UPDATE: see the latest excuse below.
The satellite tracking map has been like this for two days. Follow the yellow brick road for an about face and head to land.
WUWT reader “strawbale” reports in Tips and Notes that:
Listen to the Row to the Pole latest news on their website, they have spent today iced in and unable to move. Apparently the climbed up a hill to see how far the ice stretched and its goes to the horizon.
…spent today “licking their wounds” is how their audio report put it…
Hopefully when cloud cover conditions improve we’ll see just how far that ice extends on the NASA MODIS page: http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/
UPDATE: The latest RTTP post from their website:
As the current path is blocked by more ice sheets, the crew use the downtime to put in some drill practice, moving the Old Pulteney up onto the ice.
UPDATE2: Well here’s the problem, they are still thinking like it is 2005! Too much listening to Dr. Mark “death spiral” Serreze of NSIDC, not enough time looking at observational data. From the RTTP Facebook page:
UPDATE3: they are on the move again, along the coast, trying to find an opening
Who is funding this row nonsense?
taxpayers again?
I’m sure the MSM will be reporting all this inconvenient ice any time soon. Or maybe not.
Ice free Arctic? Maybe next year. Maybe not.
(“Yo! Who’s that fellow wandering by over there? Is that… is that Pen Haddow? Maybe we can all get a lift back to town from Clarkson and Mays.”)
Poor dears. They had better mount a polar bear watch with all that ice about.
Good Lord, visibility must be bad. They appear to have rowed over a peninsular.
Models/Predictions….meet real world!
Its only August too! And they are not even going to the place they claim (well they are, but it moved to somewhere else in the intervening years).
This is why Top Gear is so popular – far more fun driving on the real hard white stuff than trying to row through imaginary open water. Just hope these guys are not so foolish as to put themselves in a position where they need rescue and so risk the lives of others, at great expense.
..how many dead polar bears have they seen………..
What can you do but look on in awe at such foolishness.
Also, two French guys set out to sail and drag their catamaran from Alaska to Svalbard (passing through the geographic Pole).
http://newsminer.com/bookmark/14475110-2-French-explorers-sailing-across-North-Pole-on-sea-ice-expedition
They had to give up after less than a month with battery failure and loads of cute poley bears circling. Their diary in French:
http://www.sebroubinet.eu/la-voie-du-pole_nouvelles.html
Ice? In the Arctic? At this time of the year? Whatever next! Someone will have to rethink this whole Global Warming thing if it doesn’t stop raining, and the temperatures stay below 20°C here in Europe!
The AGW mob need to hold a few more Beanfests to get the CO2 levels to rise faster …
I am pleased to note that not every reckless boondoggle promulgating false consciousness ends in tragedy.
I am sure they wish for some global warming!
Wassa matta? Skeered of a few (thousand) grinding growlers? Row on! Or is that outboard on?
This farce may well end in tragedy. Or vice versa.
I don’t blame them one jot (tot?) if I were up there freezing my doodaas off, I think I would look to the Old Pulteney for some “protection” & warmth. (Never tried it myself but I’m sure it will slip down a treat, hick!!! oops!!! doesn’t bither me a bot!! 🙂
Pmsl if I were them I’d give up if even gaia ?? is trying to stuff them !!
Friends:
It is tempting to think this escapade was pointless, but not so.
Now the intrepid ‘rowers to the pole’ are stranded on the ice thay are a potential food source to help survival of any polar bears in the vicinity, and we all know that polar bears need all the help they can get if they are to survive.
Richard
Since their route seems to be being rearranged, I thought it only decent to rearrange “Row to the pole”
So now after “Op. throe towel” they might need a “wet hop retool” to decide on the next move. My suggestion: “Tow-rope > Hotel”
Well, WUWT called this one when it started, and glad to see our predictions panned out… they can’t even make it to the OLD Magnetic NP, nevermind the current NP…
I am pleased to note that not all reckless boondoggles promulgating false consciousness end in tragedy.
I needed that!
Row, row, row your boat ….
Today is a no go as well, iced in again.
Instead today is spent practicing hiking over the ice with the canoe in tow.
When they end up dragging that boat over the ice, it should be mandatory that at least half the team stays on board and pretends to paddle.
As R Gates will say: “They should have tried sometime later this century.”
As for me, I say: “It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of clowns.”
You hear this a lot, I am sure:
Stupid is as stupid does. Forest Gump
Sorry for the double post…
Ice Extent has reached the minimum and refreeze has started for the year! When weather conditions improve a rescue copter can pull them from the ice.
Of course someone could send an ice breaker to retrieve them from the “ice free” area they wanted to showcase by this stunt.
LOL They’re aiming at the low-hanging fruit (not even the present magnetic north pole) and have difficulty reaching even that! What a farce!
Their “satellite” map shows lots of nice blue water – why don’t they just row? Or, is the blue colour another fake?
I’m going to send them a small missive of encouragement!
Such a disappointment, how terribly sad, bloody idiots!
Bartender! I’ll have a shot of Old Pulteney, with a schadenfreude chaser!
Richard S Courtney says:
August 12, 2011 at 3:08 am
Friends:
It is tempting to think this escapade was pointless, but not so.
Now the intrepid ‘rowers to the pole’ are stranded on the ice thay are a potential food source to help survival of any polar bears in the vicinity, and we all know that polar bears need all the help they can get if they are to survive.
Richard
Excellent! Can I have the bottle(s) if they’re no longer using it (them)?
The way I see it is they have 2 options :-
1) Turn back now and admit defeat, although with the AGW Liberal mantra of ‘it’s the taking part that counts’, this will be spun as a success along the lines of well 10 years ago they would not of got this far.
2) Carry on probably get stuck and need resucing or get eaten, although right up until the point the bear is cewing on there leg I’m sure they’ll be trying to cuddle one of the last polar bears.
My guess is 2 as they probably have that egotistical attitude that nothing can go wrong because there saving the planet.
Why, they have already passed the point where the North Magnetic Pole used to be in 1973 (73/96, what’s the difference, they’re just numbers). A bit sideways, but still, they could declare victory and call in a helicopter while they still have power to connect to the Internet, to bring them back home to safety. That would be the sensible course to follow, anyway. The only drawback is it would leave poor sweet fluffy white roly-poly bears desperate and hungry.
Greg Holmes: “Who is funding this row nonsense? taxpayers again?”
Click on the link to their site, there’s a page listing sponsors.
This is just further proof of AGW. The warming makes the ice expand rapidly prior to disappearing or something…
You simply couldn’t write comedy like it …
Pointman
Well I had to give them some encouragement on facebook. I hoped all that nasty ice would melt for them…
Mother Nature says: “It is not nice to worship the false Gaia* goddess, silly humans.”
* GAIA => G.A.I.A. => Gore Ate It All
John
Now that they’re iced in, if they’ve got enough ammo they should be able to live off polar bear meat till the next thaw.
polar Bear #1 ‘We are doomed. doomed I tell ya’
polar Bear #2 ‘Whattaya talking about’
polar Bear #1 ‘Global warming. I have the evidence’
polar Bear #2 ‘I’m sceptical’
Polar Bear #1 ‘I just saw some dead humans floating in the water’
I wonder if they were relying on an old Mark Serreze ice forecast.
This Satellite view is helpful;
http://www.arctic.io/observations/
as it allows you to zoom at the top left and switch to inferred at the top right.
This version of it is focused on the area of the Arctic the Pulteney team are attempting to traverse:
http://www.arctic.io/observations/8//6-N76-W102/Northwest-Passage
Also, here are the full Arctic versions from Modis;
True Color;
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2011212.terra.4km
and Inferred:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2011212.terra.367.4km
Yesterdays satellite pass shows some pretty large chunks of ice between them and Cornwall Island. North is the right hand side of the picture. Scroll down to the bottom and about two thirds to the right to clealy see. Cornwallis Island where the started from at Resolute bay , Devon Island which they are now camped at the far northern end and then Cornwall Island under cloud. Click band 3-6-7 to get a much clearer view and also fully appreciate the amount of ice cover.
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r04c02.2011223.terra.250m
Old Pulteney and ice go together quite nicely.
The rescue mission almost certainly will be.
Adding insult to the injury of becoming trapped in ice that wasn’t expected (at 1:20 of the audio clip):
“… cleaned up what’s fast becoming a pretty smelly boat.”
What more can you say? ;->
They have about another week to 10 days to get there and back—summer ends about now and fall lasts a couple of days (if you’re lucky) before winter storms arrive
Apparently it’s worse than they thought.
Anyone know what the options are for rescuing these half-wits?
I assume there is a rescue station equipped with a helicopter close enough for a short notice lift?
Annoying though they are I would hate to see them come to serious harm…
strawbale – gem! You jest but I think it will be worth checking the footage carefully… 🙂
gee now if that missing usa secret glider thingy happens to land nearby….it would maybe? melt some of that nasty ice for them…
anyone got any idea where the damn thing is BTW?
I’m suggesting that RTTP be renamed DBT78.595°N
That’s Drag Boat To…….
not to be confused with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ridRDyFvYo
Just hoping they don’t do something stupid
Only from the UK !!!! (please accept my apologies)
Fergal thanks for the links on the French Sailors making their way from Alaska…to Alaska
Yours from the Land leading the battle against the non-existent
Dave
Ice?
In the Arctic….?
Who’d have thought……..?
All these nutters should go to the North Pole, it’s the best place for them, wearing a string vest and maybe a scarf just incase the weather gets nippy.
Been there…
“The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free ;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
[…]
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around :
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound !”
Done that.
When SHE shows up:
“Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold :
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man’s blood with cold…”
the fun part should start.
When your “science” goes south on you, then fall back on cheap publicity stunts.
When they fail, be prepared to be mocked.
You’re all a load of sceptical party-poopers. I’m giving the “Row to the Pole, but not actually the Pole and not even the magnetic pole, but where the magnetic pole was in 1996 which is handy because that spot is on land” team my total support. I’m texting them chapters from my edition of “Arctic Navigation for Dummies”, a simply Titanic volume which is a real cool read, and exhorting them to “go with the floe”.
I would post something clever, but I cannot stop laughing at the handle:
Heide de Klein
Oh, to have some Old Pluteney to soothe those poor, aching, splitting sides!
It must be some kind of hoax. Why else would the models show differently? Don’t these guys know about expert opinion?
C’mon guys – give the man a break – he sounds So Depressed. It’s no fun saving the planet ya know.
Interesting. Looking at the article two posts before this (From NCAR an “unexpected new result” …) it seems obvious to me that if one is going to row to the North pole you should start from Russia rather than the Greenland area.
I see a future for huge freight sleds.
They had better not look for dead polar bears, because they will more likely find some live ones instead. And they’ll be looking for snacks as winter gets ready to set in again.
Perhaps they missed their window of opportunity by about 89 years:
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/050/mwr-050-11-0589a.pdf
Go to their site and zoom in to the max. They’re flailing.
The Gray Monk says:
August 12, 2011 at 2:39 am
“Ice? In the Arctic? At this time of the year? Whatever next! Someone will have to rethink this whole Global Warming thing if it doesn’t stop raining, and the temperatures stay below 20°C here in Europe!”
Yes! Has anyone noticed that the upper to middle midwest in the US is experiencing what Warmista would call “unprecedented” cooling? St. Louis is looking at four days of temperatures in the low to mid 80s.
My sense is that they finally figured out what to do with all that ice, so they made it to shore in order to get busy using it. Yes, I know, I am assuming more intelligence in them than they deserve.
Some of the rowers may come away from their adventure with reason to be skeptical. Slowly the word gets out as more and more find that what the press is reporting doesn’t match reality. About the same time you come to realize that just a few people around the world control most of the world’s press, and with the press they control the politicians, who control the public purse, which controls the science.
This is way beyond the level of poor planning; it qualifies as asinine and stupid.
This is a dangerous, but very clear demonstration, of the difference between theory (AGW) and reality. It also demonstrates how ideology should never usurp common sense, when lives are at stake. Even if they achieve their objective, what else, has been demonstrated. What possible science is being performed and what tangible benefit is retained, that balances the risk?
Positive thinking, got them into this mess. Realistic thinking, is the only thing, that can get them out… maybe? Consequences can not always be mitigated or nullified. GK
Get the rescue team in right now! It will be much cheaper and will probably save an idiots life!
Sorry to refer to the rescue team as idiots!
I want to sign up to be an adventurer and get sponsored by some fine single malt producer. It has all the makings of a great life. Since this fellow already has the arctic I will take the Caribbean.
Why would you want to row to the North Pole…for that matter how would you row to it? Unless you have ice-breaking canoes…
Having done a bit of Search and Rescue (US Civil Air Patrol) nothing is more aggravating than to look for or rescue someone who has purposefully got themselves into an “Oscar Sierra” situation.
I do think the Putney’s folks probably are better equipped than some,They are doing it on their own dime, Ok, then pay SAR if the time comes….
I bet they can call for a sponsored Twin Otter to pick them up when that time comes.
And we will hear no more about it in the MSM.
If however they should discover some open water area, it will be all over the news.
And that Twin Otter is still using some good old Jet A1 fuel !
I should have known it. The BBC has a man on board
“Mark Beaumont’s the BBC Cameraman on the expedition. He’s checking the uplink system installed on The Old Pulteney to make sure the vital communications link works to get message out and to send video and photos from the vessel”
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=244295965592059&set=pu.111695618852095&type=1&theater
The end result doesn’t matter. All that matters is that people, some people, only heard the name of the expedition, not the result. I know people right now who think it’s possible to row to the pole, right now, because they “heard” that someone did it this year.
Publicity stunts, nothing more. Sadly, they work.
Don’t ever mess with the arctic. It will chew you up and spit you out faster than you can scream “catastrophic warming”. The planet simply does not care about us mere humans. Warming is a FAR more desireable condition than cooling.
I don’t see what the problem is. As can clearly be seen in the picture, they have trained extensively for this possibility: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/follow-polar-rowing-expedition-with-online-map-2328789.html
sarc/off
From the photo of their boat, it doesn’t look like even a swimming polar bear would have much trouble climbing aboard in search of lunch:
http://www.rowtothepole.com/the-crew/
There are supposed to be 6 men in the crew, if you count the BBC camera man, but only 4 show in the photo of the boat. Where do the other 2 go? Are they ordinarily sleeping in compartments below deck?
The GPS map shows them making progress 24/7. Do they row all night in shifts? Are the times GMT or local? I guess at their latitude this time of year the days are very long in any event. Do they shut down after sunset, or is there enough twilight with the sun just below the horizon to keep going? Or is there still midnight sun in August?
Perhaps they have Al Gore syndrome. Wherever they go, it gets colder. Even if they don’t make it, they still have an adventure. What bothers me isn’t that they believe in “climate change”, its that they clearly didn’t think this through. Why did they pick the 1996 location? If you’re gonna row to the pole, it doesn’t make sense to row to where it used to be. If they want to show “climate change” they should pick a time when what they want to show can be shown. They help the skeptics with what they’re currently doing.
I suppose we shouldn’t turn any help down. 🙂
As for being idiots, I don’t know if I’d call them that. These people may actually learn something running into reality like they are. I also don’t know if their iced in condition will last or not. Even if they are less than normally gifted with intelligence, I have a bit of respect for people who take Teddy Roosevelt’s philosophy seriously:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Thanks Anthony, The Row to the Pole team, Commentors and Heide de Klein.
Best laugh I have had in ages.
Make it stop – first “Heide de Klein” and now “ice-breaking canoes” :-))
Thanks for cheering up the dreariest of UK Summers
Gareth Phillips says:
August 12, 2011 at 2:03 am
“Good Lord, visibility must be bad. They appear to have rowed over a peninsular.”
You owe me a new keyboard.
That was good. 😀
Even failures are good teaching tools. Without RTTP, we’d all be believing the claptrap of a melting Arctic. Thanks guys.
I’ve looked at some of the imagery of the area, and they’re in deeper water (metaphorically) than they think. The storms are pushing the ice down on them, and it’s pretty solid from where they are all the way to Siberia. It also appears that the Northwest Passage is icing up behind them. Time to pull out while they can.
It’s currently 69F in Colorado Springs – the third morning this week we’ve had below-70 temps after 9:30AM.
Heide de Klein says:
“Their “satellite” map shows lots of nice blue water – why don’t they just row? Or, is the blue colour another fake?”
It looks like a very poor photoshop job, smearing blue over all the ice in the original photo.
BTW, that’s a wonderful name, Heide de Klein!
It’s most interesting to compare their proposed route: http://www.rowtothepole.com/the-expedition/the-route/ with their actual progress: http://www.rowtothepole.com/satellite-tracking/
While the proposed route shows a series of straight lines to waypoints, boldly rowing north in open water, leading directly to their destination, their actual route shows that they are hugging the coastline. Yesterday they attempted their first long run into “open water” to reach a nearby small island, only to be beaten back by the drifting pack ice and rough sea (before noon) to dry land with some substantial amount of damage and/or disorder to their boat, or at least their housekeeping. We all know what “The boat’s become a pretty stinky place” means don’t we?
The open-water run they attempted yesterday was just a minor warmup for what they will have to accomplish several times if they are to reach their destination, even doing their coast-hugging, island-hopping thing. Would you want to bet on going out on a multi-day row into shifting pack ice (like rowing a Mini-Cooper through a sea of floating lorries and slabs of asphalt) even if the weather was beautiful the day you set out? Didn’t think so.
Finally, the existential question of why they ignored thousands of years of “settled science” that has proven conclusively that sails are better than oars for getting anyplace over substantial bodies of water. If a couple of their number were to be knocked out of action in the midst of a difficult spell of rough weather, they would be entirely helpless. In addition, as any sailor of the seas knows, when things get really bad, without sails, or some form of motive power, you are helpless to maneuver the boat and keep it headed up into the wind and waves. Deep do-do, literally and figuratively. I suspect that this was part of their problem yesterday.
Shall we make a pool as to how far they will actually make it?
Didn’t these people read about Nansen, Amundsen and Perry before they planned this trip? I know they are only trying to get to magnetic north, but their lack of knowlege of the environment they are in is astounding. Amundsen’s Northwest Passage trip should have given them one heck of a clue!
Temperature up there looks cold, and will remain so.
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp2.html
There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.
A high IQ does not make up for lack of common sense.
Well, well, the Darwin award applicants are having problems. What a surprise.
EternalOptimist – concise, pithy and very funny!
cue the pole dancing bears, please. a perfect ending is achievable.
Only 3 years untill the North Pole is completely ice-free.
According to Climate Change Specialists.
Yeah….
I love their Facebook update today. Posted an article from 2007 (but on thing says 2005) about how sea ice models under estimate ice loss. Posted while stuck in ice way off from their proposed route of smooth rowing through open water.
Might be a good time to practice Mann overboard drills. And possibly bears on board drills given they are probably the only protein within an area equal to a thermometer’d Arctic grid. I hope they’re armed with more that cell phones and dull wit – polar bears are immune to even well-aimed imprecations and the sharpest tongues.
I fault the skeptic community for not seizing the opportunity to encourage more warmenists to row to an ironic doom.
Do they need a Hair drier to melt the Ice ??
Apparently this was sponsored by a whiskey distillery – and now I understand the mental state of the logistical geniuses in charge of planning the expedition.
H.R. says:
August 12, 2011 at 2:02 am
(“Yo! Who’s that fellow wandering by over there? Is that… is that Pen Haddow? Maybe we can all get a lift back to town from Clarkson and Mays.”)
Top Gear reference…love it! Toyota Hilux dominates in a so called AGW world
Some wonder why they are rowing to the 1996 site of the North Pole.
But all the CAGW-ers are stuck in the mid-90’s, when it could last be said that the climate was warming. Since then the pole has moved on, the climate has been “stable”, and Al Gore has become a crazed sex poodle.
Bruce Cobb says:
August 12, 2011 at 8:14 am
I like this paragraph from your link:
The magnetic pole, as certified in 1996, is located at 78°35.7N 104°11.9W / 78.595°N 104.1983°W and was first reached by Sir James Clark Ross of the British Royal Navy in 1831.
Apparently, the Brits reached it 165 years before they even knew where it was. 🙂
I wonder if there is a rescue plan. It seems they’re not going to give up yet, they’ll take any way forward even if it means getting iced in. The end of the summer melt may be predictabe but the winds that blow the ice around is not.
Hard liquor, frozen tundras and absurd behavior::
“Being set on the idea
Of getting to Atlantis,
You have discovered of course
Only the Ship of Fools is
Making the voyage this year,
As gales of abnormal force
Are predicted, and that you
Must therefore be ready to
Behave absurdly enough
To pass for one of The Boys,
At least appearing to love
Hard liquor, horseplay and noise.
[…]
Assuming you beach at last
Near Atlantis, and begin
That terrible trek inland
Through squalid woods and frozen
Thundras where all are soon lost…”
W. H. Auden, “Atlantis” (1941)
strawbale says (August 12, 2011 at 3:23 am): “Today is a no go as well, iced in again.
Instead today is spent practicing hiking over the ice with the canoe in tow.”
Practicing? I would have thought the time to practice was before they started their little trip. Hope they brought comfy hiking boots/showshoes/skis.
They should just get constant shipments of Old Puteneny to use to melt the ice in front of them as they “row” to the pole. Oh wait, we wouldn’t want to pollute the arctic with bad whiskey, sorry, bad idea.
It looks like the annual reestablishment of seasonal sea ice has already begun in a number of locations. It’s not been enough yet to result in the overall sea ice extent bottoming out, but certainly, it will get us to that point soon.
Reading their facebook page. If they do manage to Island hop and row to Ellef Ringnes Island this will be down to global warming and If they do not manage to Island hop and row to Ellef Ringnes Island this will be down to global warming.
Cake and eat it.
We should be thankful for the annual pilgramage of us Brits trying to find new and exciting ways to pass the time in the Arctic and keeping everyone else entertained as we wait for the sea ice minimum.
i’m thinking of trying it on a pedalo next year, unless someone’s already beaten me to it.
An interesting comparison. Ice edge in the Spitzbergen area in the middle of the Litlle Ice Age on August 12 1664:
ttp://acsys.npolar.no/ahica/quicklooks/1650/16640812.jpg
and on August 12 2011:
http://retro.met.no/images/image_000140_1313161278.jpg
More ice today.
Plenty of balls but not a lot of brains, but even so I hope they make it ok. – And if they do, – maybe 2015 will be a good year to once again try it on as by then, the Arctic may be completely devoid of summer ice & snow (According to the AGW theory that is).
However I always thought it to be pointless proving that the Earth is getting warmer, – colder – or that it’s average temperature remains unchanged. ——-
The question I have, is this: “How do AGW enthusiasts (including “Luke-Warmers”) explain the theory which says that energy (temperature) removed from point A – (Earth’s surface) – and then transported to point B – (Greenhouse gases (GHGs) can increase the warmth (temperature) of A once that energy (or maybe, at best, just one half of it) is returned to A?
@tty
Does that mean that the ice edge didn’t go down to Svalbard during the little ice age even?
What’s the point of rowing to the magnetic north pole if you know it is located far far south of the actual north pole.
What’re they going to claim? We rowed to the south of the actual north pole. I mean, wow, what an accomplishment… especially for proving how “little” ice there are around the actual north pole.
The extent of the stupidity of communism is otherwise only shown by Putin, like OMG even the chinese ruling communists aren’t that stupendously lame.
“The bear! It took Bruce! This is worse than we thought!”
“Just say he fell overboard and drowned due to lack of ice!”
Don’t rescue them with helicopters; it produces too much CO2 emissions.
There’s a new point dated 8/12 20:00 (GMT?). They’re heading east along the coast now.
The good news? They made 4 kilometers today.
The bad news? Ummm guys, I thought you were headed north, please turn left. Oh, and say hello to the poler bears when they see you. Aren’t they fluffy? And remember, the bears are endangered and you are not. Right?
Friends:
I notice there are several comments about a possible rescue mission. This puzzles me.
Surely Darwinian selection leads to an improved gene pool?
Richard
Let’s just hope the Poley Bears don’t have tranquilizer guns. They (the “rowing” team)are very near open water.
The Poley Bear scientists are sure to blame dead hipsters in the water on Global Cooling.
They’re off again – down the coast! Further away from rescue and safety.
It’s the worst of both worlds, not solid ice and not open water
How do you get a plane in there to rescue the misdirected?
Let’s all hope their MMGW/AGW/CC/GCD zealotry doesn’t take them the way of the Titanic
You can’t suspend reality
Scott: “We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.”
Oates: “I’m just going outside and may be some time.”
Row to the Pole!!!!
What the #&@%!!!!
I am 50%+ Polish and I resent that!!!
:^)
John
At least Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition had a purpose, to find the Northwest passage. What exactly are these people doing other than trying to promote a political agenda?
Reminds me of this:
http://youtu.be/G0CHmM3GugM
JMcCarthy says:
August 12, 2011 at 4:42 pm
What exactly are these people doing other than trying to promote a political agenda?
=======================
Promote a single malt scotch ?? Many of the ads for booze in the UK feature humour (Guinness, Carlsberg, Heineken come to mind). After reading this thread, maybe it was an intended consequence ??
In fact, as a testament to their success, I think I’ll buy a bottle of Old Pulteney tomorrow. Hey, it’s only one data point, but that’s one more than the CAGW industry has !!!
Now their FB page says this:
RTTP Operations Team here. Thanks for all your messages.
Some people may have discouraging things to say about this expedition.
We ask our followers NOT to comment or reply on skeptic’s posts. Ignore them. This does not mean these concerns are being ignored.
Our team in the UK and Resolute are acting.
Make the crew proud. Lets make this an ever so British forum, lets be polite. Please do not insult or interact with this minority of skeptic.
What do they mean when they say ‘this does not mean these concerns are being ignored.’? Ignore the ‘minority’ of their messengers because their skeptics, but their message is valid?
Or maybe I’m missing something, any way, love how they say ‘our followers’ as opposed to ‘our supporters’…just an interesting turn of phrase that caught my eye.
They’ll be needing a rescue soon enough alright or they’ll have to turn back asap, is just a betting game on when now.
I hate the cold, I’d never do this, esp. in the middle of a perfectly good summer…but that’s just my canuck way of thinking.
They have not to fear – no doubt the climate king himself, Mr Al Gore will save the day & come to rescue them.
Looking for a hole in the ice? Stupid simple solution…….
Wait for a dip in the graph, and row like heck. If there isn’t a dip in the graph, reprogram the computer to make one.
lol…look at the route they are taking…so much for their ‘theory’
Bill Wenzel says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:26 pm
“They have not to fear – no doubt the climate king himself, Mr Al Gore will save the day & come to rescue them.”
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NO! NO! NO! That’s crazy talk!
Haven’t you heard of the Gore Effect? They’d be frozen into Brit-cicles in 1/2 an hour.
I’m reading some of the better comments out loud whilst watching the Bucks play at KC…and were laughing out butts off.
Appreciate the SLEGO reference, especially, for obvious reasons. 🙂
This is the best laugh ive had in ys,what a bunch of tossers…………
LOL thats the best laugh ive had in ys,what a bunch of tossers……..
This whole question of AGW validity is becoming more Lewis Carroll by the minute. All we really need now is Alice and The Mad Hatter.
When are the warmists finally going to face up to and accept that the game is over. What is becoming more and more clear by the day now is that that the evidence is in and the conclusions are manifest. AGW is, and always has been a crock.
DandyTroll says:
“Does that mean that the ice edge didn’t go down to Svalbard during the little ice age even?”
No, but it means that even in the Little Ice Age it was possible to sail around Svalbard in good ice summers, something that has been claimed as a sure sign of AGW (it was possible almost every summer in the 1930’s too, but probably not this year).
The ice-edge in summer probably was just north of Svalbard during the 17th century, since the dutch built their whaling station Smeerenburg on Amsterdam Island at the northwest cape of West Spitzbergen. This means that water there must normally have been open, but that the ice-edge was nearby, since they hunted Bowhead whales that keep quite close to the ice edge in summer.
Dear Fräulein De Klien
Can I call you Heide?
It looks like your encouraging missive have been “moderated” on the DBT78.595°N website
Congratulations 🙂
Dave
OMG! This is so embarassing. You don’t have to be British to be a total Dick Head. Think Gore, Gore, Gore. Whew, that’s better.
Best of luck to those brave men of the Canadian Coastguard. May they long enjoy those cases of “Old Pulteney” they are able to recover from this “situation”. If they can they have a braver taste than me!
“I was walking out of the hotel … and my foot goes through the ice into open water. I’ve never seen that in 20 years. So it is genuinely getting warmer, the ice shelf is diminishing. I’m not going to say why it’s happening – whether it is down to man or is just part of cyclical change – but nevertheless it is happening.” – Jock Wishart – May 2011
Yup. Sounds like a confirmed ‘warmista’, ‘eco-loon’, or whatever, to me.
So, can we remove the climate-change-based insults, and restrict ourselves to insulting people who enjoy putting themselves through arduous physical exertion in extreme environments for no good reason? Rowing the Atlantic, circumnavigating the globe, climbing Everest, … gives one a much wider scope, I think.
BTW: Regardless of the sheer pointlessness of this expedition, it was three years in the making, and the momentum of these enterprises is such that it is less costly to fail than to call the project off.
I’ll love to watch the SNL sketch on this…