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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hengav (22:19:18) :
They took down the daily progress site. They haven’t had the “latest from the ice” in days.
Those pages are still there:
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/live_from_the_ice.aspx
The ice kills the stupid, even if just stupid from the cold.
Perhaps that’s what the team member who said it was ‘stupidly cold’ meant? How prescient!
This isn’t very encouraging…
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/The_Quitter
This event just verifies to me the problems we have with goverment and some businesses. Instead of listening to experts with years of experience. So called experts with limited experence but a huge politicial agenda are atempting to controll what they can not. We laugh at this group because they are but a small part of a larger travisty happening all around us. I hope they make it out in good shape but I am also terrified by the camparison of their demise to what poorly prepared goverment officials can di to the quality of my life
Curious developments at the Catlin website:
Two days ago, they were planning for resupply, hence no progress from prior day – distance covered – 225.50 km
Yesterday – Still arranging resupply. No mention of progress, but distance traveled now drops back to 202.24 km
Today – Still arranging resupply, weather doesn’t look good for today, but miraculously, the distance covered now is 241.13 km. That’s the biggest one day progress so far. The PR center hasn’t explained this one yet.
Arn the ice they’re on is drifting towards the pole.
http://cersat.ifremer.fr/data/discovery/by_product_type/gridded_products/psi_amsr_drift
Interesting post here:
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/Planning_a_Resupply
The resupply operations guy is saying that for a plane to land safely for resupply, “…the landing strip must be of an ice-thickness of more than 60cm…”.
Now, here:
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/Drilling_Observations
Pen Hadow is reported as saying, “‘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’.”
So ice that is only 60 cm, between 30 to 40% of the drill depths they are getting, is safe for a loaded plane. But the thicker stuff will melt during the summer?
[sarcasm] I bet they are glad they didn’t do the expedition in warmer months, because they might have had a hard time finding ice that was thick enough. [/sarcasm]
Hmm, it seems to me that the Catlin team knew exactly what they were getting into, and prepared extensively for it. Their deadly mistake was not to prepare for any what-if or what-else scenarios. If you look at some of their videos of their training near Broughton Island you’ll see their wonder extended only to how ‘balmy’ the trip might be.
Check this video: http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/gallery_video.aspx?id=40
In it, Pen claims that up to 10% of the trip may be across open water! He models a specially made waterproof suit that will allow them to bob around as if in a big tub for up to 48 hours. What great fun they’re convinced they’re going to have.
Indeed, prepare for encounters with water. But it seems like they didn’t entertain the possibility that it could be cold enough that they’d never even see any water. Even I can easily see that Pen splashing around in his suit was NOT prudent trip preparation; he should have jumped in and let his chin dip below the surface. Or he should have made an ‘error’ in sealing part of his suit. How long is that suit good for when water gets in? Can you even climb back out?
In video #34 ‘Ann falls though the ice’ (It’ll be so thin, you know). She climbs out quickly enough and immediately tells of the intense and increasing pain of her wet feet. She then runs off to ‘go warm up’ so as not to lose her feet. I’d think that she should have done that test after a day’s hike and then she and her two comrades could see if they could set up a tent before she froze solid.
In video #37 ‘Clothing – The Layers’ Ann models their clothing. At first she says that wearing all their bulky layers is for when it’s really cold, like -40, stuck in camp doing nothing very energetic, like drilling. They need to remove a layer to be in their ‘sledge dragging’ attire which seems to be suited for slightly warmer weather than they’ve been getting.
In the several videos of Houghton Island training that I viewed I never saw anyone’s frosty breath while speaking outdoors. In video #58, ‘Martins snacks’, every puff of his frosty breath is clearly visible while inside the tent. How warm was their training site? And how much did it work to enforce their false weather expectations?
This expedition is such a sad, sad quest. I think they truly believe that, if they can just hang in there a little longer, an expanse of open water might be just over the next hump of ice. The sun will sparkle on the wavelets… it’ll be so beautiful… you’ll see… the whole world will see… Just a little longer… just a little farther… we’re almost there…
The “Live from the Ice” biotelemetry is definitely not live:
When the data loads,
Pen Hadow core temp starts at 33.25 C every time the page loads, then increments up to 33.57, 33.64, 33.7, 33.75
every time, I have refreshed, cleared temp files and rebooted — still the same
Resupply will supposedly be at 8:20 GMT, a little less than 4 hours from now. They have the runway picked out and cleared of ice chunks. I imagine there is much anticipation, not only for the new supplies, but the human contact with the outside world.
Much as we may rightly despise and ridicule the “eco-warrior” aspect of the team, they are, first and foremost fellow human beings. I sympathize with comments wishing ill will – I even made one myself a ways back, (something to do with the tents and polar bear “snack sacks”), but I see them as statements made out of sheer frustration with the whole stupidity of the expedition, and its obvious intent to further the CAGW/CC dogma, not as actual ill will towards the team members themselves.
bill (05:11:08) :
philincalifornia (20:45:54) :
The New Scientist – the Mad Magazine of Pseudoscience.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Why not read the article!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:
___________________________________________
My friend subscribed to it for years and would pass it along to me after he had read it. Quite frankly, I hated it. Whenever it touched upon my field (organic chemistry, molecular biology, biotechnology) it got it hopelessly wrong through the editor’s obsession with making every article ludicrously Anglocentric. I was educated in England, so I know the players there.
The proof that it was warmer now than in the medieval warming period “because there are more vineyards now” was the last straw for me. I will not waste my time reading that dross when I can spend my time more valuably reading wattsupwith that.com.
Case in point – you just selected a piece for me that was worth reading, and I thank you for that.
Watching the telemetry today I noticed a couple things of interest (at least to me)!
The first time I viewed the data, Pen Hadow’s skin temperatures were on a par with the other team members, while his core temps were consistently at least 2-3 deg C cooler. His core temps also do not seem to change much even when he has brief periods of 120 bpm pulse rates indicating some strenuous activity like climbing an ice ridge.
The second time I “tuned in” both his core temp and skin temp were 2-3 deg C cooler than his team mates. This could be due to him opening his parka for some activity or to ventilate to prevent over heating.
During Mountain Rescue operations, we would spend a great deal of time opening our parkas and re-closing them to manage body temp to prevent sweating while under heavy exertion in high winds and cold air temps. He might simply be more inclined to do that and be more comfortable at a lower skin temp that his companions.
Years ago I took a winter survival course and the instructor had us take our body temp every hour during the day for several days to learn our “normal body temp” and our “normal diurnal temp cycle”. The idea that there is a normal body temp is not really true except in a broad sense. The class had a rather wide range of “normal body temperatures” and each person had a slightly different temperature cycle during the day. For example in the winter when I am cold acclimated, I am comfortable with little or no clothing at still air temps in the low to mid 60 degree F range when I first wake up. Later in the morning as my body temperature rises, I need higher air temps to be comfortable. When we plotted our daily body temp cycle I found out that my body temp on waking was about a degree F cooler than most people and it rose more slowly than most, not reaching what is considered normal (near 98 deg F) until about 10:00 am local time and did not hit the oft sited 98.6 deg F temp until early afternoon if I did not perform any physical activity to “rev up my metabolism”. Perhaps this explained why I did not really wake up until mid morning and did not feel fully awake until late in the after noon and into the early evening (night owl). I have known several people that were quite comfortable in shirt sleeves at temps that would force most others to put on coats.
I am beginning to think his core temp sensor may simply have a 2-3 deg C bias or the sensor is “mis-placed” so that it is not reading the same as other team members, or he is one of those people that is on the low normal end of the normal range of human body temps.
Has anyone figured out what the day sleep cycle they are using is ie when do they wake up and sleep GMT (UTC) time?
All that said, given the comments about slurred speech, cold wet sleeping bags, in adequate sleep and such, I still think they are in trouble but question the reliability of the telemetry given how much his temp numbers jump around compared to the other team members.
Right now he is showing near normal core temps of 36.84 deg C and cool skin temps of 31.3 deg C.
Now he is showing 37.1 deg C core and 29.4 skin temps.
Perhaps these bio metric measurements are as useful as global average temperature measurements and suffer from the same sort of quality control issues.
Larry
OK, I hadn’t noticed the update being scrolled at the top saying the resupply is delayed to tomorrow, due to poor weather conditions.
I hope that the Twin Otter crew makes a good, low, slow pass of that ‘landing strip’ as I would be questioning their strength and ablility to clear the field.
I do _not_ want anyone killed at the Altar of Gaia,However,having been in
several search missions and personally getting a nasty case of frostbite because of a backcountry skiing cock-up,I fear this going downhill before our eyes.Give it up folks!…
Phil. (06:51:24) :
Arn the ice they’re on is drifting towards the pole
They should build an igloo and ride it out!
Watching their website is like playing poker. They never let you know exactly what is in their hand. You just get fed tidbits of information and whole meals of what looks like disinformation. I get the same frustration trying to read Real Climate. I gave that up and now I’m giving up looking at the Catlin website too. They are on their own, in their own little world of deceit as far as I’m concerned. I’m not giving them the satisfaction of any more “hits” on their site.
I just tried it looking at Pen Haddow’s pulse rate — Hmmm what are the odds that 32 consecutive pulse rate measurements would be identical?
Yes looks like the bio metric data is just white was to make their site look nifty, and has absolutely no value at all — perhaps they already have all their ice measurements in the can too?
91
91.3
93.9
95.1
93.5
88.5
85
87.6
91.2
94.5
101.3
106.6
105.9
102
96.6
92.9
87.2
85.1
79.9
80.7
80.2
85.9
89.9
96.2
105.9
116.7
113.9
103.4
90.8
83.4
82.1
82.4
===========
91
91.3
93.9
95.1
93.5
88.5
85
87.6
91.2
94.5
101.3
106.6
105.9
102
96.6
92.9
87.2
85.1
79.9
80.7
80.2
85.9
89.9
96.2
105.9
116.7
113.9
103.4
90.8
83.4
82.1
82.4
==================
Larry
Larry:
I am beginning to think his core temp sensor may simply have a 2-3 deg C bias or the sensor is “mis-placed” so that it is not reading the same as other team members, or he is one of those people that is on the low normal end of the normal range of human body temps.
I think the core is derived from swallowed radio pills:
Team members will also ingest a ‘core pill’ which passes through the stomach into the intestines. This pill contains a miniature temperature sensor, battery and radio transmitter and communicates core body temperature readings to the Equivital™ unit
Presumably whatever he swallowed isn’t up to spec.
Do they have a 100day supply each or do they have to recycle the pills?!
As to poor equipment/inexperience and much worse comments. They have been at -35 to -40C for 38 days without life threatening disasters. 2 members have been to the poles before. If they were not dragging batteries and electronics I’m sure firstly that they would be much quicker, and secondly you would not have a running commentary of relative trivia. Most expeditions like this must be tough on the individuals, and you just do not hear them at the end of the exploit complaining about trivial happenings tiredness/cold/and wanting to turn back – these are forgotten. You hear about real disatsters/high points
Nice!, Hotrod
hotrod and karl heuer,
Good work. What this amounts to is deliberate deception. Do the sponsors know what they are paying for? Does the prince realize that he is being swindled?
I feel so used…
Mike Bryant
PS Too bad that the feeling is becoming so familiar.
[snip – OT see story on main page]
Yes the cynic in me suspects that they saw a lot of hits from WUWT and “fed” that hypothermia story to pump up hits on their site. Then at some future time they will use their site hit statistics to validate how “Important” their work was.
There is a fine print disclaimer at the bottom of the bio-data section that the data will not be used to determine medical condition of the team. If they were even remotely ethical they would include in that disclaimer that the data was archived, delayed or representative and not real time data as they clearly intend the site to be interpreted by the average visitor who will only monitor for a few seconds or minutes.
I will not ever visit their site again — in my mind they are running a scam and intentionally misrepresenting them selves. If you go to the link for the manufacture of the bio-data monitoring system it is a dead end link — ie it is just a URL with no page at all, not even an under construction page.
At this point unless they can produce a satellite photo of their expedition on the ice taken by an independent vendor, I have serious doubts they are even on the ice where they report to be.
Just another case of “cooked data” I suspect unless they can do a very well documented case to show the trip is actually taking place right now, I will discount anything and everything they say they have accomplished.
If nothing else if they were at all interested in being ethical and open when folks started contacting them about their concern over the health of their team they should have (would have) responded with with — a thank you for your concern but that biodata is only representative, and does not indicate the actual bioreadings of the team answer.
None of the advertisers have responded in that manner either so they are either complicit in the intentional misrepresentation of the situation or are being scammed just like the general public.
Larry
If you go to the link for the manufacture of the bio-data monitoring system it is a dead end link — ie it is just a URL with no page at all, not even an under construction page.
There isn’t a link to the manufacturer but there is a full description of the equipment and the name of the manufacturer which is easily found by Google (see below)
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/technology_ept
http://www.equivital.co.uk/terms_conditions.html
According to their twitter…The resupply plane has landed safely on the ice. The ice-team have approximately 40 minutes to get everything sorted.
hotrod (11:39:03) :
“At this point unless they can produce a satellite photo of their expedition on the ice taken by an independent vendor, I have serious doubts they are even on the ice where they report to be.”
Catlin sites tonight says:
“Identified on high-res Radarsat 2 satellite imagery, the team are trekking NNE to what looks like a potential landing strip for the resupply”
Checked Radarsat 2
http://www.radarsat2.info/
The site has its own Catlin link
http://www.radarsat2.info/about/gallery/catlin/
Hope Radarsat 2 publish images of the Catlin team on the ice.
Honestly! Sending Brits to do a Canadian’s work. We work comfortably outside in the winter at -40; mining exploration is immeasurably easier with no bugs and frozen lakes. Putting a frame tent up at -35 can be dangerous; don’t pick up nails with your bare hands. Standing in the downdraft of a helicopter unloading supplies at a static air temperature of -44 is not fun; no exposed skin is the key.
We found that employees could handle living in a frame tent at -44 for two months of Saskatchewan winter was no big deal. However, when the temperature dropped below -50, problems happened. We surmised it was the psychological effect of thinking that you must be cold at -55 even if you’re not, and then doing things that made one cold.
Eating animal fat helps… lots of butter on partly frozen bread.