This is a news story from Germany outlining another Arctic ice measurement expedition. This one was conducted by flying the scientists across the north polar ice cap using the WWII era workhorse Douglas DC-3 airplane equipped with skis, and towing an airborne sounder twenty meters above the ice surface. It makes the Catlin Arctic Ice Survey look rather pointless, but then we knew that. BTW “Eisdicken” translates to “ice thickness”. – Anthony
From Radio Bremen. Translated from German by Google web page translator: Original | Translated
Surprising Results
At the North Pole ice sheet is thicker than expected
![Das Forschungsflugzeug "Polar 5" in Bremerhaven [Quelle: AWI]](https://i0.wp.com/www.radiobremen.de/wissen/nachrichten/polarfuenf100_v-slideshow.jpg?quality=83 "The research aircraft Polar 5 \"in Bremerhaven [Source: AWI]")
The “Polar 5” in Bremerhaven
The research aircraft Polar 5 “ended today in Canada’s recent Arctic expedition. During the flight, researchers have measured the current Eisstärke measured at the North Pole, and in areas that have never before been overflown. Result: The sea-ice in the surveyed areas is apparently thicker than the researchers had suspected.
Normally, ice is newly formed after two years, over two meters thick. “Here were Eisdicken up to four meters,” said a spokesman of Bremerhaven’s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. For scientists, this result is still in contradiction to the warming of the seawater.
Besides the Eisdicken was also the composition of the air are investigated. With the help of a laser, the researchers reviewed how polluted the atmosphere by emissions from industrialized countries. On the expedition, some 20 scientists from the U.S., Canada, Italy and Germany.
Here is the route map:
See the press release announcing the expedition from Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research here. Note the lack of “live” biometrics.
But they do have a nifty aerial ice thickness probe, shown above.
An ice thickness probe, the so-called EM-Bird, which is usually dragged below a helicopter, is now operated for the first time by a fixed-wing aircraft. The EM-Bird is towed under the hull of the aircraft by means of a winch for take-off and landing. For the surveys, the probe is towed on an 80 m long rope twenty metres above the ice surface. More extensive areas can now be investigated due to the longer range of the aircraft in comparison to a helicopter.
UPDATE: more on the EM-Bird probe (h/t to Ron de Haan)
EM-Bird
Electromagnetic (EM) induction sounding for ice thickness measurements is a technique that can achieve long profiles of some kilometer length. The accuracy and robustness of the EM method has been evaluated by comparing coincident drill-hole and EM measurements. Read more (Poster, pdf, size: 156 kB)
Sure beats hauling a sledge and a broken home-built ice radar around doesn’t it?
h/t to “yddar” and Lubos Motl
ak,
they previously measured ice thickness between August and October 2008 from their Polarstern icebreaker. It seems that the ice was thinner that time and in those areas where they had access with the ice breaker (1.5 m ice thickness limit).
Smokey and slowtofollow:
“atlualcy” not “aulacity” and “tanerid” not “tarnried” please, misspelings canot be read in Coahs Csae, only in the normal case 🙂
Leon Brozyna: ..”what does Catlin translate to?”
Second Annual Arctic Cockup
GaryB: The new theory probably just came out from under the ice in the Davis Strait. University of Washington researchers declared victory in measuring fresh water flows in the Eastern Arctic using a long duration underwater glider. As soon as the real ice data sinks in to the usual boneheads, the glider data should provide two or three years of distractive panic about currents in the North Atlantic. At least there will be something to talk about in Copenhagen. Article on the NSF website.
The translation is surprisingly good.
Today in Canada the research aircraft “Polar 5” ended it’s most recent arctic expedition.
Normally, newly formed ice is about 2 meters thick after 2 years.
(“Have measured measured” is a mistake of the original text.)
So it seems that thickness and volume are not a problem after all.
Somebody find the funding to have them do that 4 times per year.
You’ve gotta love those Dakotas. Still flying after all these years.
Anthony, more about the EM-Bird here:
http://www.awi.de/en/research/research_divisions/climate_science/sea_ice_physics/subjects/ice_thickness_measurements/em_bird/
Electromagnetic (EM) induction sounding for ice thickness measurements is a technique that can achieve long profiles of some kilometer length. The accuracy and robustness of the EM method has been evaluated by comparing coincident drill-hole and EM measurements.
A pdf file can be downloaded and could be published as an UPDATE.
GaryB @14:50:50,
Sorry, you’ got it wrong. We will hear how new models explain how global warming causes greater ice build-up in the Arctic due to greater humidity and ever more disasterous stuf…
AH yes……A DC3…..But not really, You would have to call this one a “post modern” DC-3 with it’s turbine engines, plenty of power. Some how the tail looks larger, no doubt more directional control for the larger engines. I worked as a Flight Engineer/Steward/Mechanic/Flight nurse on an old style DC-3 with the Pratt&Whitney 1830 engines flown by a relief organization in the Amazon basin area. It was true job security, never ending work!
Bremen is the smallest German state, consisting mainly of the towns of Bremen and Bremerhaven. It is governed by a red-green coalition.
Radio Bremen ist the public Radio- (and TV-) station.
That Radio Bremen publishes this news is astonishing.
I think the real answer is that there is so much ice in the arctic that nobody can be sure what the eisdicken is.
Mike Bryant (16:10:59) :
Leon,
“If “Eisdicken” translates to “ice thickness”, what does Catlin translate to? Disaster? Catastrophe? Misery?”
From Wiki Encyclopedia:
“A catlin was a long, double-bladed knife used for surgery, commonly amputations…”
Ahhh – I see it now. Cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.
I guess we’ll then see the Catlin team trying to hang on to the bitter end … and I do mean bitter.
Sad.
More links on the AWI Polar-5 Project:
1. Aircraft Specifications: http://www.eufar.net/experiment/aircraft/specaircraft.php?num=71
2. AWI Homepage: http://www.awi.de/en/home/
3. Contact Information: http://www.awi.de/en/infrastructure/aircraft/research_aircraft/polar_5/
4. Most interesting, the entire PAN ARCMIP project plan in a full color PDF, including the names of the scientists and their participating Universities:
http://www.espo.nasa.gov/oib/docs/PANARCMIP-V2-20090219.pdf
It would be a nice idea to invite the German Director to publish an article about the project at WUWT before NASA starts to fumble the measured data and leaves us with a canard!
They had a DC-3 parked outside of OMSI when I was a kid. I spent many days checking it out.
Also very interesting the ESPO NASA web site.
http://www.espo.nasa.gov/
A.Syme (16:50:18) :
AH yes……A DC3…..But not really, You would have to call this one a “post modern” DC-3 with it’s turbine engines, plenty of power. Some how the tail looks larger, no doubt more directional control for the larger engines.
A.Syme,
Have a look at this URL to see all the modifications.
They take a C47 and rebuild it entirely.
When they are finished it’s a new plane, ZERO hours.
http://www.baslerturbo.com/bt_67_overview.html
As I’ve been saying for a couple of decades now, it’s soot! The albedo effect, along with solar cycle influences. The heavy pollution detected on this mission supports the hypothesis. The arctic (along with the northern most countries) is the only place where the warming trend is significant and possibly due to human influnec. But GHG has nothing to do with it. In the rest of the world, most of the “warming” is obviously due to poor sensor placement, urban heat island effects, and mostly, religiously biased temperature “correction.” The data set is junk.
Some studies have been done on albedo effect difference due to soot in limited regions of the arctic (see Hansen’s paper), but why aren’t some of the trillions being spent to extend the research and correct this problem?? It’s an easy correction, based on known technology.
This year, China’s efforts to close factories for the Olympics, plus the recession’s effect on factory production, plus the extended solar minimum, add up to a good hypothesis on why the positive-feedback, runaway ice melt, which the IPCC and gang eagerly awaits, is not happening!
“Shame about the dastardly Jerries and their rotten old plane, what ?”
Actually, if you look at the plane, it’s Canadian registered, and based in Oshawa, Ontario (also, look at the route map waypoints…)
Alexej Buergin (16:50:21) :
“Bremen is the smallest German state, consisting mainly of the towns of Bremen and Bremerhaven. It is governed by a red-green coalition.
Radio Bremen ist the public Radio- (and TV-) station.
That Radio Bremen publishes this news is astonishing”.
Alexej Buergin,
I know that the cool aid green machine promoting the AGW scam did not forget to take a strong influence in German Politics.
However, during a recent documentary about Antarctic, a broad cast by ZDF, the scientist in charge dismissed any link between CO2 driving our climate and said that AGW was a political hoax.
He also said that he was doing his job as a scientist and he would not allow politics to interfere with his work or his reporting.
Fortunately there are many scientists who share a similar opinion and their numbers are growing.
When satellite data revealed the Arctic sea ice extent was increasing, contrary to NSIDC predictions, the agency shifted its “melting ice” argument from “extent” to “thickness”. They claimed, without a shred of hard evidence, that the ice was growing perilously thin and subject to rapid summer melting. Assuming this latest survey holds up and the Arctic sea ice is indeed relatively thick, I eagerly await for the next tortured defense of “melting ice”. Let me take a guess at the next “scientific finding” to be breathlessly announced by the New York Times:
“Even though the ice extent is growing and the ice thickness is robust, scientists have discovered that the ice is dirty. Dirty ice absorbs radiant energy more readily than clean ice and therefore the entire polar ice cap will be melted within five years (make that 4-1/2 years – The Goracle’s prediction is already 6 months old).”
Not entirely off topic this Icecap publication from Joseph D’Aleo:
It’s too important.
Apr 28, 2009
Precious Few Months to Stop Disastrous Action
By Joseph D’Aleo
Two trains are racing down the tracks and if they get to where the government wants, the results to all Americans will be nothing short of catastrophic.
Given the current global cooling now in its 8th year, declining ocean heat content at least in its 5th year, sea level rises which have slowed or stopped, record rising Antarctic ice extent and rapidly recovering arctic ice since the 2007 cycle minimum, a sun in a deep slumber, increasing evidence that CO2 is a harmless gas that is in reality a beneficial plant fertilizer, you would think that this proposed legislation and ruling would in a sane world, have no chance of passing, but there is a huge political and NGO machine and all too compliant media and carbon crusaders like Al Gore and James Hansen and literally many billions of dollars behind making carbon evil and subsidizing unwise energy and carbon control solutions.
The Energy and Commerce committee under the leadership of the clueless Henry Waxman who teamed with the equally clueless Edward Markey on the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill is considering now that legislation. The bill took Al Gore, who testified in front of the committee last week, two transoceanic flights to read the bill, and Newt Gingriich could not get through the entire bill before his testimony. It is jam packed with every item on the environmental movement’s wish list and goodies for many companies, most notably GE, the parent of the NBC family and The Weather Channel, now selling global warming and the color green in a way not seen since the heyday of Kermit the frog.
According to ClimateDepot.com, the newspaper, the “Hill” is reporting that “The House may not vote on a climate change bill this year, according to a high-ranking Democratic leader.” That leader is Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and he says the problem is that a bill probably wouldn’t pass the Senate.” Roger Pielke Jr. on Prometheus chimes in similarly with Maybe Next Year that some Congressional Democrats are thinking that cap and trade legislation might be best considered in 2010.
DON’T ASSUME ANYTHING. Please make every effort to contact you congressmen and women and senators and write letters to the editor of your local papers, fight the good fight on the various blogs of all persuasions. The facts are according to an MIT study, the cap-and-trade legislation is really a tax-and-trade bill that an Massachusetts Institute of Technology study showed could cost American families $3,100 per year. Green jobs is a phoney claim that sounds wonderful, but recall as I showed here, Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Juan Carlos University in Madrid that found for every green job you create, you can count on 2.2 lost real jobs AND only 1 in 10 green jobs are permanent. That does not even account for lost jobs for industries driven to outsource or actually move abroad to avoid unreasonable taxation. Our economy can’t afford this bill to address a non-issue to enrich folks like Al Gore and companies GE.
The committee is very large. Your state may have a representive (see membership here). If so, please take the time to contact them and express your opinion. We must deluge the Energy and Commerce committee with phone calls, urging the democratic leadership ((202) 225-2927) to abandon the Waxman-Markey bill and the republicans to ((202) 225-3641) stand firm on resisting approval and not be afraid of the EPA hammer which we will discuss in depth tomorrow. You may not reach a person, but leave a message. I did on both lines. If you prefer to write the committee use this address:
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
2125 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515
There may be no turning back if this bill passes or the EPA ruling survives all challenges. We will have more on the EPA ruling and what you might do about it tomorrow.
ICECAP will act as a repository of all submitted comments back to the EPA you provide us. We will be working hard to solicit and write our own responses to specific claims made by the EPA based on the seriously flawed CCSP document which, with the many other submissions made to the CCSP, ANPR and this EPA serve as evidentiary material in court challenges to the EPA ruling.
Icecap could use your help and if you can provide, financial support (no amount too small) for our efforts. We are getting an increasing number of requests to participate in these kind of response efforts and also to give talks, participate in debates and do interviews. We recently did an hour long TV show. We are appearing on an increasing frequency in fronts of large groups, schools from the elementary to college levels. Sometimes they cover our costs or reimburse us for our time, sometimes they can’t. Your donations would help us do more by covering our costs. Unlike the blogs and “progressive climate alarmists sites which have blank check funding, we rely on donations from individuals, small think tanks and associations.
We are now a tax exempt 501C3 corporation which means all deductions before and now are fully tax deductible for U.S. citizens. We have gotten our first small grants and donations based on this new status. Our first board meeting is coming in early May and we will be discusssing how we can help serve you and our country better. Your suggestions will be welcomed and be considered. Tomorrow the EPA.
I used to fly to boarding school in a DC3 in the 50s. Those were the days when you flew through the clouds, not above them. 🙂
Those germans will spoil all our work of so many years of massagging data!!
(JH)
I will invite them to visit us at Colorado and send them into our newly designed
microwave kilns….
I know what OMSI is! Oregon Museum of Science and Industry! That is before it turned green. Loved that place. I also remember Jansen Beach when it kinda looked like one, with a very large pool and fantastic amusement park. Now it is just strip malls, and OMSI is next to the river instead of the zoo.
Well it looks like the Catlin Survey are the ones Eis-dick-en pointlessly but not with the ice. I suppose that is their tribute to the current Tea Bagging craze going on.
It does seem that “swimming with the ice” is a rather strange way to measure ice thickness. I suppose it’s the way that tree huggers would use.
Airplane seems a wee bit hugely better approach… and a lot more efficient than swimming and eis-dick-en with the ice, not to mention much safer although still riskier than a satellite.