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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[snip, sorry, supposed to be family friendly site] The old ones are still the best ones.
How could they measure anything other than first year ice?
With second year ice being denser and over 2m thick, would that flimsy drill cope with its task?
.
BTW, the NOAA North Pole cam is back:
The real shocker about the Catlin expedition is that it is yet another criminally expensive media exercise with zero interest for the general public. They can probably put 99% of site traffic down to sceptics looking for a good laugh. They join Pugh the Canoe and Sam Branson et al who use global warming as an excuse to pursue their extreme sporting lifestyles.
Even if you ignore the comedy results of these attempts to show that the Arctic is melting, they are achieving nothing more than confirming satellite results. Since the biometric equipment has failed, they’re not even providing data on how the human body copes with extreme cold.
This is not science!
And they wonder why the sceptic movement keeps growing.
“The real shocker about the Catlin expedition is that it is yet another criminally expensive media exercise with zero interest for the general public.”
Yeah, that was sort of my point about the posting about the North Pole Cam. While they have been “struggling”, we flew up there, installed a camera, put in a wind generator, placed a nice decoration on the ice and left.
If they had simply rented a helicopter, they could have been dome by now. They could sample several places a day, many miles apart. What is the point of hauling sledges by hand across the ice if not just for the drama?
They could have probably paid someone to take those measurements for them for less than it has cost them to do this. Something doesn’t pass the overall smell test. They are doing this for a reason and I suspect it is money. Little else will motivate stupidity to this degree.
s/dome by now/done by now/
It was obvious from the start the scientific value of this show business expedition would be nil. Only the media gobbled it up. These peoples are a fraudulent bunch and deserve their fate: being exposed or being recycled by Nature…
I imagine that they measured 70 inches, converted into metric and truncated, to get 1.77m. It would explain the false precision, after all you would never be able to read 1.77m off of a tape measure.
“Thats 7 feet for our euro and uk visitors” Wow that really hurt. The men who built the Mayflower used imperial measure.
Ok, I was the one who did the screen grab, and I believe/guess the video was shot at or around Resolute Bay during pre expedition training. This is because there are four videos. Some show additional people, a dog, and mountainous terrain.
The measurement video is 373 MB.
I expect these to be cut off shortly as you guys are probably killing their bandwidth
Here’s an interesting screen grab from the Guardian. What was Martin standing on to take this?
jeez aka charles the moderator
Does no one read!!!!!
The video is not directly available from the CATLIN expedition site (I’ve not found it).
There is no time/date/location for this clip.
The video is made up with several clips
there are 2 measuring tapes in the video – yellow and white
The video with yellow tape is in darkness illuminated by head torches The white tape portion may be the same although possibly at a different time. Forget the shadows!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They prove nothing that is not obvious from the clip.
At one point there are 3 people in the clip (3 head torches) and obviously someone taking the video.
The yellow tape looks to be in cms
The white tape has markings both sides.
It is not streaming video – so not a candidate for consuption.
It is obvious they cannot measure ice depth by pusing a flimsy tape into the hole!
KimW (23:04:54) :
… the data collection is …more than duplicated by satellite and Buoy measurements.
No one believes satellite data – it is handled by NASA who are “in the pay of AGW greenies”
The buoys are broken – see earlier entry – snow level is wrong (data jumps to max and saturates), Ice level is wrong (saturates at minimum). Temp vs depth ok but requires an assumption on the temperature profile through the ice. Buoy is not static so ice thickness will depend on location (catlin not much different)
“profile through the ice” should be :
“profile through the snow”
plus spelling corrections needed!
If this bunch of ice hikers really wanted to see the North Pole, they should have started there.
.
Lance (20:54:00) :
In Canada we have both, metric on one side and imperial on the other for the soft nylon/plastic “long” measuring tapes. Most retracting tape measures have the measurement of both side by side.
Don’t Canadian tapes have four sides, since they have to do it in français, aussi ?
What was Martin standing on to take this
One of those 20′ ice ridges? What’s the thickest reading they’ve given so far?
Dear Steve/Anthony
I think the use of imperial units being converted to metric, in the right hands is not an issue if accurate measurements are taken. I think the methodology is wrong?
By way of observation the UK went metric in the 1970’s no British Scientist, Engineer or Surveyor would use imperial units as part of their profession.
Many points have been made above so forgive me if some have already been addressed :-
1 A linen or material tape is not particularly accurate. A steel tape would be more appropriate or better still a graduated rod(probe) which would not deflect as much as a tape. Dependant on the accuracy required, temperature measurements could be taken and the reading adjusted.
2 The hole drilled through the ice seems quite small so I am not sure how they are determining the soffite of the sea ice. This could be determined by a spring attachment on the end of the rod.
My view is that the methodology of using a tape or a rod is wrong and the best way would be to core the ice and measure the the length of the cores as you would for a ground investigation borehole.
But of course at the end of the day what are the measurements being compared against?
Someone above said what is the point of debating with global warming alarmists, the answer is probably none however the point is that the debate must be carried out for science, but more imporatantly for the public.
This is becoming a bit obsessive?
I had always assumed that they had an extendable pole with a short,right angled bit at the end that they slipped down the hole until it was through the ice and then pulled it back to grab the bottom of the ice; marked, on the pole, where the ice surface was then pulled it out to measure.
When you survey, you pull a tape or ferruled rope tight and then read it. Horizontally. With your assistant.
When you measure height or depth, you use the rod (telescoping). You use the plumb bob to determine vertical. You measure the angle of the hole by the offset distance. You write all this stuff down as you are measuring.
Have fun doing all that @ur momisugly those temps.
Muddled minds, club hands.
Oh, but that sun angle. They are playing somewhere at a ski resort, probably out near a lake. Who wants to be an Arctic Explorer Actor?
From a previous thread:
Gotta love this quote from Pen Hadow: “It’s never wise to imagine that either man or technology has the upper hand in the natural world.” – Anthony
Would this be penning a line?
“If this bunch of ice hikers really wanted to see the North Pole, they should have started there. ”
Exactly. But that would mean having to work in darkness, they were apparently following sunlight. My pint was that there is no reason to “hike”. They can take a chopper with, say, two people, to survey a half dozen points/day.
They could have had the entire route surveyed in a week.
Has somebody got access to a high quality mapping or surveillance satellite that scans the poles and could just check to see if the Catlin mob are really where they say they are.
Or are there alternative independent checks that can verify their position?
Not very much in this “expedition” seems to rate very high on the honesty and integrity counts so are they actually where they say they are?
From the very beginning seeing pictures of ole Pen drilling I had a question. Why a drill? Should they not be extracting a core?
If they are drilling a hole and dropping a vinyl tape one can hardly expect the measurements to be accurate.
Measuring the length of ice in a drawn core would have more validity because you’d know for certain where the bottom edge was.
Ooops…just saw that Cold Play posed the same question. Ok, so that’s two votes for cores vs dropping tapes down holes.
Hey you guys stop being so unfair! 1770mm isn’t a bad effort give or take an inch or two, that’s near enough!
Seriously tho’, why so accurate if as the underside of this ice will naturally undulate! A nominal 1.8m would be more than accurate enough! as long as it is reltive to the positon on the ice at the time of measurement.
Mike Bryant 🙂 My experience of measuring things with a fibre/vinyll tape, particularly depth in water was usually a dead loss without a well weighted plumb to stiffen the wreteched thing up! The ice has been drilled, it would turn to water in large part due to friction in the drilling process, once penetrated water from below will rise up under pressure to meet the melted ice/water & regelation will occur pretty quickly in such a small opening, & one can see the lumps in the photos, although they may have been spilled from their Gin & Tonics but I didn’t see any lemons, well, not in the picture!!!!!!!!!;-)) The hole looked around 6″ diameter give or take a few millimetres, I suggest that making an accurate measurement of ice thickness in that sitaution would be nigh on impossible!
I also noted that they presumably dug down a foot or two into the snow to reach what they determined was base ice, how much was solid ice & how much was relatively soft snow? That could add or subtract a bit to any measurement either objectively or subjectively!
I would like to know how many holes they say they have drilled, and if they say they drilled them with a hand powered augur. Then I would like to know how long they say it took them to drill 7 foot deep ice holes. Of course, then I will want to multiply the number of holes x drill time and see if it is possible that they did the work.
Maybe they have a little 2cycle gas powered drill. I know that’s what I would do. Of course, i wouldn’t have done it. I would be in Cancun measuring ice thickness in my lemonade.
Ozzie John:
The whole clip is filmed at night. The lighting is probably artificial.
Just checked and yes there is live data coming from the Catlin team.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/education_resources.aspx
Resources 12 and over
“Arctic Survey Education enables students to access live data, recorded data and useful tools to help analyse that data in a ‘real world’ context.”