UPDATE2: get a load of the hilarious announcement from the expedition, where they claim sea ice is disappearing, see update 2 below.
UPDATE3: A film (now a video) has been found from 1912 showing Mawson landing in ice free Commonwealth Bay in 1912. see update 3 below.
UPDATE4: Bad weather has forced the Aurora Australis to back off from its rescue attempt. See below.
UPDATE5: See my opinion piece on why this is a fiasco
There’s quite an ongoing worldwide fascination over the So much sea ice in Antarctica that a research vessel gets stuck, in summer! episode with the ship Akademik Shokalskiy we first reported on WUWT.
I think it was best summed up by this Tweet:
http://twitter.com/ElBuehn/status/416608616070664192
Now, after the first rescue ship The “Snow Dragon” failed:
Our rescue boat, the Xue Long, has had to turn back because the ice was too thick for it to get through. We're now awaiting Aurora Australis
— Alok Jha (@alokjha) December 27, 2013
Which we see in the distance here…
…all eyes are now on the Aurora Australis, which was trapped in ice for 3 weeks last month.
But, even that ship seems to have trouble picking through the sea ice. here is the webcam from the bow of the Aurora Australis:
![A133631800A[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/a133631800a1.jpg)
Link to webcam: http://www.antarctica.gov.au/webcams/aurora
Supposedly, the ice around the Akademik Shokalskiy 3-4 meters thick.
Then there’s the comedy of a scientific research expedition disguised as a junket for activists and reporters, such as this guy, tweeting up a storm from on-board:
The other fellow, Chris Turney, has some science credentials, but also has a propensity for wackadoodle alarmism as we see in this WUWT post: Now it’s 2°C climate change target ‘not safe’
Mostly, it’s a media sponsored event, presumably so they can tell us how terrible things are in Anarctica with melting and such:
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.
Meanwhile, in the “Spirit of Mawson” Spirit of “never let a good crisis go to waste”, the folks on-board have realized the world is watching, and decided to make a pitch for money at their website, presumably to fund next year’s research media junket:
Mother nature doesn’t seem to care about the comedy either way, as Antarctic sea ice is still over 2 standard deviations above normal.
National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) – Click the pic to view at source========================================================
UPDATE1: Thanks to Roger Tattersall “Tallbloke” who writes:
I’m amused to see Global Warmist Professor Chris Turney’s expedition to Antarctica to retrace polar explorer Douglas Mawson’s route and replicate measurements has run into a spot of bother.
Here’s an old news report on Mawson’s expedition
It looks like that part of the Antarctic was warmer in Mawson’s day than now. In fact the antarctic is currently colder than it has been for a long time. The high latitudes of the Southern Ocean have been cooling since the 1980′s according to SST data.
====================================================
UPDATE2: You can’t make this stuff up. This is from a news.com.au story covering the incident and the announcement made by the expedition:
Um, no, sea ice isn’t disappearing right now, it is growing in the Arctic and within two standard deviations:
National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) – click to view at sourceTwo standard deviations above normal in the Antarctic:
National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) – Click the pic to view at sourceAnd above normal globally:
Cryosphere Today – University of Illinois – Polar Research Group – Click the pic to view at source========================================================
UPDATE3:
A video has been found from 1912 showing Mawson landing in ice free Commonwealth Bay in 1912.
========================================================
UPDATE4: The Times of India reports:
SYDNEY: Bad weather on Monday forced back an Australian icebreaker struggling to reach a scientific expedition ship stranded off Antarctica, while snow and winds have prevented a helicopter rescue, authorities said.
The Aurora Australis made it to within 10 nautical miles of the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, which is stuck in an ice field, before retreating in the face of freezing winds and snow showers.
“Adverse weather conditions have resulted in the Australian Antarctic Division vessel Aurora Australis moving back into open water this afternoon,” the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
==========================================================
Related articles
- Rescue near for trapped Antarctic ship (foxnews.com)
- Cracks in ice new hope for stranded Antarctica ship (worldnews.nbcnews.com)
- Chinese icebreaker forced to cut Antarctic rescue attempt short (ctvnews.ca)
- Rescue of icebound Antarctic ship faces setback (foxnews.com)
Scientific expedition, or just plain Tourism?
Would you believe it? Now that the Aurora Australis had to turn back, the “Scienific Expedition” has suddenly mutated into plain, ordinary tourism – see http://www.smh.com, or http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/aurora-australis-abandons-attempt-to-save-akademik-shokalskiy-in-antarctica-20131230-302na.html :
“Aussie icebreaker abandons rescue
Nicky Phillips 3:48pm
The tourist boat Akademik Shokalskiy remains stranded in Antarctica
as Aurora Australis turns back. ”
What a hypocrisy
Captain Doyle had informed Shiokalskiy by email and radio of the current situation.
“They’re OK at the moment, they’ve got no problems,” he said.
The captain planned to wait until the weather cleared before it deciding whether to cut another path through the ice.
The icebreak was designed to cut through ice floes of about 1.35 metres, not the thick ice, some of which had grown over several years, that had built up in Watt Bay.
“It wasn’t all multi-year ice, there was some first year ice, which can be thick especially if it’s old first year ice,” he said.
Now first-year ice is thick? Must be because it’s in the Antarctic. I could have sworn first-year ice in the Arctic is considered thin and fragile.
Outstanding. Only in narcissistic Guardian land is this possible.
Whilst the crews of four vessels are now worrying themselves sick and putting their lives at risk to save them, the passengers tweet about how they have set up a “media hub”. No, really:
https://twitter.com/GdnAntarctica/status/417541894525030402/photo/1
Trying, and failing, to resist feeling schadenfreude.
In case you missed it:
“30 Dec: SMH: Nicky Phillips: Aurora Australis abandons attempt to save Akademik Shokalskiy in Antarctica
The Aurora Australis has abandoned its first attempt to cut through the ice surrounding the stranded Akademik Shokalskiy in Antarctica after moving just two nautical miles.
About 6am, the Aurora’s captain, Murray Doyle, began to manoeuvre the icebreaker through thick wedges of consolidated sea ice.
But by 9am [midday Sydney time], the master made the call to turn the ship around and move back into open water.
“The ice became too thick for us to penetrate. Some of the floes are up to two metres of ice with a metre of snow on top and very compact…
“There was just nowhere for us to go.”
Captain Doyle also feared that the 55-kilometre south-easterly wind running up the ship’s stern would blow ice in and around the back of the vessel.
“It was pushing those same types of floes in behind us,” he said.
“If we got into that compact stuff it would have sealed us in, we would have lost our manoeuvreability and we wouldn’t have been much use to anybody.
“Having been caught in ice before, I know by experience when to get out. I didn’t want to add to the drama, instead of being part of the solution,” he said.
A low-hanging fog also hampered rescue efforts.
“We had no visibility so we couldn’t really see if there was a way through.”…
“We also can’t use the helicopter at the moment because there is no visibility,” he said.
“The helicopter wouldn’t be able to differentiate the horizon from the ice.”
Captain Doyle had informed Shiokalskiy by email and radio of the situation…
The Xue Long, which has been waiting near the Mertz Glacier since Boxing Day, was also making its way back to open water.
“They’re trying to make it back into open water so they’re not trapped as well,” Captain Doyle said.
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/aurora-australis-abandons-attempt-to-save-akademik-shokalskiy-in-antarctica-20131230-302na.html
Wow! Now they are moaning about the poor penguins that might suffer due to TOO MUCH ICE.
(min 2:30 on the Guardian video).
Global Worming is a bitch.
“Kaboom says:
December 29, 2013 at 10:33 pm”
You have to do a bit of digging but from the ABC link below (From update II in the other thread by reader “pat”) you find “CHRIS TURNEY, CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH CENTRE, UNSW”. The CCRC at UNSW is funded by the Australian research council’s National Competitive Grants Program. The UNSW itself is funded by taxpayers. This trip is costsing AU$1.5mil, according to the ABC article. In anyone’s English, that’s a taxpayer funded junket. I have a feeling, as expressed by others, this will not read well if the MSM continue to call it a research trip by Chris Turney of the UNSW. Although tonight on the news, there was talk of abandoning the Russian “passenger ship”, no longer a reaserch vessel. Hummm….
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3898858.htm
With regard to comments about how icebreakers actually break ice, be advised that “backing and ramming” is standard practice to create a channel, however temporary, through multi-meter thick ice. The channel must then be maintained by churning back through it at regular intervals so it doesn’t freeze up. It helps to have two vessels that can split those tasks.
Icebreaking is not quick work in thick ice.
I served on U.S.C.G.C. Northwind from 1976 -1978. I did an AWE cruise (Arctic Winter East) up into Baffin Bay, the annual Antarctic resupply to McMurdo, and finished off with an unexpected winter in the Great Lakes of North America.
I was a quartermaster and participated quite directly as a helmsman.
As I recall, breaking some 20-30 kilometers into McMurdo took us about three weeks in January 1977, with a lot of backing and ramming. Some four-hour watches saw us not even go the ship’s length (269 feet). Things moved more quickly when a second icebreaker arrived.
I would imagine that the Russian vessel is ice-strengthened, in which case it should be alright until an icebreaker gets in.
Unless, of course, that gash in the hull has comprised the ship’s hull integrity.
This is the latest from the BBC, it has some really great pictures in it, including penguins and lots of thick ice. However, the irony of the situation is still being ignored by the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25546462
… and it’s Perihelion in just 4 or 5 days time … too.
Will the ice or the ship do a ‘Comet ISON?’
In Norway “green” also means, from before the enviro’s invented the word for them, that someone is as intelligent as an vegetable.
Simply that someone is as stupid/dumb as it is possible to get.
I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard and so long in tears, after reading so many of the comments on this thread.
As far as harm coming to the trapped idiots – while no one wants to see them die as miserably as they might if they can’t be rescued (and they surely will if they aren’t rescued before the Antarctic winter sets in), if they do survive they surely must be held liable for every cent of the costs of rescuing them, including liability for deaths or injuries suffered by their own ship’s crew and the crews of rescue ships and aircraft in the process.
These people do not need or deserve to be treated gently – their actions, and the actions of their fellow AGW believers, are directly responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths from hypothermia and starvation – and may well also be responsible for losses from the BBC pension fund as a result of investments in failed green projects and financial instruments..
They also should be criminally prosecuted for defrauding the Australian government, and likely for any number of other criminal offenses they have committed on the process. And if Chris Turney is to retain his university teaching position after this, it would be rather a travesty, methinks.
@Louis – I do wonder how the Womann-named-Sue is taking this punch in the nose to her so-called theories? I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t be highly discomfited.
@Santa
I hope you had those Greens on your naughty list
They are blaming the weather for first failure of the Aurora Australis to get through the ice, the clip at this link seems to show that it is actually ‘whether’ the Aurora Australis can break the ice.
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/aurora-australis-abandons-attempt-to-save-akademik-shokalskiy-in-antarctica-20131230-302na.html
“I think the ship was relying on IPCC models, but someone forgot to check reality.”
According the political decided climate convention, UNFCCC from 1992, this area should now be ice free in the summer.
The purpose of this journey is UNFCCC based and funded so turning back earlier would politically be a denialist action?
Update 3 with film from original Douglas Mawson expedition shows clear open water.
The current expedition’s aim was to retrace his steps to see how “climate change” has affected the area in the last 100 years.
Looks like they got their answer.
I’m sure they are not wasting their time marooned on the ice. They will be having desperate brainstorming sessions about how present this as being due to “global warming”.
You know, the usual “more is less”, increased precipitation caused by global warming, cold snap caused by global warming, “extreme weather” caused by global warming, In short it’s WEIRD, so it must be due to human induced climate change.
Of course, unlike the Sandy and the recent catastrophic typhoon in the Philippines, this will not be an indication of global climate , just local variability.
AAE: “Sea ice is disappearing due to climate change , but here it’s piling up”
Hey guys, ice fields are nature’s way of telling you you’ve got your head up your butt.
Pretty sure climate martyrdom is not on the list of options, even for true believers as these. They’re lucky the Chinese have a helicopter on their ice breaker, they’d be pickled it one had to be hauled down from Hobart to get them off the ship.
We shouldn’t rescue them until the climate changes.:]
Hell hath no fury like Antarctica scorned………
Chris Turkeys latest tweet said it is so warm it is raining
AAE: “Sea ice is disappearing due to climate change , but here it’s piling up”
Those who deny climate change should be put before Nuremberg style tribunals 😉
Sunspot,
You point is germane. The ABC news here in Hobart has reported that the Aurora can handle ice 1.5m thick, but this is 3-4m. They are in serious trouble. They have fresh food for another two weeks, and freeze-dried for another two. The question is how the hull of the ship will take the conditions – and when and whether they ferry to people off by the one helicopter available on the Chinese vessel. L’Astrolabe usually carries a vey small one, but the Aurora does not appear to have one on board. If anything happens quickly, there could be a catastrophe.
There is much irony and stupidity on display here, but let’s not lose track of the potential human tragedy.
Meanwhile one of these trapped faux scientists has a ‘Eureka’ moment how to get off of the ice, Using one of his ever wonderful super accurate computer models that he relies on so much it calculates for him exactly out how to make good his escape!.
Denier ice! You should be melted!
Re the stuck-in-the-ice people: for the first time in their lives they really are victims. Government funded counselling and compensation will follow, plus a big “sorry” on behalf of us all for what Mother Nature has done to them and their cause. Finally, they can sue WUWT for hurting their feelings and get even more compensation.