The Catlin team has been on the ice for 10 days, and has traveled a total of 17 miles so far as the crow flies. At that rate, they will reach the North Pole in September, except that the ice gets too dangerous by early May and they will have to evacuate. Their current position is 85 47 N 78 22 W, after starting at 85 32 N 77 44 W on March 15. Their web site uses a cool Google earth plugin to map their tortuous route – seen below.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/GoogleEarth.aspx
The Google Earth map below shows how far they have traveled in reference to the North Pole. Note that their starting point and current position are almost right on top of each other at that scale.
The team have been making lots of noise about how unusual the ice conditions are in the Arctic, based on the tiny fraction of the Arctic they have navigated.
“The conditions we’re experiencing are unlike anything I’ve seen in any of the nineteen expeditions I’ve previously been on,” says Martin Hartley. “There are great swathes of only recently refrozen open water peppered with small snow-covered islands of ice in the distance. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come for Arctic travel?”
The map below shows just how insignificant their coverage has been. Their starting and end points appear to be right on top of each other at Arctic scale.
The Arctic Ocean covers 5,427,000 square miles. Catlin 2010 has seen maybe ten square miles of it, meaning they have sampled less than 0.0002% of the ice. They also choose to travel on refrozen leads because they are flatter and smoother, so their sampling is not random. No serious scientist would attempt to draw any conclusions about the quality of the ice based on a cherry picked sample representing less than 0.0002% of the Arctic, but this is no ordinary scientific expedition.
Same story, different year. From 2009 : Can the Catlin Arctic Survey Team Cover 683 km in the Next 21 Days?
Catlin Team Averaging 1.7 Miles Per Day – Only 295 Miles Left to Go!
The Catlin team has been on the ice for 10 days, and has traveled a total of 17 miles so far as the crow flies. At that rate, they will reach the North Pole in September, except that the ice gets too dangerous by early May and they will have to evacuate. Their current position is 85 47 N 78 22 W, after starting at 85 32 N 77 44 W on March 15. Their web site uses a cool Google earth plugin to map their tortuous route – seen below.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/GoogleEarth.aspx
The Google Earth map below shows how far they have traveled in reference to the North Pole. Note that their starting point and current position are almost right on top of each other at that scale.
The team have been making lots of noise about how unusual the ice conditions are in the Arctic, based on the tiny fraction of the Arctic they have navigated.
“The conditions we’re experiencing are unlike anything I’ve seen in any of the nineteen expeditions I’ve previously been on,” says Martin Hartley. “There are great swathes of only recently refrozen open water peppered with small snow-covered islands of ice in the distance. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come for Arctic travel?”
The map below shows just how insignificant their coverage has been. Their starting and end points appear to be right on top of each other at Arctic scale.
The Arctic Ocean covers 5,427,000 square miles. Catlin 2010 has seen maybe ten square miles of it, meaning they have sampled less than 0.00002% of the ice. They also choose to travel on refrozen leads because they are flatter and smoother, so their sampling is not random. No serious scientist would attempt to draw any conclusions about the quality of the ice based on a cherry picked sample representing less than 0.00002% of the Arctic, but this is no ordinary scientific expedition.
Same story, different year. From 2009 : Can the Catlin Arctic Survey Team Cover 683 km in the Next 21 Days?
“Start at the pole?”
1. Doesn’t fit the narrative?
2. Not bright enough (the people)?
Hmmmmm. How does that go? Do not attribute….what stupidity is sufficient to explain.
They probably have a certain number of barrels of fuel and oil to abandon.
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Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
2 things here:
Hopefully everyone “gets” why Insurance companies would promote AGW. Simply put, they can charge premiums for insurance against an outcome with low (or zero) probability of ever having to pay for claims. Asymmetric information about the true risk profile can be very profitable.
Also, last years WUWT Woody Allen/Annie Hall post on the ’09 Catlin expedition with it’s Marshall McLuhan reference is now so cool in light of Climategate. Everyone should read McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. His Narcissus metaphor is perfectly apt for our warmist friends…..
“Why do you think Pen Hadow stayed home this year?”
Just a guess: He turned out to be capable of rational thought so was rejected for the trip?
Munich Re also has banged the AGW drum mightily last year, sponsoring “studies” etc… Insurance companies just love it.
Ian W (05:12:22) :
Yet the entire Arctic can be, and has been, surveyed accurately at low risk by aircraft. This has been done by ‘Polar 5′ a German research aircraft which reported ice ‘twice as thick as expected’. see:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/10662
But that was because they had unrealistic expectations, not because the ice was thick.
“Phil. (09:15:35) :
[…]
But that was because they had unrealistic expectations, not because the ice was thick.”
They’re from the Alfred Wegener institute in Bremen, their business is sea ice, the article says:
“Normally, newly formed ice measures some two meters in thickness after two years. “Here, we measured ice thickness up to four meters,” said a spokesperson for Bremerhaven’s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. At present, this result contradicts the warming of the sea water, according to the scientists.”
And you call them unrealistic. What are you, Roald Amundsen’s reincarnation?
Geoffrey Alder (08:07:52) :
Who is funding this junket? Big Windpower?
No, Big Insurance.
Convince the world of the impending doom of global warming and it’s easier to sell higher premiums! So in reality it will be consumers of insurance funding the junket through higher cost of insurance (and higher profits to insurers).
Pardon the cynicism.
Speaking of Roald Amundsen, hopefully this farce doesn’t turn into tragedy. Or put more accurately horror, as the Catlin expedition lacks the necessary component of nobility (pun intended – see Nobile) to be classified as tragedy. It would only be pointless suffering and death. That is not tragedy, that is not pathos, that is horror.
DirkH (07:42:55), thanks for the YouTube link. I watched the whole 6-part Top Gear episode and found it utterly fascinating. Even with all their (mostly off-camera) support, the trip was no picnic for either team.
Why are we (common sense) even commenting on this non-event?
DirkH (09:24:46) :
“Phil. (09:15:35) :
[…]
But that was because they had unrealistic expectations, not because the ice was thick.”
They’re from the Alfred Wegener institute in Bremen, their business is sea ice, the article says:
“Normally, newly formed ice measures some two meters in thickness after two years. “Here, we measured ice thickness up to four meters,” said a spokesperson for Bremerhaven’s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. At present, this result contradicts the warming of the sea water, according to the scientists.”
And you call them unrealistic. What are you, Roald Amundsen’s reincarnation?
No, but I don’t need to be to know that it’s unrealistic to expect to find “newly formed ice” in an area which for many years has been known to be covered by thick perennial ice. As their more detailed report makes clear the 4m ice was found in “perennial ice in Canadian offshore regions”.
As a follower of last year’s Catlin misadventure, I have a few observations. I am probably playing Captain Obvious, but after reading their Science Equipment page, it appears that they are going to gather plankton and then expose the plankton to artificially high amounts of CO2 in order to “prove” that man-made CO2 will cause the oceans to acidify.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/Science.aspx
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7169/pdf/nature06267.pdf
This year’s misadventure is much more scaled back, with fewer sponsors.
They remembered to pack an actual wind measuring device, rather than relying on borrowed black panties.
No more watching simulated samples of team member’s heart rates, breathing, etc., which turned out to be another fraud exposed by readers on WUWT.
Where are the polar bears when you really need them?
It looks like they’re nearly in Russia. Didn’t the Russians claim all that Arctic Ocean area a few years ago? Something about an underwater mountain chain that came off the Asian landmass. Well, looks like someone’s going to have to rescue them before all the ice melts. They should have gone to Brazil and sought the source of the Nile; it’s a little warmer down there –not much, but a little. Global Climate Change is a bummer!
April E. Coggins (13:12:37) :
“As a follower of last year’s Catlin misadventure, I have a few observations. I am probably playing Captain Obvious, but after reading their Science Equipment page, it appears that they are going to gather plankton and then expose the plankton to artificially high amounts of CO2 in order to “prove” that man-made CO2 will cause the oceans to acidify.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/Science.aspx […]”
Well, April, you got me to go over there and look for myself at their “science project.” I’d been avoiding a visit to not add to the hits, but I’ve had a question go unanswered so it was time to go look for myself.
They’re not analyzing the seawater on the expedition. I wondered how they’d titrate, use a pH meter, or a portable spectrum analyzer on samples of seawater brought up to -45C air. In an uncommon display of good sense, they’re just taking the samples and storing them until they can be sent back on the re-supply plane. It doesn’t look like they can store very many samples. I’m guessing when it’s all said and done that they’ll go out on a limb and pronounce that they’ve characterized the entire Arctic Ocean based on 120 or so *ahem* random samples.
Stay tuned for the next performance of the Catlin Circus, under the little tents.
””””’Steve Goddard (06:28:43) : – You should read through the logs from their 2009 trip. It was complete misery for everyone. Frostbite, hypothermia, insomnia, wet sleeping bags, cabin fever, disorientation, failure, bone chilling cold. Why do you think Pen Hadow stayed home this year?””””’
Steve,
I did follow their last year expedition here at Anthony’s house. I followed it day by day, inch by inch . . . . slowly he turned . . . wait, that is another story . . . . : )
I think, as many commenters on this post think, the Catlin expedition’s associated people are publicity seeking AGW supporters (and maybe more). They apparently are unprofessional regarding their approach to the ‘expedition’.
But, expeditions per se have a grand tradition. In that vein it is not foolhardy to do a trek like theirs just for the challenge and experience of it. I would, if I was satisfied that preps/plans/equip/support were up well done. And if I was 15 yrs younger.
So, in that respect . . . . I envy these people for the expedition they are on!!!
John
They’re now drifting sideways, have managed 30km in 12 days, that’s 2.5 km/day or 1.56 miles/day.
Yesterday they were 17 miles from their start location, today they are only 14 miles from their start location and 299 miles from the pole. They lost several miles in their quest.
In their credit, they may have already gone further than Lewis Pugh, who attempted to kayak through the ice to the pole two years ago.
Steve Goddard (20:30:01) :
Yesterday they were 17 miles from their start location, today they are only 14 miles from their start location and 299 miles from the pole. They lost several miles in their quest.
Given the current drift pattern in the Arctic they picked the worst starting point for the Pole! That said there really isn’t a good one from the American side, Cape Brightman possibly the best, but that would be a gamble too, they could be flushed out the Fram pretty fast.
Recall seeing a graph on WUWT last week showing the ice cap had grown past its normal cut off ponit when the slow melt begins.
Catlin “half wits” will get away with it as it is both a government and media policy to promote global warming.
If things change…as they have done. it goes un-reported.
“In their credit, they …”
I’m sorry, but I don’t see any reason for credit.
“Stupid” is one of those qualities that really doesn’t take a modifier, even if people try to attach them frequently.
Stupid is stupid. What they are doing is stupid. They are stupid. They think we are stupid. In their stupidity they are doing great harm.
Now, if they were to finish killing themselves, or bankrupt their patrons, I might be able to find something creditable.
Phil. , why don’t you get real and admit this is a fool hardy waste of resources and time, and as far as sampling and experimentation goes, beyond the ridiculous. Purely PR at it’s worst. The climate is not doing anything unusual and you know it. 25 years we have been told we are going to burn up. Where is it? When is it? Can you guys just grow some stones and admit that you are wrong. Then we can move on to solving real problems like providing reasonably priced energy to all the people of the world. CAGW has wasted enough precious time and resources.
John Whitman (18:45:26)
“But, expeditions per se have a grand tradition. In that vein it is not foolhardy to do a trek like theirs just for the challenge and experience of it.”
Huh?
The Catlin adventure is not stupid because “expeditions per se have a grand tradition”?
Stupidity has an even grander tradition.
Sorry John, but with your logic any dumb ass attempt in the world can avoid the foolhearty label with a grand tradition of trying.
There is nothing of any sense from any angle in this Catlin mission.
Is not only stupid but it’s chaos, risky, unscientific, useless and utterly random.
No different than a similar illequipped party wandering around in the vast Sahara randomly measuring sand dune shapes. While seemingly oblivious to the wind altering the dunes.
Under your logic, would expedition also not be foolhearty because of the grand traditon of expeditions, per se?