Guest post by Steven Goddard
Hell Hath No Fury….
Catlin team member Ann Daniels had another very difficult day.
Today has been a difficult day of highs and lows, particularly for Ann, whose morning got off to a particularly bad start. In order to power the different technical components of the kit, the team use large batteries, which need to be heated to a certain temperature in order to extract the maximum amount of power. The process of heating batteries involves Ann, sitting by her stoves for several hours, using a specially insulated piece of equipment to capture the steam from boiling water, in order to get the batteries to the correct temperature.
Ann reached her lowest point of the expedition so far, when after tending the boiling pans of water for several hours, she realised she had pre-heated the wrong battery and had accidently picked up the dead battery from the previous day. It was a painful and frustrating realisation at the end of a cold morning.
On the plus side, at the end of the day, Ann felt warm enough to take off her sledging jacket when getting into her sleeping bag for the night. This is the first time in the 41 days of the expedition so far that she has felt warm enough for this luxury. She adds that she was still wearing 3 pairs of trousers, 2 thermal top layers, 2 hats and 4 pairs of gloves, but still, quite a landmark in the expedition so far!
Consider the following scenario. All goes well and the team arrives home safely some time in the next six weeks. Now, suppose that the Arctic continues to show recovery this summer, and the realization sinks in that the very premise of the expedition may have been flawed.
Such a surface Survey has never before been attempted, and the need for the information has never been greater. Current estimates for the disappearance of the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice cover vary from 100 years away down to just 4 years from now. Whatever happens, the consequences of its meltdown will be of global significance in terms of sea level rise(due to thermal expansion of the oceans), the geo-politics of energy resources, rainfall patterns and the availability of water supplies and, of course, the impact on biodiversity, including polar bear.
How would she feel? One can only speculate. But as the Catlin team suffers on the ground, the satellites are watching the ice recover.
Since 2007, the global sea ice area anomaly has increased by more than 3,000,000 km2 and is now more than 600,000 km2 above the 1979-2000 mean. You could fit England, Spain, France and Mexico inside the recovered ice area.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/images/iphone.anomaly.global.png
Arctic sea ice extent is rapidly approaching an eight year high for the date:
.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
Arctic ice extent is converging on the 1979-2000 mean:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
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This type of thinking about what will happen in the future worries me. Analysing what has happened, may not give us insight as to what is going to happen. We need some physics on which to base any prediciton as to what is going to happen. It seems to me that there are two major factors affecting what the minimum might be in September 2009; how cold it was last fall and winter, and, far more important, how warm it is going to be this spring and summer. If we dont have a good idea as to how warm it is going to get, I think specualtion as to what Arctic sea ice extent is going to be in September, is not very helpful.
It’s getting dangerous to sleep on the ice.
Some days ago the Ice team spotted their first polar bear tracks of the expedition. More recently, Pen Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels saw evidence that an Arctic Fox had been roaming nearby.
I believe the chart labeled the global sea ice anomaly is only for the northern hemisphere (so it is not global in that it does not include the southern hemisphere and antarctica). The chart that shows both hemispheres does not show the 3 million kilometer deviation below the average.
It doesnt seem correct to say the sea ice is now 3 million square kilometers above 2007, since you are comparing the sea ice volume that exists today (Spring) with the minimum Summer extent in 2007, so it is not apples to apples comparison.
Or so it seems to me.
Not just Jeremy Clarkson in an SUV, but also these marathon runners who just finished the North Pole Marathon would have done a better job than the Catlin crew
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7995748.stm
“Premise may have been flawed”??????? That’s in the early running for understatement of the year.
This is the future of America.
In winter we will be boiling the batteries of our electric cars before we can drive to the shopping mall.
Jeremy Clarckson went to the magnetic North Pole not the geographical North Pole. I doubt the North Pole marathon is at the North Pole.
Why do I see lawsuits in the future between members of that expedition? If someone had such a bad day that it has to be discussed on the blog, I wonder what else is going on in that little group?
What if someone decides they’ve had enough and wants to get off that frozen treadmill and go home? What if, with the lowered decision-making capacity that we’re already seeing hints of in their own accounts, what if that person is convinced/coerced into staying? And what if that results in health problems later?
I’m just asking. I can’t think of a single valuable thing that will come out of this expedition beyond its central purpose, which is to increase the name-recognition of Catlin Group Limited (Creative Risk Management Solutions and Excellent Financial Security to Clients Worldwide.)
They may be volunteers but the folks who rescue them are also-and risk their lives for what should be a Darwin award.Get them out now!…
This has ceased to entertaining…
Steam-powered batteries? Just like the enviro’s scheme to have battery-powered (zero emission) cars that in reality are powered by coal-fired steam generation, there is nothing as reliable at present as energy that comes by burning a hydrocarbon.
This expedition is one giant metaphor for the left’s bankrupt Plastic Reality.
Something just occurred to me, obvious in retrospect, but largely hidden in the mix of other issues with the science done my this expedition.
As the various time-lapse loops show, there’s a huge amount of flushing of ice out of the Arctic ocean, so the oldest ice is only a few years old. So the ice loss during the summer is combination of melting (affected by thickness) and flushing (likely unaffected by thickness given how well the ice seems to break up anyway).
So, do ice thickness measurements provide much of any clue as to how many decades the ice cap will remain? Whatever ice they measure won’t be there in a few years.
So, the important things to study may be melt rate and freeze rate, and that is better done by studying individual points on the ice cap (e.g. the buoys) instead of measuring a transect of ice. Beyond that, air/ocean currents, air/water temperatures, and albedo are all important.
Given the unevenness of the ice they’re crossing, I can’t see their data holding any useful information.
All in all, this seems like a fine scheme to find corporate sponsors for an Arctic Adventure.
Where can I find a graph of Antartic ice like the one the NSIDC has for the Artic? I looked all over their website but cannot find it, no suprise there the only thing I could find on the Antartic was about how some ice bridge collapsed, talk about only showing evidence on one side! They have no “front page” data on worldwide see ice extent or on antartic sea ice! Should we start an email campaign to get them to be a little more balanced?
Everything else aside, this expedition PROVES warmer is better.
F Rasmin said, “What is all this’Someone should save them’, and ‘They should step in and save them’. Apart from who this ’someone’ or ‘Them’ is, the Catlin group are volunteers. The West is a democracy where we can do what we like so long as it does not frighten the horses!”
That is a very good point. I think that nanny governments take advantage of this very human tendency to want to save everyone who they believe needs saving.
My daughter decided that she wanted to have her last child at home. I was not consulted in this decision, but knew it was not a foolhardy one since she lived close to the hospital and had employed a very good midwife. When the day came, a well-meaning neighbor came over to the house insisting that my son-in-law and I force her to the hospital for the delivery. The neighbor had to be repeatedly urged to leave the house.
Our sweet little Grace came into the world very easily and is now three years old.
My daughter hasn’t spoken to her neighbor since.
God protect us from well-meaning neighbors.
This is still a free country despite all indications to the contrary.
For naught? The expedition started that way. The problem with the expedition is it took too long to raise the money and gain the sponsors that the weather changed to a colder pattern.
Additionally why wouldn’t you survey ice thickness from below using a submarine. If this was so important then the US government, UK, NASA would have done a grid pattern annually of the ice thickness to determine it’s mass a long time ago. They have a system of drift buoys in the ice now.
All this leads to the statement that this is a PR stunt not a scientific one. “an action displaying a spectacular skill or daring”. Maybe daring but certainly not displaying any skill. Why aren’t we getting any photos from the ice? Why aren’t we getting any data?
Can you say book deal?
Ric Werme said, “So, do ice thickness measurements provide much of any clue as to how many decades the ice cap will remain? Whatever ice they measure won’t be there in a few years.”
You’re correct it seems that ice thickness has almost nothing to do with ice remaining decades out or even the same year.
The best way to predict the ice remaining would be a wind prediction, unfortunately, no computer models are able to do that.
Tom P,
In case you didn’t notice, there are two Arctic ice anomaly plots hardcoded into this article. One of them is headlined Arctic ice extent is converging on the 1979-2000 mean
You might note too that the Arctic Basin has normal ice extent
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent.png
And that ice in the Bering sea is 30% above normal.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.2.html
Ric,
Winter flushing of the ice is affected by thickness. It is more difficult for the wind to blow 8 metre thick ice around than 3 metre thick ice. That is one reason for the large amount of multi-year ice loss during the previous winter.
Helloooooo Bobby
So far, so good.
??
To ‘boil’ this water, you’re adding heat energy to the water until the water reaches 100 °C, and then you add yet more energy to transform that 100 °C water to 100 °C steam.
Changing the temp of water (below 100 °C) requires 4.186 Joule/gram to change that water just 1°C .
To change 100 °C water to 100 °C steam requires the input of 2261 Joules per gram … and this results in _no_ change in temp, just that ‘phase change’ from liquid to gas.
See that big energy barrier in there? Call it the “heat of vaporization”. It’s like a spring being compressed … very little change (no change) in termperature from 100 °C water to 100 °C steam BUT a HUGE input in energy. Like a compressed spring (maybe a bad analogy but hey).
(All this assumes sea level pressure or thereabouts.)
Yup, taking that evergy that transformed it into steam with it. at the rate of 2261 Joules per gram.
BTW, the process is 100% reversable. The energy doesn’t go anywhere, except with the steam (or ice, but at different ‘rates’ to cross ‘phase change’ barrier from solid-liquid and liquid-solid).
Wouldn’t it have been safer and easier to just sneak to the top of the Chrysler building and unfurl a banner that says “Stop Global Warming Now” or something?
It certainly would have been just as productive.
38 people beat them to the pole today.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7995748.stm
Quote from North Pole Marathoner:
JamesA (05:03:17) :
> Where can I find a graph of Antartic ice like the one the NSIDC has for the Artic?
Antarctic and Arctic. Two ‘c’s.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/daily.html
has graphs for both hemispheres.
Hello Peter
Well, actually, neither – they are equal (melting-freezing energies)!
Otherwise, we have found an infinite ‘hole’ into which we could pour just energy down; an energy ‘sink’ we could use with an air-conditioner’s condenser and get rid unwanted heat energy!
Enough comedy, onto the physics.
The energy ‘barrier’ for solid-liquid (and vice versa; they are equal after all!) phase change (heat of fusion ) is 334 Joules/gram (water-ice at 0 °C) … and while this happens the temperature does not change. More ‘compressed spring’ action if you will.
From the previous post water is only 4.186 Joules/gram per 1 °C
Reference: http://www.chemcool.com/referencetables/tableB.htm
Flanagan, you said, “a confirmation of the actual decline trend would place a summer average extent of about 7 million km^2. If it is above that, then we could speak of a recovery.”
That graph really looks scary. The only problem is that it is based on wrong numbers. Don’t trust CT.
Look at this graph comparing CT numbers to the other sea ice agencies.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u43/gplracerx/SummerArcticIceExtent4-2-2009.jpg
This is a laugh. They should shut the site down or fix it. As it stands it is only propaganda that is bandied about here and on other sites as if it is true.