Sharp eyed WUWT reader Rick K spotted this advertisement on Yahoo News:
I double checked what Rick K reported, and yes, they are running this ad. Either they just don’t care that they are running ads for “results” prior to any hard data being published or this is some sort of advertising scheduling slipup. Given how sloppy this laughable facade of a scientific expedition has been so far, publishing “live” biometric readings that were actually 30 days old, I’m guessing the latter.
Readers, feel free to witness this yourself, double check the experience. Here is the URL:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20090422/sc_space/darkgulpingcouldexplainblackholes
You may have to refresh a few times since ads in the spot rotate. Here is the full sized advertisement:
The link simply goes to their main website, I’m betting though that there is some sort of “results” page that it was supposed to be linked to. And what sort of advice could some Arctic ice trekkers possibly give me about my business related to “global warming” anyway? The absurdity of such advertised advice is mind boggling.
This is what happens when you mix the following ingredients:
1) An insurance company (Catlin)
2) Environmental zealots willing to stage an expedition in exchange for money on the premise that “science will be done”(Pen Hadow et al)
3) Gullible celebrity sponsors (Charles, Prince of Wales)
4) Gullible real scientists, like Ron Kwok of NASA Jet Propulsion Lab who was lured into making statements like this one, proudly displayed on their web site:
Tell me, Dr. Kwok, just how will Catlin Arctic Survey tell me how soon “global warming will affect my business’?
A better question might be, “how soon will your association with these people ruin your career”? Do you already have the results of the data analysis ready to go with the advertising campaign?
Perhaps we should let Mr. Kwok know what is going on, because the sooner he distances himself from these people, the less chance that JPL will be tarnished further. As a US taxpayer I am concerned that our publicly funded science programs have anything to do with the Catlin farce. Fortunately, our scientists are required to keep their contact info in the public domain
The results of a Google Search tell us how to warn Mr. Kwok of this Catlin farce, perhaps he is unaware:
R. Kwok, is with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, 91109-. 8099, USA telephone: 818-354-5614, e-mail: ronald.kwok@jpl.nasa.gov
Perhaps their media relations people and director would be interested to know what Mr. Kwok has gotten himself and JPL connected with also.
I respect the work of the fine men and women at JPL, there is still time to step away before real damage is done. In the meantime, I weep for science.
“It’s surprising the kind of relaxed job NASA people have, they are everywhere except where expected to do their job? Can some explain how is it possible?”
How many people work at NASA ??
About half.
[yes OT snip, but thank you]
[OT but thanks]
oh it did work, fancy that
The whole concept of this expedition as “science” was a nonsense from start to finish. To say that a small team of people could walk in roughly a straight line to the North Pole, measuring the thickness of the ice on the way with a soil auger and to say that their figures were representative of the whole, (approximately 5 million sq miles), is quite ludicrous.
I also find it quite puzzling that so much debate is expended on the validity of the data when the initial concept is so invalid. It could never work, especially since the ice moves so much and varies in thickness so much. This was why the famous submarine data was shown to be so badly wrong, because the ice had blown elsewhere.
If they wanted to know the thickness they could have asked the CIA:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xq.html
Terrain:
“central surface covered by a perennial drifting polar icepack that, on average, is about 3 meters thick, although pressure ridges may be three times that thickness; clockwise drift pattern in the Beaufort Gyral Stream, but nearly straight-line movement from the New Siberian Islands (Russia) to Denmark Strait (between Greenland and Iceland); the icepack is surrounded by open seas during the summer, but more than doubles in size during the winter and extends to the encircling landmasses.”
Area:
total: 14.056 million sq km.
Herein lies a confusion which seriously I hope someone can clarify.
The BBC website says: “The Arctic sea-ice reached its maximum extent this year on 28 February, slightly earlier than usual, and remained roughly constant through March. Averaged over March, the sea-ice covered 15.16 million sq km (5.85 million sq miles). The data comes principally from two Nasa satellites.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7987354.stm
They have a graphic which shows the ice area in 1979 at just less than 16.5 million sq km. Even the record low for March in 2006 is still just under 14.5 million sq km.
But the CIA World Fact Book (2009), shows a total Arctic Ocean area of 14.056 million sq km.
Probably I am being really dense here, and I realise the CIA have been wrong in the not too distant past, but how can there be more ice than there is ocean for it to float on?
i wonder if the insurance industry will eventually have to pay dearly for their role in the AGW scam just like the tobacco industry did.
with all their experts they should know better.
While they are out there maybe they can pick up the Catlin Enviro Ice Holers:
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/overview_deploymentplans.html
“Chris D. (08:01:07) : Perhaps now Dr. Meier would like to take a stronger position than “I don’t anticipate using the Catlin data”?”
Please give Walt Meier a break. Give him the benefit of the doubt. There are real antagonists in this play. Walt isn’t one of them.
“Leon Brozyna (09:24:40) : On Day 53, the distance traveled (355.58) + estimated distance to pole (568.93) = total distance of 924.51, close to the original distance projected from their start point of 928.5 km.”
So they intended to stay this distance from the pole? It was planned? They aren’t incomopetent and drifting and as has been suggested? But rather are doing exactly what they intended? They didn’t want to measure the thickness of new multiyear ice?
“John Peter (09:42:51) : I am sitting here in Scotland and wondering how NASA can get involved with this Catlin expedition… Unfortunately I cannot make contact from here not being a US citizen.”
John,
I don’t think there would be a problem with contacting NASA from there. The world has an opinion of NASA too. Maybe NASA might not like that the some in the world may be thinking less of NASA because of the public connection of some of it’s employees to global warming. But who knows….
There have been several posts about the north pole distance data at CAS so I am reposting my entry on the article on ice survey reports at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/19/catlin-arctic-ice-survey-first-report/
wherein I reported about the North Pole distance problems at the CAS website. Also see my earlier posts on the same subject.
Also, if one looks at the team’s progress via the Google Earth kml file at
http://www.solaradata.com/Solara.kml one notes that they are heading slightly East of North due to their primitive navigation by using the wind direction and the sun as noted on the CAS website. They cannot use their GPS because it is too cold for the batteries. Although the solara GPS data is almost continuous, it is probably transmitted by a satellite phone.
Here is my earlier post:
Catlin Arctic Survey Corrects Distance to Pole
Finally on April 22, the Catlin Arctic Survey web page has the correct distance to the North Pole. On April 21, the distance was given as 551.16 km. Today, with the same lat-lon, the distance is 583.38 km which agrees with my estimate of 582.8 km using the Great Circle Distance equation. Note that the Great Circle Distance Equation does not correct for the fact that the earth is an oblate spheroid.
As noted in my earlier post, on April 18, the CAS web site suddenly had the team about 34 km closer to the pole than the actual distance.
I like to think that the CAS headquarters folks found their error by reading WUWT. But it begs the question to what extent the 34 km error affected their planning.
It appears that the team will not make it to the pole as Steve Goddard had guessed earlier. Since March 20 when they finally got going again, they have traveled about 323 km in 32 days or just over 10 km/day. Since the (now corrected) distance to the pole is 583 km, it would take them about 58 days to reach the pole, but they only have 48 days left on their 100 day trip. Plus they are encountering areas of open water and thin ice which will likely slow them down.
Folks,
Is it possible that this ad is simply automatically generated, similar to how it works with google? For example, the story mentions “arctic sea ice,” “warming,” etc, leading to the ad automatically being placed due to these specific keywords.
Just a possibility.
REPLY: No, it is flash animated ad, requiring production. Not the original Catlin Arctic Survey logo placement as well as the cold weather glove wiping on the button. Google has no capability like this. This is human generated. – Anthony
“REPLY: I’m growing tired of people just posting anything that comes to mind and is not at all related to the thread. To many threads turn it free-for-alls unrelated to the original subject. – Anthony”
I think it’s just fine what you’re doing. It’s a reminder to everyone, a good reminder.
IMO the only off topic that should be is when someone is informing of a column or study they came across that may be off topic for the post at hand but still is in the ball park of global warming or important science. At least with that it brings in new blood.
Insurance Companies exploiting Fear – …I’m shocked… whatever will happen next???
Thanks… just ruling that out. It would appear this is just another episode of the ridiculousness of this expedition.
Their methods and procedures must be ridiculed mercilessly upon their return (if they indeed return with their health).
REPLY: No, it is flash animated ad, requiring production. Not the original Catlin Arctic Survey logo placement as well as the cold weather glove wiping on the button. Google has no capability like this. This is human generated. – Anthony
Which should make everyone suspicious.
The wind is absolutely useless as a navigation aid. It doesn’t stay fixed in one direction.
When navigating over long distances (more than a few hundred meters), a single degree of error magnifies itself as one travels even if they were able to stay locked on only their one degree of error.
With proper charts and a sextant, they could get pretty good location accuracy, but eyeballing it as it seems they are implying is nuts (to put it in “G-rated” terms). If they were using charts and sextant, it would also slow them down.
Given the fact that the ice moves up there, any error would be compounded if they were truly just “eyeballing” it.
Which leaves one with the idea that this is more embellishment and drama, like the hypothermia and frostbite concerns a few weeks ago.
It’s odd that other teams out there on the ice right now are able to maintain course via GPS. Maxime Chaya and his team have only deviated from their planned route by a degree or two as they close in on the North Pole (they started a couple days behind the Catlin bunch. Chaya and his guys also seem far better prepared for what they have encountered and get their resupply via dog teams rather than relying on air transport.
The credibility of the Catlin crew is absolute trash.
I have never heard of the Catlin thing except on this blog, Im not sure why its such a big deal but your doing a great job publishing it
publicizing
Mad Props to Catlin for trying to do something positive!!!
Don’t be a hater the world is full of them, honestly we really have enough as it is.
There are far to many people sitting on their butt saying, “somebody should do something about it”, “what they need to do is find a solution”.
Here you have a company that is actually trying to accomplish something and to get it done they have invested quite a bit of money to make it happen.
Where they tricky with the advertising? I don’t believe so, the advertisement clearly seems to be trying to get people to take a bit of time to check out what they are doing. It makes no promises, they are simply trying to get some attention to something positive they are doing. What’s the harm in that. Not like they made up facts.
It is vital that people across the world, especially young people, learn about the impacts of climate change. Arctic Survey Education aims to help people understand how they are all able to help mitigate those changes that risk affecting our environment so dramatically.
FINAL THOUGHT:
Instead of being a Negative Nancy, use your energy and time to help better the world.
Kenny:
You haven’t been following this, have you? They did make up facts.
And when you find out someone is lying, the proper response is to dismiss everything they say unless there is independent corroboration.
They have an agenda, and it is not science.
No Catlin updates on their website for a few days. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
Perhaps paying lip service to the Catlin travesty is the price the people at JPL have to pay to keep the funds rolling in? Gone are the glory days of Voyager and Hubble and those amazing images from the outer planets and deep space. These days they are reduced to defending their increasingly indefensible fellow NASAists.
There’s no excuse for Prince Charles. He should limit himself to chatting with his pansies until Mater pops her clogs and leave the grown up scientific stuff to people who actually understand WHY the world isn’t going to end in less than 100 months.
Catlin Team headed Northeast, not North
The CAS website has not been updated, but the solara kml file is continuously updated. Using the last published position of
84°52’55″N, 125° 54’ 42” W on April 22 and the current position of 85.0363,-123.9213 in decimal deg, we find that the current heading for the team is about 48 deg or Northeast. They have trekked a total of 25 km but are only 17 km closer to the North Pole in the past two days.
The CAS web site mentions that they had some trouble with keeping their heading due North since it was overcast so they could not view the sun and they were using the wind to help navigate. They only use GPS intermittently to save the battery. They also reported high winds which could be throwing them off.
To be fair, they do have a supply flight coming up so they could just be heading to the location selected for the landing site. Or perhaps they just cannot maintain a true North bearing. It is tough out there.
they were using the wind to help navigate
Sticking fingers in the air, eh? No wonder they’ve got frostbite…
You couldn’t make this stuff up!
use your energy and time to help better the world
Kenny, I think that opposing people who are trying to wreck it counts as the same thing!
It might look negative to you, but the effects will be a lot worse if legislators follow a wholly false line of reasoning to curb everyone’s (including your) consumption of energy and to ban harmless projects and activities through political dogma.
How do you suggest we spend our energy and time?