From the Catlin web site today –
Hypothermia Posted by Gaby Dean
Monday, 06 Apr 2009 15:58
In disadvantaged inner cities it’s known in medical circles as Urban Hypothermia. GPs adopted the term after seeing an increase, during winter, of elderly patients who have switched off their heating, fearful of the cost, and become ill as a result because of the cold.
Chronic, as opposed to acute, hypothermia is the official term.
The Catlin Arctic Survey Team have now been working in temperatures of below -40 degrees centigrade for more than 30 days. When the three (Pen Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley) leave messages on the TVM – a machine that records the messages they phone into London HQ – their voices often sound slurred and they occasionally muddle their words.
Extreme cold affects the senses and everyday skills we usually take for granted, like speaking. According to CAS medical adviser Doc Martin, the team are constantly battling chronic hypothermia, which was to be expected. (Pen Hadow has described it as an ‘occupational hazard’).
“Chronic hypothermia affects people who are under-nourished, physically and mentally tired and not sleeping well”, says Doc. “You can see the connection between vulnerable elderly people and the physical and mental condition that Pen, Ann and Martin are in”.
Weather
 -35°C |
Perhaps they are preparing to come home? They are 15 km further from the pole today (722.28 km) than they were yesterday (707.83 km) and according to satellite data, temperatures have been running below normal for the last two and a half months.
And from the NSIDC web site today – It was a warm winter in the Arctic. No doubt the Catlin crew will be relieved to hear that.
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In those temperatures fat is life. I know guys that eat butter sticks like a candy bar in that sort of conditions.
Larry
I guess we can all “make stats say what we want them to say”…still…
its difficult for the AGW crowd to argue with its own stats: global sea ice is above the 30 year average…
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
In my opinion, it is disingenuous if not downright dishonest when the Catlin website mentions “signs of climate change in the Antartic” and “Scientists say that means it (new arctic ice) will not last the summer melt”.
If Gore was smarter, he stick with the “100 year” ice free arctic predictors…NO ONE will remember THAT prediction 100 years from now. How many recent conversations have YOU had about the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50 Million? Attention spans and memories are short!
It’s time for the kayaker to declare victory and bring them back to the chef.
Do hush, everyone.
Stand in silent awe as the about-to-be-sanctified martys plod to their doom. Every religion demands those who have sacrificed themselves for the CAUSE. This is what we are now witnessing. Lord Gore will praise them to the ever-warming skies for their futile endeavours.
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, if only these martyrs has waited until 2037 they might have swum to their intended target in tropic warmth. See the link.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/06/arctic-sea-ice-warning
Something very odd going on with that Catlin site. The post on hypothermia has been taken down and replaced with a yarn about how the team’s drilling is consistent with ice getting thinner/melt over the summer.
Beyond farce now
“Meanwhile NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center have released their latest sea ice data for the Arctic, showing that the decade-long trend of shrinking sea ice cover is continuing. The new evidence, from satellite observations, also shows that the ice cap is thinning.
Catlin Arctic Survey expedition leader Pen Hadow says that, 37 days into the Project and having drilled into the ice in hundreds of different spots, his observations would seem to support this latest research.
“The drilling experiments I’m doing are showing the ice to be between 1.5 and 2 metres thick”, he told Independent Television News. “Scientists say that means it will not last the summer melt”…more ‘
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/
How about easing up on these people. They are trying something most of us would never think of. The fact that they are in distress seems to please a lot of people here. How about just hoping that they end up safe and in good health?
Why?
>>I expect they’re trying to survive on a modern “healthy” diet with
>>no animal fat.
When I was working in Russia I was presented with a great slab of smoked fat and potatoes as the main course. Not very tasty, but that’s what you need to eat in that climate. A degree of chubbiness is not a health problem, but an asset.
.
The Top Gear crew make this expedition not only look amateur but also primitive and foolish. All they needed was the same vehicle with the radar equipment fitted to it.
Top Gear Polar
That film is priceless.
Steve,
Nothing strange is happening with the site. When they update their blog with a new post, the post appears on the front page. The hypothermia post is on the blog: http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/opsroom
David (12:57:13) :
Indeed, by taking those people of the ice now and prevent any further (permanent) damage to their healths.
Courage in the service of stupidity is no virtue.
These people need to come home now!
David (12:57:13) :
How about easing up on these people. They are trying something most of us would never think of. The fact that they are in distress seems to please a lot of people here. How about just hoping that they end up safe and in good health?
Conversely how about acknowledging that its the cold that kills, and these people are pushing a propoganda that would see the world unprepared for a significant cold event which could result in the deaths of millions. Yes these explorers are sadly at risk and sadly misinformed but their actions are so very wrong.
You are right most folks have enough common sense not to try such a foolish effort.
Their distress does not “please us”, it boggles our mind that they are so ill prepared for their task. Even if it is a foolish endeavor, they should given the money spent on this project at least read a book or two about polar explorers and brushed up on what is common knowledge to folks with experience in those environments.
If you re-read the posts above, you will find most of us wishing that in spite of their foolish decisions that their base came team will have the intelligence to pull the plug before someone gets permanently disabled by frost bite or suffers a life threatening episode of hypothermia. Folks who do not have experience with operations in high altitude or polar environments generally have not a clue how quickly things can go from uncomfortable to fatal in those environments. If these people go into severe hypothermia the base camp folks will not have time to get a rescue plane to them if there is any problem with weather. The final descent into late stage hypothermia can happen in a matter or an hour or two. In WWII soldiers froze to death in the time it took them to walk from their tent to a place to relieve themselves. The severely hypothermia do things like take their cloths off because they feel hot when the body in an effort to save the toes and fingers sends warm core blood to the limbs. When that happens unless the casualty has a partner who is alert enough to correct the problem they will die in a matter of minutes.
From what many of us who have had severe cold weather experience are seeing in various clues from their coverage, a competent team leader would have pulled the plug some time ago. My guess is that some of them are very close to the edge and only a very small mistake is necessary to get them in to very big trouble.
They are trekking against the motion of the ice, so if nothing else, they are running on a tread mill expending much more effort than they should for the progress they are making. In short their mission planning sucked. They seem to be violating several rules for survival in ultra cold environments ( hat discipline, keeping their sleeping gear dry ie no vapor barrier, keeping critical clothing in the sleeping bag so you don’t have to fight to get your frozen boots on in the morning or struggle into a frozen coat, inadequate fat intake to maintain body temperature etc,)
It is bad enough in a large expedition group but in a team of 3 they have very little reserve if they have a problem.
Larry
Top gear went to the magnetic North Pole, not the geographic North Pole.
The reports that there’s only 10% old ice in the arctic ice strikes me as very odd mathematically. Even with higher melt the last 2 seasons, ice area was around 30% of it’s peak winter area. Unless your melting “old” ice at least as fast as the new ice rate, how do you get down to 10% old ice? Theoretically, if you did, you could get to about 10%, but that would go against the AGW supposition.
I’d be curious about the methodology of the study that defines what is new and old ice. If anyone has a link to the NASA report and/or data, I’d be interested. Comments from anyone who has looked at this would be appreciated.
The frostbite sounds far fetched. It is very painful when the body parts thaw and moreso when they cut them off.
Amundsen could do this like a walk in the park.
All you say about NASA, NOAA, etc. government agencies involved up to the neck in falsifying data , through “massaging”, “smoothing”, etc, to make it agree with Global Warming theories, and so terrorizing people, is it not a prosecutable criminal behaviour? Or if this were the case, not with the intention of scaring people but just profiting of it, is it not also a criminal behaviour?
@Sean Houlihane (09:10:19) :
“how is this different from sailing round the world single-handed?”
People who sail around the world single-handed are doing it for the challenge and the adventure. These people are doing it to preach about imagined dangers so that the ENTIRE WORLD will come under the rule of their ideas.
You may not have noticed, but the “save the world” leftists killed more people than anyone else last century and many of us do not care to become more statistics (no, I’m not saying these people would kill anyone, they would go down like Trotsky, leaving the rest of us to whoever put the axe in their heads).
I hate to say this but there is something sadistically enjoyable about hearing of these eco-warriors freezing their butts off while trying to help save the world from global warming.
I know this is OT but I’m having a hard time taking this story seriously.
Forecasters predict 6 Atlantic hurricanes for 2009
Six hurricanes are expected to churn through the Atlantic this year, a Colorado State University forecast team said Tuesday as it lowered its estimates for the upcoming storm season…
The University of Colorado team based its projections on the potential for a weak El Nino maritime temperature fluctuation, along with an unusual cooling of tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures it observed in recent months…
Cooler water temperatures tend to make for a less active hurricane season in the region, the researchers noted…
Something I find funny is that most of the posts on the blog page of the Catlin website are not from Ice Team, but mainly from the Support Team, writing about how bad conditions are for the guys out there risking life in limb. So, the support staff, sitting in warm heated quarters, is providing the information. Meanwhile, Pen, Ann, and Martin are freezing their toes and fingers off, dreaming of buttered croissants and bacon sandwiches because they aren’t getting enough calories to stay warm. Maybe they should be shifting some team member around on the resupply, let Martin go get his toe treated and someone from the support staff stay on as the photographer until the next resupply.
Get out now!-From personal experience end it now! Ego kills….
Wishing ill on these folks is likely to invite bad karma, let alone makin ya look like an @ss. They are explorers. Ok. For whatever seemingly misguided reason they are there, they are there. I wish them a safe journey and a safe homcoming. Perhaps their journey will cause others to start questioning the AGW mantra, or at best cause others to learn to do some research of their own. Once you scratch even a little at the surface the whole thing falls down.
In the long run, every failed expedition, helps our cause.
Flanagan (12:17:35) :
Declined? Sure, out of the last seven years only 2003 and 2008 are higher and it almost equaled 2008.
maxice
2003 14.844063
2004 14.360313
2005 14.098906
2006 13.782344
2007 13.945625
2008 14.516875
2009 14.412813