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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Mike and Alan: Thanks for mentioning the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB-10). Yesterday I erroneously referred to it’s twin, the Polar Sea (WAGB-11) when I meant to type Polar Star. The current difference between the two is stark. Polar Star is at sea; Polar Sea keeps getting reprieves from the scrappers by direct intervention of U. S. Senators from Washington State and Alaska. At a minimum, the Polar Sea needs the same extensive overhaul the Polar Star received.
I’m sorry I can’t help it, there is so much irony in this story it’s cured my anaemia.
What I can’t help is when I see this link;
http://www.news.com.au/national/stricken-russian-ship-mv-akademik-shokalskiy-with-aussie-scientists-aboard-is-playing-the-waiting-game-in-antarctica/story-fncynjr2-1226791671102
With the picture of the penguin by the ship I can’t help thinking up captions for the penguin. Maybe we should have a caption competition. My poor effort is;
“that’s all we need at Christmas, tell the neighbours there’s a load of religious zealots arrived on a ship breaking up the ice trying to sell books on global warming”.
This never would have happened if they had used a solar powered ice breaker.
[snip – bit over the top -mod]
The Antarctic sea ice gains have been occurring over several years and are a result of the complex interaction of the ozone hole and surface winds. Unfortunately, for every sq km gained in the south, 3-5 sq km are lost in the Arctic.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/GlobalSeaIce.gif
It should be noted that land ice, the ice that actually affects sea levels is decreasing at an alarming rate in both the Arctic and the Antarctic. This was the ice referred to in the Al Gore article that was incorrectly discredited in an above comment.
One of the greatest challenges of climate science is its very easy to pick holes in global warming theory by looking at contrary examples of local climate phenomenon without looking at the global trend.
Your statement (the conclusion that “for every sq km gained in the south, 3-5 sq km are lost in the Arctic) is false. Dead wrong.
Even the linked gif in your own paragraph shows your claim to be wrong. Actually, right now, real figures from today’s date for NSIDC’s sea ice plots: you “might” just find that 1.500 million km^2 “positive” above normal IS present around the Antarctic, while the Arctic is about 0.550 million km^2 below normal for this date. Your so-claimed “deficit” is a POSITIVE at this date.
For the past two years, Antarctic sea ice has been consistently two std deviations ABOVE normal levels for sea ice, AND that sea ice extends around the continent to latitude 60 south at maximum extents in September.
On the other hand, Arctic sea ice lately (last 12 years) is only 3.5 – 4.0 million sq km AT ITS MINIMUM in September. We can lose AT MOST only another 3.5 million sq km2. That is it. How much larger can Antarctic sea ice get? There is no limit. At today’s rate of Antarctic sea ice increase, Cape Horn itself could be closed to ship traffic due to sea ice within 8-10 years for months at a time every September and October.
But that little bit of remaining 3.5 Mkm^2 Arctic sea ice is up between latitude 78 north to 83 north. At that latitude, in mid and late September when arctic sea ice is at its minimum extents, there is MORE heat lost from open waters due to more evaporation losses, more conduction losses, more convective losses, and more radiation losses from open sea water than can be gained from that exposed water getting heated by the ever-lower sun angles! At those latitudes, at that time of year, the HIGHEST the sun can get is 8 – 12 degrees above the horizon, air masses are 18 to 34. There simply is no solar heat penetrating the atmosphere at those low solar angles to be gained if the Arctic ice continues to melt.
The more the Arctic sea ice melts from today’s minimum extents in August and September, the more the planet loses heat energy to space and cools down ever more. Your CAGW’s religiously amplified but majestically feared “arctic amplification” due to sea ice meltdown is totally, completely backwards.
But it is worse than you think!
At today’s levels of BOTH minimum AND maximum extent in the Antarctic seas, today’s (and last year’s!) record breaking sea ice extents DO reflect much more solar energy than the exposed waters! At 60 – 70 degrees, ALL YEAR, every day, the record-breaking Antarctic sea ice extents IS reflecting MORE solar energy and IS cooling the planet down even more.
And thus we slide quickly into the next major ice age.
dr. turney,
hope you are still in good spirits. we will be constructing and sailing a solar-powered ice-breaking kayak as soon as we can locate a piece of driftwood of suitable size from which it can be whittled. it will be piloted by algore as he is the last man on earth not paralyzed by the hilarity of it all. praise gaia.
Xue Long underway making 3.4 knots. Likely keeping station in a narrow box,
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:144.4792/centery:-66.72189/zoom:8/mmsi:412863000
Winds reported by Long (if accurate) are well within the safe range for helicopter operations.
Mawson station reporting winds at 19 km/hr.
Mancey, what are you going to believe your own eyes and the actual data, or those lying fools at SkS?
The current aggregate sea ice extent is nearly one million square km above the 30 year average for this date. Go look at the WUWT Sea Ice page and arm yourself with some knowledge.
Does anyone know how to say “fraudulent plan to further economic equalization”. Facts prove there has been no global warming since 1997. No matter what happens the GW-CC crowd will come up with a fresh new theory to try to show they were just confussed in their interpretation of data not wrong.
https://www.cfact.org/2013/12/12/chilling-facts-about-the-global-warming-debate/
global warming is not science. science goes like this:
1) extensive research
2) postulate theory
3) endless testing and observation
4) offer your theory as being plausible
5) go back to 3
anti-scientific, feelgood alarmism goes like this:
1) declare your favorite cause to be a fact
2) manipulate data to show a trend
3) scare people into giving you more money and power
4) when dire prediction fails, claim it proves your point.
5) go back to 3
wordsmeanthings,
Don’t you mean “2) postulate
theoryhypothesis”? Or ‘conjecture’?…oh. I see. You’re explaining how the warmist scientists do it.
Carry on.
Rescue postponed. They must be getting testy by now and out of booze. Karma lives. Oh how sweet it is!
I’m so disappointed that the “God father of hype” Al Gore couldn’t have enjoyed this Antarctic experience. He could have come up with another theory and made even more money!
lol 3rd Ice breaker on the way….wonder if this one will get stuck as well…..they got on the Australis via helicopter a few days ago
After St.Petersburg Macarov Maritime University(Russia), I worked in Antarctis zone, Grutwiken, etc….Be as a tourist, I’d stay at this ship to the end for endless true travel. Good for You, crewmembers of Academic Shokalskiy. Mолодцы, ребята! Не обращайте внимание на
убогих индусов типа NiggRat, которые способны быть по всему миру только лавочниками…
By the way, where is information about next cruises of Academic Shokalskiy?
I’m guessing that the ship’s schedule will be to be crushed by the ice in the next few months, then to make a one-way trip to Davey Jones’ Locker the next time the ice breaks up (next year? in ten years? ??)