This will be a top “sticky” post for awhile since interest is high – new stories will appear below this one – Anthony
UPDATE: Josh channels the boat people
UPDATE2: Another irony is discovered, this one doubly deep. See update 2 below.
UPDATE4: AMSA: Helicopter rescue of Akademik Shokalskiy likely to commence shortly
(It’s off again, then now its on again, with report the helicopter has landed)
UPDATE5: All the passengers (tourists and scientists) are off the ship
UPDATE6: Tough questions need to be asked
UPDATE7: Trouble on the rescue ship – reaching open water not so easy
As we reported previously on WUWT here and here, the saga of the “climate scientists/tourists trapped in ice” continues to fascinate many. Now a second ship has given up on rescue, after the Chinese ship “Snow Dragon” gave up two days ago. The Aurora Australis has abandoned rescue of the trapped Russian “research”vessel in Antarctica and a helicopter evacuation in now being ordered. This episode has taken on a heightened comedic fiasco-like quality.
Now, with such a fantastic failure in full world view, questions are going to start being asked. For example, with advanced tools at their disposal (that Mawson never had) such as near real-time satellite imaging of Antarctic sea ice, GPS navigation, on-board Internet, radar, and satellite communications, one wonders how these folks managed to get themselves stuck at all. Was it simple incompetence of ignoring the signs and data at their disposal combined with “full steam ahead” fever? Even the captain of the Aurora Australis had the good sense to turn back knowing he’d reached the limits of the ship on his rescue attempt. Or, was it some sort of publicity stunt to draw attention? If it was the latter, it has backfired mightily.
One might argue that with photos like the one below, this whole “Spirit of Mawson” research expedition, is little more than a media stunt.
Source: [ http://twitter.com/GdnAntarctica/status/412977161323036672 ]
Even after the ship was trapped, these reporters still had a party like atmosphere going on:
Source: [ http://twitter.com/GdnAntarctica/status/416881634273525761/photo/1 ]
Yesterday, Andrew Revkin tweeted something that I agreed with, especially since so many of the people trapped in the ice on the ship seem to have a nonchalant, almost partly-like atmosphere going on.
Scientist on trapped Antarctic ship: "Fantastic-I love it when the ice wins & we don't." http://t.co/UsxA2tiV2i What about rescue risk/cost?
— Andrew Revkin 🌎 ✍🏼 🪕 ☮️ (@Revkin) December 29, 2013
Yes, the cost and risk is significant. These folks trapped on-board don’t seem to be cognizant of that issue, following the #spiritofmawson Twitter feed, it’s like watching reports (with pictures and video) from a high school class party.
And here’s the kicker. Even the public saw through the charade at the beginning. Trying to get crowd funding from the public for this trip failed miserably as this Indigogo campaign shows:
Source: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-us-return-to-mawson-s-antarctic-hut-the-home-of-the-blizzard
Maybe it had to do with the ridiculous image of Professor Chris Turney in full cold weather gear standing in the midst of a tropical forest.
Right after the ship got stuck and there was a realization that the world was watching, one scientist on-board, Dr. Chris Fogwill, of the University of New South Wales, decided that it would be an opportune time to hit the public for money again:
Source: http://www.spiritofmawson.com/
And again, the public has seen through this, and today, the campaign remains stuck at $1000 with just a few donors. People are realizing that there’s no real science being done on this trip, and that it seems to be little more than a chartered party boat for Antarctic enthusiasts and media.
Now, with the ship to be evacuated via helicopter, will the Akademik Shokalskiy join the list of recent ships that have been sunk in Antarctic waters?
Ships that have sunk in Antarctic waters in recent years (h/t to David Archibald)
The Brazilian yacht “Endless Sea” sank in Maxwell Bay, Ardley Cove on Saturday 7th April, 2012. It was used for “scientific and educational expeditions”.
The sunken remains of the 76-ft Mar Sem Fin, aka “Endless Sea”, which sunk on April 7, 2012, lies at a depth of about 9 meters (30 ft) in Ardley Cove, Antarctica.
In November 2007, the Linblad Explorer hit sea ice and sank.
In April 2013, the Chinese factory fishing ship Kai Xin caught fire and sank near Bransfield Strait at the Antarctic Peninsula.
And there are others, these are just a few recent ones.
With so much concern for the pristine environment of Antarctica, one wonders how much environmental damage these sinkings are doing.
And when the trip is nothing more than a party for your friends and media, disguised as a “scientific expedition”, one wonders if there shouldn’t be some moratorium on such trips.
Richard Tol summed it all up nicely with one sentence:
There has been a strong and statistically significant upward trend in climate-change-related public-relations disasters #spiritofmawson
— Richard Tol (@RichardTol) December 30, 2013
UPDATE:
The #spiritofmawson hashtag is now getting competition from the hashtag #ClitanicDisaster in honor of the trapped climate scientists that the MSM won’t mention as being climate scientists.
========================================================
UPDATE 2:
reader Aphan writes on 2013/12/31 at 7:16 pm
I don’t know if anyone was posted this yet, but the IRONY just gobsmacked me.
The British “explorers” on board the MV Explorer who were “commemorating the Spirit of Shackleton” found themselves repeating HIS adventure when their ship struck a piece of submerged ice and then SANK in the Antarctic in November of 2007! None of the passengers or crew were lost. But HOW AMAZING is it that both the “Spirit of Mawson” trip AND the “Spirit of Shackleton” cruise trips ended in disaster from sea ice?????
http://www.jamescairdsociety.com/shackleton-news-104519.htm
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/news/explorer-sinks-antarctica.html
I mean…come on. What are the odds?
============================================================
Related articles
- Saving the Antarctic scientists, er media, er, activists, er tourists trapped by sea ice (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Antarctic rescue mission fails to reach trapped ship (theguardian.com)
@_Jim: (and others )
>On position reports: Some of these vessels may be equipped with VHF-band only radio position transmitters (vs Inmarsat satellite),
Being a commercial vessel it will have a full GMDSS communications set up for sea Area A4.
If you go to the Inmarsat web site and look in the directory section you will see that they have a full Inmarsat fit for data, email and voice. You will also see that the telephone number is
Numbers: 762882967 [Voice Service]
To call you would dial international code (00 in the UK, 01 in the US I believe) 870 then the above number.
However I think the system uses goestationay satellites and is not brilliant below 70degrees N or S – satellites to low on the horizon.
Alernatively you could try MF radio, using an individual routine DSC call. The MMSI is 273458210 (from ITU website). Select your frequency band with care given the range (and time of day).
Allthough the above information is public I don’t think you should bother them. They may be busy.
Sorry for the repost – mistyped the handle.
Teddi says:
December 31, 2013 at 9:32 pm
“Man-up and speak the truth about this horrendous cancer on science called AGW !”
——-
I am quite man enough; you come across as an over-enthusiastic puppy 🙂
To restate the obvious: you are a propaganda gift for the thinking section of the CAGW crowd. These kind of battles are not won with excitement but with patience. Take the host of this site as an example and chill.
It was even the same ship, the Shokalskiy, that was impeded by ice back in 2011 when trying to approach Commonwealth Bay. Here is a photo of it in 2011.
http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2011/12/20/1226227/053646-211211-mawson-039-s-hut-expedition.jpg
Here the scientists “sing” about their predicament:
As near as I can make out, their “song” starts off;
“We’re the AAE who have traveled far
Having fun doing science in Antartica
Lots of snow and lots of ice
Lots of penguins which are Very Very nice.
Waiting for food and for company
But, a bloody great shame, we are still stuck here!
Ice core cha-cha-cha! Ice core cha-cha-cha! Ice core cha-cha-cha! Ice core cha-cha-cha!
Bloody idiots.
A new book coming our way based on a classic.
https://twitter.com/m4gw/status/418123388712783872/photo/1
Wind 11 knots at Mawson station. It doesn’t get much better than that.
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/webcams/mawson
So much for scientific observation. Prof. Turney has just stated in an interview on the ABC that the Adelie penguin is about 30 cm tall whereas the Australian Antarctic Division website has them standing 70 cm tall. Could it be he didn’t get too close or maybe he counted the wrong species!
If he is correct could Global Warming have caused the Adelie to shrink to less than half it’s size to cope with the heat?
Did the crew actually rely on MODELLED ice thickness data before entering this area?!
Re that satellites cannot measure ice thickness….allowing the usual suspects to MODEL 1 m ice in areas with 3 m, as finally reported by the ice breaker vessels?
re: Nic says January 1, 2014 at 6:53 am
See follow-on post to the one you replied to which describes the publicly-accessible marine position-reporting ‘system’ accessible by the public at no cost, due to the requirement from December 2004 onward, in which the International Maritime Organization (IMO) requires all vessels over 299GT to carry an AIS transponder from which the website marinetraffic.com along with participating partners in the field near coastlines ‘captures’ ship data transmissions which includes vessel position.
An excerpt from the ‘About’ page on the website http://www.marinetraffic.com/ to which others have posted links depicting ‘ship’ movement tracking:
About the Marine Traffic project This web site is part of an open, community-based project. It is dedicated in collecting and presenting data which are exploited in research areas, such as but not limited to the following:
– Study of marine telecommunications in respect of efficiency and propagation parameters
…
– Interactive information systems design
…
It provides free real-time information to the public, about ship movements and ports, mainly across the coast-lines of many countries around the world.
I’m sure the video of smiling, singing scientists will bring relief to their friends and family. But to the rest of the world, and as many rescuers are risking their own lives, it seems in very poor taste.
In one of the photos I see two people holding up a Guardian banner. Is that the same Guardian that published this story today?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/31/planet-will-warm-4c-2100-climate
Another story warning about impending catastrophe. At least this time, they picked a date far enough out that most of us will not be a live to see it (and see how wrong their model is).
DirkH says:
January 1, 2014 at 4:48 am
As I said before … you do not know what you are talking about!
http://www.huismanequipment.com/en/products/drilling/jbf_14000/jbf_arctic
http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic33-1-168.pdf
If the ship survives this fiasco, she should be renamed the Akademik Lysenko.
richard says:
“Gullible’s Iceland”.
Stop it! The humor is almost too much to bear. This story truly is the gift that keeps on giving (for us “climate heretics”, anyway).
Thank you for the very informative post.
.
Yet again the flimsy, repeatedly falsified. idiotically simplistic hypothesis that CO2 controls the climate system of the earth is crushed by cold, cruel, icy reality.
Con-Tiki.
Or has that one been done?
Anthony’s 3rd update is surreal. ROTFLMAO!
If you want a good laugh, head over to SkS blog and get a load of the cartoon mid-way down on the home page. It depicts a Titanic reconstruction cruise ship heading for an iceberg that melts before a collision can occur.
Perhaps an enterprising reader with graphics arts talent would like to alter this cartoon for our viewing pleasure. It’s also worthwhile to have a look about to get a feel for the relative differences in quality between WUWT and SkS. The article concerning the disappearing Arctic ice, (complete with a misleading reconstruction) is pure unadulterated propaganda.
http://www.skepticalscience.com
P.S. Judging by the number of comments posted, it would seem that event die hard alarmists have grown wary of being made fools when attempting to parrot SKS’s half-truths on skeptical blogs.
This melted fresh water causing greater sea ice formation nonsense reminds me of the fools from my childhood loading up the ice cube trays with hot water, claiming it causes the ice cubes to freeze faster. I see those folks are still with us. It took the development of the automatic icemaker to end the former foolishness. What will it take to eliminate the present one?
Fascinating old images from Antarctica: http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/12/27/on-ice-100-year-old-negative-discovered-in-antarctic-ice
Hugh “In one of the photos I see two people holding up a Guardian banner.”
Yes, and the Antarctica depicted on the flag doesn’t show any sea ice, does it? Guardianistas!
The disconnect with reality is truly disturbing, but sadly is not limited to just the green movement.
Pash says:
January 1, 2014 at 7:39 am
So much for scientific observation. Prof. Turney has just stated in an interview on the ABC that the Adelie penguin is about 30 cm tall whereas the Australian Antarctic Division website has them standing 70 cm tall. Could it be he didn’t get too close or maybe he counted the wrong species!
If he is correct could Global Warming have caused the Adelie to shrink to less than half it’s size to cope with the heat?
———————————
Here is a video that Turney can study, once he has watched it a few times he may understand the process.
JB:
In reply to Mr Green Genes, at December 31, 2013 at 8:14 am you say
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/30/the-antarctic-research-fiasco-would-you-could-you-in-a-boat/#comment-1519010
I cannot speak for Mr Green Genes but – in common with all moral people – I am dismayed that anyone would object to oil exploration in the Arctic.
Indeed, I am outraged that the Greenpeace hooligans were given an unwarranted pardon for their attempted piracy of an Arctic oil rig. In a just world those Greenpeace criminals would have been locked-up and the key thrown away for their placing at risk the lives of oil workers heroically operating in the harshness of polar conditions. Furthermore, the BBC’s support for the criminal acts of these despicable Greenpeace “activists” is unforgiveable.
It seems that Greenpeace, Turney, and other ‘green’ loonies think polar conditions are not hostile. And, in support of their lunacy, they are willing to put anyone at risk. How many people have already had to risk their lives in attempts to rescue the passengers on the ship of fools now trapped in the Antarctic ice?
Those passengers – and it seems you – expect others to suffer the deprivations of so-called ‘renewable’ energy while expecting the right to use fossil fuels for their own nefarious activities.
They and you can have no excuses for your actions and statements which deserve only contempt and disdain. In this thread they are only being treated to ridicule which – in my opinion – is nowhere near sufficient condemnation.
Richard