Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
A number of nations conduct research in Antarctica. To do research in Antarctica, you need to have an icebreaker. As the old saying goes, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few icebergs … or something like that.
For the last few years, said icebreaker has been the Swedish ship Oden, leased to us by the noble Swedes, who (other than being a bit confused about how to spell the name of the god Odin) built a wonderful dual-purpose icebreaker and research vessel. Here’s a photo of the good ship “Oden”:
Given the dependence of the US McMurdo Sound and Amundsen-Scott South Pole bases on the availability of an icebreaker to allow resupply by ship, it must have been an unpleasant surprise for our Secretary of State, Hillary R. C., to receive the following missive from the aforesaid perfidious Swedes …
This is unfortunate for the scientific work in the Antarctic, as it will require extensive reshuffling of existing studies and projects. However, it does have its ironic side.
The first irony is that the main thing that is brought in by ship, the one thing that really can’t be brought in by plane, is fossil fuel. Can’t do global warming research without fossil fuel, particularly in Antarctica, and running a couple of US bases through an Antarctic winter takes a lot of fossil fuel.
The second irony is that research into global warming is being curtailed by, of all things, too much ice. Or as Mr. Bildt described it, “transport delays due to vessels having been blocked by ice.”
I do feel bad and have compassion for the scientists and the scientific studies that will be disturbed, and I know I’m on the primrose path to perdition for saying this, but it’s hard not to enjoy the spectacle of scientists who can’t do global warming research because the Northern Hemisphere is too cold.
w.
PS—As of a few days ago, the US has lined up an icebreaker, the Ignatyuk, to replace the Oden. It is run by a Russian firm, the Murmansk Shipping Company. So that’s good news. Unfortunately it is not set up as a research vessel, just an icebreaker, but it can break the path for the tankers.
It will steam off from Murmansk half way round the world, burning lots and lots of fossil fuel, to clear the ice to allow the tankers to deliver much more fossil fuel to McMurdo Sound and even send fossil fuel to the South Pole to power inter alia the global warming research …
So there’s the final irony—with the laying up of the US Coast Guard “Polar Star” icebreaker, and the decommissioning of the “Polar Sea” icebreaker, the US has only the lightweight “Healy”, not fit for the Antarctic needs. So the US is reduced to renting an icebreaker from a Russian shipping company … and some folks in Alaska are not happy about that state of affairs.
[UPDATE] From some of the comments below, it’s clear that my eco-felony in writing this is admitting to feeling “schadenfreude”, which means taking pleasure in your opponents misfortunes. It’s one of those emotions that everyone has, but nobody is supposed to admit they have. What, you never laughed when irony overtook your opponent? And you gotta admit, global warming research cancelled because of too much ice? That’s funny anywhere.
I’m no different than the rest in relishing life’s ironic turns, except for the fact that I’m willing to admit that I’m not PC (politically correct) in the slightest, and to take the inevitable heat for saying so. Consider it my small protest at the ongoing vanillafication of the planet.
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I tell ya, whenever I feel down, this site cheers me up. As bad as the PIOMAS data and NSIDC report are regarding our vanishing Arctic ice cap, and as paralyzed as US policy is in regard to global warming by ideological fools like Inhofe, I was down earlier today. Now I come onto this site, read for a little while, and it becomes apparent that there is order in the world. We as aa species are just too stupid to make it. Thank you everyone here for clearing that up for me. No one cores for Neanderthals, either. Why would they cry for us (whoever will be left)?
And boy, that Bastardi, he is always worth a laugh! So is old Triple Point Goddard! And don’t get me started on Spencer’s banning Obscurity from his site because he kept bringing up science!
You people make our demise worth watching.
Is it possible that Oden is the modern Swedish spelling, and Odin is Norwegian?
Asteroid No. 3989 has been named Odin “after the first and mightiest god in Norse mythology” (from the official citation by the Minor Planet Center).
Pretty obvious which half of the cow halfacow is talking out of!
Why can’t our government just pick up another Swedish icebreaker at IKEA?
ferd berple says:
September 7, 2011 at 7:11 am
The various nations’ claims to the Arctic are a tangled mess. Here’s the usual font of misinformation on the subject.
However, the mothballing of an icebreaker does not change the situation in the slightest, not by one square metre of territory. There is no “de-facto recognition”, either based on icebreakers or anything else. These claims are settled by the nations in question coming to some kind of an agreement, and definitely not by whether one of the countries doesn’t own an icebreaker for some given period.
The US, with about a thousand miles of Arctic coastline, has clear and distinct national interests in the Arctic, whether or not we have an icebreaker.
w.
PS: the Canadians have made somewhat outrageous claims to the Arctic, including claiming all of the land between Canada and the North Pole … which is equivalent to us claiming half the Atlantic Ocean as belonging to the US. Sorry, but the fact that the Canadians claim that they own almost all of the Arctic it hasn’t impressed any of the other Arctic countries.
PPS: Just to confuse things even more, the Arctic area in question is supposedly governed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. However, the US is not a signatory to that Convention, so nobody really knows what anyone’s legal position might be.
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 7, 2011 at 9:27 am
“In any case, why can’t Europeans get with the spelling picture, the British can’t even spell aluminum, for goodness sake.”
_________________________________________________________________________
I think you’ll find that the British invented the English language in the first place. It’s you Americans who torture the spelling by dropping any letters that aren’t pronounced phonetically.
Sheer laziness on your part…. (:-
Just two . . . a very pretty picture indeed . . . .
Bathers in Antarctic Hot Springs
http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/GR012952/bathers-in-antarctic-hot-springs
Deception Island (62°57’S, 60°38’W)
http://www.deceptionisland.aq/
Do you think there may be more that are “undiscovered”?
ferd berple says:
September 7, 2011 at 7:11 am
Not exactly. We moth ball many things…rockets, warships, various aircraft, military bases,etc,..just to name a few. Replacing an artifact with new technology or not replacing is just an indication of a change in where we spend the green. Besides, who wants to go to the frozen north when we can go to the Bahamas, Mexico, Caribbean, French Riviera, or Hawaii?? Why do most of the Canadians live on the U.S. boarder (less Alaska)?
Legal possession often boils down to the guy with the biggest hammer and choice of which battles are worth the cause. eh?
Anything is possible says:
September 7, 2011 at 10:37 am
I think you’ll find that the British invented the English language in the first place. It’s you Americans who torture the spelling by dropping any letters that aren’t pronounced phonetically.
Sheer laziness on your part…. (:-
No, Webster did it deliberately. Opportunities for spelling reform are rare, and he took the one he had. 😉
Got to love the irony. The US can put a small city anywhere in the world – except the frozen places. Aircraft Carriers are nice and pretty, but don’t do too well when all you need to do is part the ice. 😉
http://www.sjofartsverket.se/en/About-us/Activities/Icebreaking/Our-Icebreakers/Research-VesselIcebreaker-Oden/
The smart solution would be if you americans got us the russian icebreaker, and then the Oden would be free to work on the tasks that the russian one cannot do.
Because of political flak, our government cannot risk a third hard icewinter in a row in our sealanes with Oden in the antarctic waters.
Too much ice; too little fossil fuel.
One pole attracts; one pole repels.
D*mned if you do; d*mned if you don’t.
North pole; south pole.
Comme ci, comme ça .
Timothy Hanes says:
September 7, 2011 at 10:16 am
“We as aa species”? Is that a code, that we are a “grade double-A species”? Or is it just another example that “we as aa species” are too stupid to bother with proofreading?
Generally in climate science we core the ice looking for historical CO2, and you are right, there’s no one coring for Neanderthals. First, it’s too darn hard to find them in the ice, and second, they get the ice-cores contaminated with 100,000 year old viscera … not a pretty picture.
Well, I suspect the Neanderthals won’t cry for us at all, for a very simple reason—they’re all dead. You sure you understand this “chronology” thing?
And what does “whoever will be left” mean?? You expecting the Rapture? Are we going to be mostly wiped out by a 2° temperature rise, the same order of temperature rise we saw in the last three centuries?
Glad I could brighten your day, Tim, although I don’t see the relevance of Bastardi in an attack on people you disagree with here. What do I have to do with Bastardi? I also see you reference the “vanishing” Arctic ice cap, while ignoring the Antarctic sea ice, which is increasing.
Regarding our “paralyzed” US policy in regards to global warming, I could only wish it were paralyzed. Instead, the EPA is currently putting CO2 laws into place which will cost Americans billions of dollars every year … but I suppose “cost Americans billions year after year” might be interpreted as paralysis.
Overall, I’d give your rant about a B minus. No humor, mysterious insider references (Spencer bans Obscurity? Say what?), nothing new, merely the good old claim that humans are “just too stupid to make it”.
Perhaps if you spent a little less time looking in the mirror, Timothy, humans might look a little less stupid. Repeat pro re nata.
w.
Anything is possible says:
September 7, 2011 at 10:37 am
Actually . . . English is from West German is from Indo-European . . . is from??
http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/linguistics/pie2.gif
Not the same picture I saw in Noah Webster dictionary (1981) . . . but, simular.
Clearly, my eco-felony in writing this is admitting to feeling “schadenfreude”, which means taking pleasure in your opponents misfortunes. It’s one of those emotions that everyone has, but nobody is supposed to admit they have.
Halfacow and Timothy are so busy being upset with me for admitting to feeling schadenfreude at global warming getting frozen out that they neglected to mention (or perhaps even notice) that if a skeptic were to be ironically overturned in a similar way, the money bet is that they’d be laughing as hard as anyone else.
I’m no different than the rest, except for the fact that I’m willing to admit that I’m not PC in the slightest, and to take the inevitable heat for saying so. Consider it my small protest at the ongoing vanillafication of the planet.
w.
“the ongoing vanillafication of the planet.”
I’m soo going to steal that, Willis!
🙂
Bengt Abelsson says:
September 7, 2011 at 11:30 am
Indeed you can’t risk that, the return of the Oden to its traditional job is a necessity, not an option.
However, when you propose the “smart solution”, I assume you know that in America we never go with the smart solution …
w.
Just a side note:
Giant red crabs invade the Antarctic abyss
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20876-giant-red-crabs-invade-the-antarctic-abyss.html
They have a cool – or should I say warming – video.
Nah, it’s spelled Wotan or Woden.
Willis said:
“Well, I suspect the Neanderthals won’t cry for us at all, for a very simple reason—they’re all dead.”
No, they’re not completely dead, they are part of us. Of you too, unless you are African.
Nuke Nemesis says:
September 7, 2011 at 9:10 am
“But Willis, it’s consistent with the models!
(Bonus points for those who understand sarcasm without the /sarc tag)”
Indeed yes, and more points for those who can distinguish sarcasm from satire. In its day those who read Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and thought that it was a book for children instead of satire aimed specifically at the science community, needed some /sarc tags to put them straight.
In the future, humans will have a sense of humor genetically engineered out of them. In the second phase, we will have a gene that can be toggled on and off from a central command site so that humor may only be express for ideas, people or things officially approved as deserving ridicule.
This is for our own good, as aa species, of course.
If there is not a turn around the US will soon be a has-been if not already, ferd berple check this out. It is the Russians Canada has to be aware of in the Arctic. not the Americans. Near the bottom check out floating nuke plants.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf45.html
Pity the Russians won’t lease on of their nuclear-powered ice breakers. That cool off the CO2 hysteria just a bit. Perhaps we could offer to the lease the Lenin-class Yamal.
“…
In Hartford, Hereford , and Hampshire
Hurricanes hardly ever happen …”