For the latest, see this new story. and this opinion piece on why this is a fiasco
UPDATE: Turns out this “research” vessel was mostly a taxpayer funded junket for getting video stories to BBC in the UK and ABC in Australia, see update2 below.
It is summer in the southern hemisphere and yet there is still signifiicantly above normal amounts of sea ice present as the passengers and crew of one tour ship discovered. The icebreakers Xue Long and Aurora Australis, and a French research vessel Astrolabe are cruising towards the Akademik Shokalskiy at full throttle for rescue. Photos and maps follow.
PR from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, Dec 25th, 2013:
Search and rescue of passenger vessel trapped in ice underway
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) is coordinating a search and rescue for a Russian passenger ship beset by ice approximately 1500 nautical miles south of Hobart.
AMSA’s Rescue Coordination Centre Australia (RCC Australia) was contacted by the Falmouth Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in the United Kingdom on Christmas morning.
The Falmouth MRCC received a distress message via satellite from a Russian flagged vessel, MV Akademik Shokalskiy, with 74 people about 7.20am (AEDT).
The ship is in the Australian Search and Rescue region, 100 nautical miles east of the French base Dumont D’Urville.
RCC Australia assumed coordination of the incident and issued a broadcast to icebreaking vessels in the area.
Three ships with icebreaking capability have responded, including the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) vessel Aurora Australis, and are now en route to the area.
The closest vessels are at least two days sailing time away.
Further updates will be provided when more information is available.
###
Source: http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/25122013AkademikShokalskiyUpdate1_Media_Release.pdf
===============================================================
This is apparently an image tweeted by somebody on-board the Akademik Shokalskiy, showing the ice around it:
AMSA is now coordinating the response to a ship beset by ice about 1500nm south of Hobart. http://t.co/P4zO9RUMth http://t.co/S5ST1wgwbN
— AMSA News (@AMSA_News) December 25, 2013
UPDATE:
The expedition is being led by Chris Turney, “climate scientist”, who has “set up a carbon refining company called Carbonscape which has developed technology to fix carbon from the atmosphere and make a host of green bi-products, helping reduce greenhouse gas levels.” The purpose of the expedition is “to discover and communicate the environmental changes taking place in the south.”
http://www.christurney.com/ (h/t to Sagebrush Gardener)
It seems they found out what the “environmental changes taking place in the south.” are.
From the WUWT sea ice page, Antarctic Sea Ice is more than 2 standard deviations above normal:
![S_timeseries[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/s_timeseries1.png?quality=75)
According to this sitrep report for one of the rescue vessels, the Aurora Australis the Akademik Shokalskiy is trapped in sea ice in the Commonwealth Bay region of Antarctica.
This is what the current sea ice coverage looks like at the south pole with the approximate ship location marked:
Image source: National Snow and Ice Data Center via the WUWT sea ice page.
Wikipedia says about the ship:
MV Akademik Shokalskiy (Russian: Академик Шокальский) is an Akademik Shuleykin-class ice-strengthened ship, built in Finland in 1982 and originally used for oceanographic research.[5] In 1998 it was fully refurbished to serve as a research ship for Arctic and Antarctic work.[3] It was named after the Russian oceanographer Yuly Shokalsky.[6] The ship has two [7] passenger decks, with dining rooms, a bar, a library, and a sauna, and accommodates 54 passengers.[3] It is currently operated by Aurora Expeditions, an Australian expedition cruise line.[3][8] In 2011, the Akademik Shokalskiy sailed cruises along the coast of Russia[9] and to East Antarctica.[10] Her sister ships are Akademik Shuleykin, Arnold Veymer, Akademik Gamburtsev, Professor Molchanov, Professor Multanovskiy, Geolog Dmitriy Nalivkin, Professor Polshkov, Professor Khromov.
UPDATE2:
WUWT reader “pat” writes at 2013/12/26 at 1:59 pm
seems this expedition was more a BBC/Guardian/ABC CAGW exercise!
18 Dec: Guardian: The Guardian lays claim to Antarctica – in pictures Journalists Alok Jha and Laurence Topham have landed in Antarctica with the 2013 Australasian Antarctic Expedition Documentary filmmaker Laurence Topham lines up a shot from the bows. Photograph: Alok Jha/Guardian…
http://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live/gallery/2013/dec/18/guardian-antarctica-pictures
Guardian: Laurence Topham, documentary filmmaker
In 2007 he worked for Current TV, where he edited over 50 short-form documentaries for terrestrial broadcast…
http://www.theguardian.com/open-weekend/laurence-topham
Guardian: Science: Antarctica live (MASSIVE COVERAGE, NO HINT ABOUT THE SHIP’S CURRENT PREDICAMENT!)
http://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live
26 Dec: BBC: Andrew Luck-Baker: Science continues for trapped Australasian Antarctic expedition Science reporter Andrew Luck-Baker is on board the Russian research vessel Shokalskiy, covering the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013 for the BBC World Service programme Discovery…
Tantalisingly, a low band of grey sky to the Northeast suggests clear water lies not so many kilometres away. The grey colour is light reflected from open water. The early Antarctic explorers named this colour phenomenon “water sky” and used it to navigate their route through the treacherous pack ice…
In addition to the Russian crew of 22, the expedition team consists of 18 professional scientists from Australia and New Zealand, and 22 volunteer science assistants. They are members of the public, ranging in age from their 20s to their 70s. They paid to join the scientific adventure…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25519059
25 Nov: ABC Lateline: $1.5 million Australian expedition to Antarctica Professor Chris Turney from the University of NSW is mounting the largest Australian science expeditions to the Antarctic with an 85-person team to try to answer questions about how climate change in the frozen continent might be already shifting weather patterns in Australia.
ABC’s MARGOT O’NEILL: The research stakes are high. Antarctica is one of the great engines driving the world’s oceans, winds and weather, especially in Australia. But there’s ominous signs of climate change.
CHRIS TURNEY: The Southern Hemisphere westerly winds encircle Antarctica, and over the last 20 or 30 years or so, they’ve been pushing further south. Now – so actually in a way it’s almost like Antarctica’s withdrawing itself from the rest of the world…
EMMA ALBERICI: And tomorrow night, in the second part of this special report, could the British Antarctic explorer Robert Scott have lived? We look at how Professor Turney discovered that choosing the right team can be a matter of life and death.
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Now wheres that Eskimo woman I was supposed to skin,lol.
Would ‘greenies’ be tempted to cook those cuddly inquisitive penguins?
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is coordinating the rescue, confirmed that a French vessel had also failed to penetrate the ice.
The agency said another boat, the Aurora Australis, was on its way to the Russian vessel and expected to arrive on Sunday.
“I think we’re probably looking at another 24 hours of twiddling our fingers and waiting for something to happen,” expedition spokesman Alvin Stone told the Associated Press.
A bunch of penguins watching all this unfold declined to comment but looked almost unbearably smug.
PrangWizard
Interesting to know the capacity of the ship’s sewage treatment plant. Eventually they’ll have to pump it out to make room for more.
Pete
Alan Robertson says:
December 28, 2013 at 9:29 am
“Zhang, you see, stated that warmer waters caused more ice to form around Antarctica.”
No warmer waters here over the southern ocean for decades.
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/13-southern.png?w=640&h=420&h=420
There has been suggestion that warmer sea can increase ice over the continental mass with increased precipitation, but not noticed any claim warmer water can increase ice in the same location. Warmer ocean water in the Arctic has caused sea ice to decline there and that is with freshening of the waters there.
Matt G says:
December 28, 2013 at 10:01 am
There has been suggestion that warmer sea can increase ice over the continental mass with increased precipitation, but not noticed any claim warmer water can increase ice in the same location. Warmer ocean water in the Arctic has caused sea ice to decline there and that is with freshening of the waters there.
_________________________
Thanks for Bob Tisdale’s link.
Here’s a link to Zhang, 2007: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_20-11-2515.pdf
From Zhang Abstract: “The model shows that an increase in surface air temperature and downward longwave radiation results in an increase in the upper-ocean temperature and a decrease in sea ice growth, leading to a decrease in salt rejection from ice, in the upper-ocean salinity, and in the upper-ocean density. The reduced salt rejection and upper-ocean density and the enhanced thermohaline stratification tend to suppress convective overturning, leading to a decrease in the upward ocean heat transport and the ocean heat flux available to melt sea ice. The ice melting from ocean heat flux decreases faster than the ice growth does in the weakly stratified Southern Ocean, leading to an increase in the net ice production and hence an increase in ice mass. This mechanism is the main reason why the Antarctic sea ice has increased in spite of warming conditions ”
Zhang clearly made the case that warming water leads to more sea ice via the following mechanism:
warmer water –>greater upper ocean temperature –> less sea ice formation –> less salt rejection from ice formation –> less saline density in upper ocean layers –> enhanced thermohaline stratification –> suppressed convective overturning –> decrease in upward heat transfer –> less ice melting because upper ocean is colder –> greater sea ice production –> increased ice mass.
Therefore, per Zhang, warmer water makes for more sea ice. Who knew?
I’ve always said at times the universe seems to have a sense of fun about things. Global Warming / climate change scientists trapped in feet up thick ice. Priceless. It’s just as amusing as when some church in America told its population not to get inoculated. They all immediately got said illness…
You don’t suppose there is a website somewhere we can check their heart rates and other vital signs of life? But more importantly, would the group-think worry over global warming under their present condition be a vital sign of life?
The burn of irony will be the only thing that melts this ice.
@justAnotherposter – I assume you’re referring to the anti-vaccine nonsense? There may have been some church somewhere participating, but mostly it was the same sort of weak-minded new-agey sorts, the most visible proponent being a breast-celebrity named Jenny McCarthy.
There’s a lot of overlap between the anti-vaxers, the anti-GMO crowd, the warmists, the anti-nukers, there may be a few thoughtful folks around the edges but the core is made of people who think themselves educated but tremble in fear of anything involving numbers, chemistry, etc.
Maybe they could use this icebreaker, Russian 50 Let Pobody with 75000 hp
Movie from rendez-vous with Swedish Oden at the North Pole
Just trying to get the latest news update – hard to find:
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/australian-icebreaker-closes-in-on-trapped-russian-ship-20131228-300pa.html
Alan Robertson says:
December 28, 2013 at 10:31 am
Thanks for the link, didn’t realize that was claimed.
“warmer water –>greater upper ocean temperature –> less sea ice formation –> less salt rejection from ice formation –> less saline density in upper ocean layers –> enhanced thermohaline stratification –> suppressed convective overturning –> decrease in upward heat transfer –> less ice melting because upper ocean is colder –> greater sea ice production –> increased ice mass.”
Therefore now need to be compared with scientific observations.
“warmer water –>
This has failed since the mid-1990s in the Southern ocean.
“>less sea ice formation –> less salt rejection from ice formation –>”
This has failed so broke the mechanism.
“The model shows that an increase in surface air temperature and downward longwave radiation results in an increase in the upper-ocean temperature and a decrease in sea ice growth”
While this would be true for the Arctic ocean this is different for Antarctica. There has been no decrease in sea ice growth since LWR was suppose to be a problem. The link between model and observed fails at that stage.
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/australian-icebreaker-closes-in-on-trapped-russian-ship-20131228-300pa.html
Latest info I could find.
I posted this story on my FB page, one of the replies:
“I do not know the specifics here, but increased sea ice in the Antarctic and Greenland waters is a well-known side-effect of warming over the landed glaciers. The surface of the glaciers melt, and water (heavier than ice) fall down to lubricate the glacier’s flow over land. The glaciers then calve into the sea with greater speed. The fresh water on top of the sea water (from both the glacier melt and the icebergs) has a higher freezing temperature than the salt water below. The salt water absorbs the fresh water’s heat, freezing it.
At the North Pole, there is no land to support glaciers, and this means the waters rarely have this salt/fresh boundary that causes the freezing. So in the Northern Summer, less sea ice means a warmer climate; in the Southern Summer, more sea ice means a warmer climate (until the glaciers finish melting).”
Thoughts? Isn’t Greenland in the arctic? Is the land ice in Antarctica melting?
Robert says:
December 28, 2013 at 12:46 pm
_
That’s about as fine an example of CAGW reasoning as one is liable to find. Thanks for sharing.
About 3/4s of Greenland lies above the Arctic Circle. While it has been claimed by the warmistas, there is no big glacier melt occurring in Antarctica which causes greater sea ice coverage. Currently, the Antarctic sea ice area is over 1.5Million SqKm above average levels. That would be a lot of fresh water. As sea water freezes, it expels salt. More freezing sea water –>ice means a higher concentration of salts in water around the frozen ice, not the freshening of water as they claim.
“So in the Northern Summer, less sea ice means a warmer climate; in the Southern Summer, more sea ice means a warmer climate (until the glaciers finish melting).” Notice how they tried to claim both positions/phenomenon at the same time? You will find that the warmist crowd does that a lot- no matter what happens, they claim man- made climate change/warming is the cause.
It takes a either true believer or a propagandist (or both,) to write such convoluted poppycock as was left on your facebook page.
@Alan Robertson and @DipChip
I dont think that minimum sea ice cover plays a factor here. We don’t know what the minimum for sea ice cover was for 1911-1914. We know that recent minimums have been near the end of Feb and that this current expedition is nearly 2 months before minimum.
What we do know is, is Mawson was able to navigate much more easily in these same waters, in and about the same time of year that this current expedition is attempting to navigate. And failing I might add.
From their spiritofmawson website, one of the reasons they explain for their failed attempt to navigate their ship any closer is that of a huge glacier impeding their journey to Cape Denison.
They had to stop short of about 40 miles west, and use ATVs to finish the journey. That fact in itself is very telling. Sir Mawson wrote about that glacier, and from his account, sounds much smaller in comparison than what Turney is describing. It sounds like the current terrain is being effected by both larger ice-pack and a increase in size of glacier formation, at nearly the same time of year for both expeditions.
That is what I think, in my opinion, is what is most important here. If this current expedition is truly concerned about the state of the climate, as they put it, they already know what the facts say. And that is there is far more snow and ice now at this time of year, that what the conditions were 100 years ago.
What Ill be most curious about is, will be how they quantify this information.
Already, there seems to be a bit of a shuffling of the truth. Turney gives a full account of their visit to Mawsons Hut. Yet what he discribes in his blog and what he tweets/vines are different. He writes they were successful, but used all-terrain vehicles to establish contact with Mawsons Hut. Then he writes they had clear waters as they travelled east, Clear waters? Really? Maybe the waters were clear from 40 miles out to sea, but not from Mawsons Hut. Then he blames strong winds for the collapse of ice-pack around them. But that is life in the Antarctic. The snow extent is continuously changing due to winds and ocean currents. We expect that. If Turney hopes to convince us that being trapped in a freak storm as an excuse, well, he has failed in convincing me of anything other than double talk.
And of course there is the depth of the ice-pack. We know that its at least a meter thick. Not a meter thick of multi-year ice, but new ice. The area he is discribing melts all if its ice-pack in this location every year. If there is a meter thick of ice-pack there now. it was put there just in the last year. And will melt and be reclaimed once again come July or August.
Stay tuned Gents. More is sure to come from this.
Alan: Not to mention the ratio of sea water to glacial water. At Max sea ice cover, sea water below the ice cover has a ratio far greater than 6 figures to 1. Why does the all that additional sea ice cover form on the periphery of the ice cover?
But it’s rotten ice.
Children just won’t know what iceburgs are.
The heating of the ocean is causing the ice caps to melt.
I think we should send Jim Hansen down there to correct them. It’s a lot warmer down there than they think it is.
/sarc
Greg Cavanagh says:
December 28, 2013 at 1:49 pm
But it’s rotten ice.
Children just won’t know what iceburgs are.
The heating of the ocean is causing the ice caps to melt.
___________________
Yes, but don’t forget- that’s only 1/2 the story. The heating of the ocean causes the Arctic sea ice to melt, The heating of the ocean causes the Antarctic ice to increase.
(Don’t blame me for repeating their meme.)
CFACT just sent out an e-mail with a photo of the ship. It looks as though it’s listing nearly 10 degrees. That’ll harsh their buzz onboard. I wonder if and when the MSM will mention the list.
Gunga Din says:
December 27, 2013 at 4:00 pm
Hmmm….Can’t helicopters reach them?
I guess not, unless they fly from an ice-breaker, I guess it is too far away for standard helicopters which have a range under 500 km
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11179140
Aurora still 12 – 24 hours away, Astrolabe turned back, Snow Dragon on standby in case Akadamik passengers need to be airlifted off to Aurora. Akadamik may be left with skeleton crew.
rogerknights says:
December 28, 2013 at 2:52 pm
CFACT just sent out an e-mail with a photo of the ship. It looks as though it’s listing nearly 10 degrees. That’ll harsh their buzz onboard. I wonder if and when the MSM will mention the list.
__________________________
I hope the outcome needs no memoriam, but just in case…
Congratulations all around
From passengers and crew
Aboard the mighty vessel
They had told the world what’s new
Once fattening up each others wallets
With their tales of warming woe
’til the reaper crept around them
With no alarm for them to know
When trading tales for truth
That seaside villages bells would peal
Rememb’rance notes across the waves
Now fattening only a leopard seal
Alan Robertson says:
December 28, 2013 at 10:31 am
Thanks for Bob Tisdale’s link.
Here’s a link to Zhang, 2007: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_20-11-2515.pdf
From Zhang Abstract: “The model shows that an increase in surface air temperature and downward longwave radiation results in an increase in the upper-ocean temperature and a decrease in sea ice growth, leading to a decrease in salt rejection from ice, in the upper-ocean salinity, and in the upper-ocean density. The reduced salt rejection and upper-ocean density and the enhanced thermohaline stratification tend to suppress convective overturning, leading to a decrease in the upward ocean heat transport and the ocean heat flux available to melt sea ice. The ice melting from ocean heat flux decreases faster than the ice growth does in the weakly stratified Southern Ocean, leading to an increase in the net ice production and hence an increase in ice mass. This mechanism is the main reason why the Antarctic sea ice has increased in spite of warming conditions ”
Zhang clearly made the case that warming water leads to more sea ice via the following mechanism:
warmer water –>greater upper ocean temperature –> less sea ice formation –> less salt rejection from ice formation –> less saline density in upper ocean layers –> enhanced thermohaline stratification –> suppressed convective overturning –> decrease in upward heat transfer –> less ice melting because upper ocean is colder –> greater sea ice production –> increased ice mass.
Therefore, per Zhang, warmer water makes for more sea ice. Who knew?
now why does this “more ice” not cause more salt rejection?
more salt rejection -> increase thermohaline circulation?
increase thermohaline circulation -> less ice?
Maybe this can be learned only after more grants have been granted, and then the circle will again close like:
less ice-> less salt rejection from ice formation -> enhanced thermohaline stratification …. more ice
next cycle, more grant money, sounds like a perpetuum mobile grants machine…
Robert says
“The surface of the glaciers melt, and water (heavier than ice) fall down to lubricate the glacier’s flow over land. The glaciers then calve into the sea with greater speed.”
Not in Antarctica. There is some sublimation, but practically no surface melting of glaciers, except locally in the peninsula, and certainly no large-scale penetration of surface meltwater to the glacier bed. This is a process that only occur in temperate glaciers, including the lower parts of the Greenland icecap. Antarctica is too cold. Part of the ice in Antarctica is wet-based too, but this is due to geothermal melting.
And while it is true that there is some freshening near the pack it is very modest, the salinity is about 33-34 per mil, i. e. about the same as along the US Pacific coast.