radar Altimetry Estimates of Antarctic sea ice Thickness Using the ASPeCt Data set Giles, K. A.; Laxon, S. W.; Worby, T. American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #C52A-07
Comparison of ICESat Data With Airborne Laser Altimeter Measurements Over Arctic Sea Ice, Kurtz, N. T.; Markus, T.; Cavalieri, D. J.; Krabill, W.; Miller, J.; Sonntag, J.
ICESat Laser Altimetry over the Arctic Ocean: Recent Sea Ice Results, Farrell, S. L.; Laxon, S. W.; McAdoo, D. C.; Zwally, J.; Yi, D. Publication: American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #C31E-0568
Impact of Freeboard and Snow Depth Variability on Satellite Altimetric Sea Ice Thickness Retrievals
AU: * Kurtz, N T et al. Eos Trans. AGU, 89(53), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract # C14A-03
In principle, Radar/Microwaves can reflect off both top and bottom of the ice. There is a challenge of sufficient sensitivity and the variations in atmospheric transit time.
See also the special collection:
Large-Scale Characteristics of the Sea Ice Cover From AMSR-E and Other Satellite Sensors Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 113, no. C2, 2008
My vote for Quote of the Week (humor):
Aron (11:19:54) sez: “There was yet another example of alarmism over the last month whose predictions failed to materialise. Conficker was supposed to hijack millions of computers on April the 1st and start swallowing up loads of bandwidth and messing around with computers. Nothing noticeable happened.”
Right. I, for one, had absogrutebly no probblmx whxtsoxvxr witx Cxnfxckxr. A fnurger exmpl of algarmisk z[pins]as iero glazhm vwjkloh prgi eowfiep…
I believe in global warming to a certain extent.Because Al Gore made a fortune out of speeches made on the theme ,when he had a monstrous bill for heating and illuminating his own house(mansion) of about $30.000 USD per month ?
My believe is deviated from the pure fact and I do affirm that we might cry,
after this global warming if we, as a global specie will be confronted in the opposite direction ,with a global cooling and winters that seems a Never Ending Story, in places with previously mild temperature like the state of Delaware or Virginia.What if…?Would Al Gore still say the same thing ?Or he would turn around into the biggest promoter of the Dangerously Global Cooling…for a buck or two! And a fatal era to fragile humans beings,will begin.The real beginning for THE END.Thank you for attention.
Navedz,
You, sir, are incorrect. Corrupt science is destroying the civilization while the environment of earth moves along it’s path. A man must know his limitations.
Mike
navedz (19:13:53) :
stupidity, arrogance and ignorant nature of human being is destroying the planet and its environment. its a shame for this current civilization!
naedz – One could also argue that “stupidity, arrogance and ignorant nature of human being” is poised to extinguish the light of freedom and individual empowerment that sits at the heart of Western Civilization, which would be a shame for humanity.
As for “destroying the planet and its environment” – The planet is perfectly capable of repairing itself of any “damage” that humanity might do – you overestimate our power.
It is interesting to reflect that once the usual galciated climate of the Northern Hemisphere finally re-stablishes itself, as it inevitably will, these will the normal conditions experienced by the average man or woman in the street. Not that there will be a street.
Yep. The Sun will keep on doing what a G2V star will do. And the Earth will continue to whizz around the Sun. The bugs & bacteria will replace the climate thugs and hysteria. In 100,000 yrs. there will be no trace left of man on Earth, save a few more fossils, and the biggest fossil of all, the gold medal that hung on the neck of the Goreacle.
Beep…Beep….Beep… hey ! I got a good ring over here on my metal detector.
Cool, couple oz of gold. Dadgum mosquitoes are bad on this planet. Let’s get the last of the animals unloaded out of the crates and get out of here. Place gives me the creeps. Can’t wait to get back home to the good old Mars.
Since it has been sunny up there recently the best veiwing of the ice is in the 3-6-7 bands
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2009092/crefl1_367.A2009092222500-2009092223000.1km.jpg
Some pretty funky patterns in the ice to watch. The ice is shearing in 2 directions. No “open” water still to be seen.
3×2 (16:24:24). I agree. I guess they didn’t prepared for this low temperatures and blizzards. Also they may have missed the natural movement of the ice which for a time diminished progress. If the average 5.5 km per day continues they have about 100 days left. In late July they will reach their goal, but how much ice disintegration will they have to struggle with? If they survive these days I guess they may cancel the whole thing according to severe ice disintegration due to man made GW. Graaasp.
Such a crying about ice disintegration may well be reported as a scientific achievement in the (utterly stupid) media (for its utterly stupid readers?).
This guess I am completely wrong (I use to be that), but if not and if it’s spinned that way I guess globalwarmers like Al Gore will immediately refer to it as proof of warming, so that critics from flat earthers are neutralized.
Global warm spin is real. It’s happening. Right now!
Correction: “This guess may be completely wrong……….”
No melting? I doubt that.
Check it out:
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20080325_Wilkins.html
Or this:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WilkinsIceSheet/
Or that:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2040532.stm
navedz (19:13:53) :
stupidity, arrogance and ignorant nature of human being is destroying the planet and its environment. its a shame for this current civilization!
Undoubtedly, we as a species do need to be more aware of our environment. Pollution and environmental destruction is a big problem, but is much worse in some parts of the world than in others. In general, it is tied to economics, though. Wealth tends to equate with lowered pollution, so poverty is the real enemy, not just of the environment of course, but of man. But here is where stupidity, ignorance, arrogance, as well as greed (probably the biggest factor) come in. Those particular human factors are presently very much in play with what might be called Gaiaism, a pseudo-concern for the earth particularly with respect to a mythical, and fraudulent idea that we humans are heating the planet up by raising it’s level of C02 level. And that, my friend, is what we here are attempting to do battle with since, ironically, that lie has the power to do more harm not just to mankind, but to the environment and our planet than anything else.
Here are some references to annual temperature anomaly graphs before they were “adjusted” by USA experts.
Mawson base, Antarctica
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii14/sherro_2008/Mawsonannualtempanomaly.jpg?t=1238761308
Macquarie Island, between Australia and the Antarctic, obviously influenced by UHI, Tobs, Filnet, rising sea level, hot bird action and ocean current changes.
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii14/sherro_2008/Macquariegraph.jpg?t=1238761491
A picture is worth a thousand peer-reviewed words.
This site provides sea ice data for Canadian waters (since 1971):
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/IceGraph/IceGraph-GraphdesGlaces.jsf
Good aquaintance,
Indeed Global warming is an issue that deserves immediate attention.
One would become very amazed with the upsurge of this issue, mildly contemplating as to why the sudden interest in Global warming. Indeed, many people are ignorant, choose to remain ignorant and take shelter of ignorance in this hazardous scenario. However as our age progresses, so would the destructive forces of evil. Knowledge is the sword in which we must slay this ignorance. When a child puts his/her finger in FIRE, the fire doesnt decide, “Oh this is a child, I wont burn him/her” No, certainly the fire would burn. Therefore ignorance iof Gods Law is no excuse. But there is relief. The ancient vedic scripture, assures that this age of evil (Kali) lasts for 432,000 years. Since approx. 5,000 years have past, we have a remainder of 427,000 years left for this age. Our scientists think that by creating new technology, they are advancing. But instead they are harming the environment. They develop atomic bombs that kill millions of their fellow men, and think they are advancing. The politicians (asses) cheat people for their vote, and spend billions that could feed the hungry on military weapons. So we can see that this age is full of sudras (4th class men).
We must endeavor to good nonetheless and protect mother earth and mother nature. It is the duty of the child to protect the mother. This protection is recipricative. In doing so, we would be justly fulfilling our duties, develop divine qualities, gain intelligence and advance spiritually.
Let’s hope they don’t freeze to death or get eaten by polar bears. It would be simply awful if their if the bones were picked clean by arctic foxes and spread all over the polar ice cap.
Peter (02:50:22) :
No melting? I doubt that.
Check it out:
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20080325_Wilkins.html
Or this:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WilkinsIceSheet/
Further developments:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090403080827.htm