The farcical account of the Catlin Crew continues. You don’t even have to dig deep anymore to find as many holes in their stories as they say they are drilling. In addition to what Steve points out, our own “Charles the moderator” provided the video framegrab below, notice anything interesting? You can watch the Quicktime video showing how they do “drilling and measurement” on the Catlin website developer, Indigopapa.tv, is here .
In case you don’t see it, the answer for the clip above is at the end of the article. – Anthony
Guest post by Steven Goddard
Wednesday, 15 Apr 2009 12:39
The Catlin Arctic Survey has now released its first set of ice and snow thickness measurements, showing the floating sea ice cover it has travelled over in the early stage is predominantly new ice, with an average thickness of 1.77m. The findings were obtained by manual drilling and are currently being analysed by science partners.
Finding ‘First Year Ice’ in this part of the Ocean was not what the Ice Team had expected at this stage of a route chosen, in conjunction with science advisors, to begin in an area where there would be multi-year ice. It suggests that the older, thicker ice has either moved to a different part of the ocean or has melted. This First Year Ice will only have formed since September 2008 and, being thinner, is less likely to survive the annual summer thaw. It points to an ever-smaller summer ice covering around the North Geographic Pole this year.
We’ve noticed that the ice is older and thicker than before
The Catlin Arctic Survey has now released its first set of ice and snow thickness measurements, showing the floating sea ice cover it has travelled over in the early stage is predominantly new ice, with an average thickness of 1.77m.
At the other end of the measurement spectrum, NASA’s IceSat has made more than 1.9 billion ice measurements already this spring – with no hypothermia or frostbite.
ANSWER: The tape measure shows a red 7F marker. That’s 7 feet for our Euro and UK visitors. Now why would they measure in feet then convert to meters?:
“…with an average thickness of 1.77m” source: April 15 Catlin blog
when you can easily buy metric tape measures with calibration certificates in Great Britain?
I could be wrong, but I watched the video several times to see if I could see evidence of perhaps printing in English units one side and Metric on the other, I did not see any and I did several frame grabs. It looks to me as if one side is blank and the other printed only in Feet and Inches. It appears to me that the tape is translucent white, perhaps a cloth or vinyl tape which would be lighter than a steel one since they have gear carrying considerations to make.
Readers feel free to double check my observation and report in comments. – Anthony
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That’s what you call really, really talented spin! What are the odds that the MSM will eat it up while conveniently overlooking the facts.
Catlin = amateur . You can’t believe anything out of these guys. They are activists with an agenda not scientists. you could get the data you want from these pros. http://expeditions.iceaxe.tv They get to the pole in 10 days.
Obviously, they wanted a forum where they can pander their pre-conceived conclusions. This expedition provided such and has generally been acceptable to the willing audience. They will find what they are looking for, with no pretense of objectivity.
Perhaps they are lost? 🙂
This is easy to explain. The people at the home camp simply misheard ‘first year ice’ when Pen said ‘My beer is ice.’
So sad that the scientists planning the route did NOT realize that it was over first year ice. Does anyone know the name of the scientist that planned the route without knowing what type of ice they would measuring? Is the Guardian going to be all over these lies? Will Prince Charles demand the royal monies be refunded so he is not made a laughingstock?
Please… Don’t Catlin me Bro…
The quality and usefulness of the expedition’s science reminds me of the fly joke. As the wife returned home her husband said to her that he killed 5 flies, 3 males and 2 females. She asked how the heck did you determine that? The husband said that 3 were on my beer can and 2 were on your phone.
Not much different than finding thin ice when drilling in thin ice but declaring surprise by the discovery.
Come on, you didn’t really expect them say something else did you?
Well, I haven’t installed a quicktime viewer, but enlarging the screen grab provided in the article, I believe I see digits on the reverse side just at the water level. I didn’t see them until I enlarged the picture, but it sure looks like there is something printed there. Any other frame grabs of longer sections the obverse, Steven?
REPLY: I saw that too, but there is also a lack of index marks. As I mentioned, I believe the tape is translucent, and that is the number showing through from the other side. There’s so much light and reflections from high albedo ice that the whole scene is filled with light in all directions. – Anthony
I have been following the Catlin group daily reports since they first started. I seems that I recall seeing collum diagrams of ice thickness and snow thickness for guite a number of days. The ice seemed to show about 3 meters in thickness and the snow on top aout 2 to 2.5 meters. I assumed at that time they were using there electronic gear to measure thickness. Does anyone else recall these measurements or am I wrong?
Interesting that they quote an ice thickness to centimeter accuracy, when the miserable condition of their test hole would make taking a reading to closer than 3-4 inches mostly meaningless. Also when they were attempting to highlight the grueling and perilous nature of their trek the website was littered with pics of them dragging their sledges over ice structures that all appeared to be 10′-20’+ high. I wonder how many ice thickness readings they took in those areas.
Anthony, it seems they brought more than one tape measure with them…this one appears to be in cms.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/gallery_video.aspx?id=46
REPLY: I agree, that appears to be metric. But, note that this is an audio only report. Do we know the photo to be from the 3/14/09 date taken with the audio? There are lots of photos and videos taken before the expedition that are on the Catlin website, and the one I’m bringing attention to may well be one also. The problem that we have here is that we can’t verify anything they are presenting. – Anthony
I don’t get it.
They have a tape measure that measures in feet – probably because it was bought in the US.
But they report the results in metric because that is what the world uses.
Maybe it just me because I have a several tape measures and tend to use whatever I have on hand and convert as necessary….
REPLY: Possibly, but when planning a well funded science expedition, do you grab the old tape measure from your toolbox? 😉 – Anthony
From the sidebar, the sea ice extent is very close the the seven year record high.
I never thought that watching ice not melt could be so much fun.
The forecast for the Alaska Arctic coast has highs of 15°F for the next week Lows of -5 to +5 °F.
Mr Watts, my dear friend, you are mistaken in thinking we do metric over here. Well, ok, the young people do but they soon grow out of it when they realise how much easier our crusty old Imperial measures are.
Some of us are still firmly wedded to that implacable truth: “Fog in English Channel, Europe isolated”.
REPLY: I don’t doubt that, but metric is the measure of science, they are reporting thicknesses in metric, so why measure in feet? That is my main point. It is a curiosity. – Anthony
Err 7ft is over 2 metres why is no one saying that? You can not have 7ft on one side and 1.77 metres on the other! If the tape is actually metric then the measure is 2.1 metres. If the measure was in fact 5 feet 9.7 inches what are we worried about? Perhaps they didn’t realize there was anything other than imperial measure before this jaunt.
How do they keep the tape from freezing to itself when they are done?
I thought the whole world was on the metric system except for the U.S.
Couldn’t they obtain a metric tape measure in the UK? Or is ft/inches a standard international measurement? If so then why don’t they report it as such?
What is their method? Has the method been calibrated?
Here’s another thought…..
The angle of the shadow from the small piece of ice just above the hole looks to be more than 20 degrees above the horizon. Given their location and time/day of the measurement what sun angle would be expected ?
My industry uses such radar imaging devices in much the same conditions. We don’t seem to have such problems with them. Hypothetically speaking, if I wanted to make my own preconceived results and I wasn’t getting such from the recorded data, I might, hypothetically speaking, make my equipment fail. Then I could, hypothetically speaking, make my own holes in the ice, which no-one will ever see, and measure whatever I wanted to measure, hypothetically speaking..
Catlin conversion, 100 inches = 1 meter?
That measurement was probably taken on a demonstrational lake using a demonstrational hole, with a demonstrational tape, that shows that the lake ice is equivocal to the Arctic ice measurement in situ.
Because of numerous previous “downwards adustments of ice extent” it may be wise at this point to peg this one
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
There is now a permanent record of most of these changes here
http://mikelm.blogspot.com/2007/09/left-image-was-downloaded-from.html
In particular cryosphere today does not seem to like it when either SH or NH ice goes up to much and downwards adjustments ALWAYS (LOL) changes due to “computer glitches” are quite common. Take note of current NH ice at cryosphere today and compare with AMSR anyone care to comment?
Slightly different rulers used in preparation in the Canadian Arctic-a carpenters rule?
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/gallery/Science_Equipment/1023
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/gallery/Science_Equipment/1024
I can’t believe they didn’t check the NSIDC maps before they departed.