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)
John Bills says:
January 1, 2014 at 8:54 pm (replying to Glenn)
(Sea ice)
But you missed a few negative feedbacks there, and exaggerated the single positive feedback.
1. Radiation losses increase from open water.
Assume a DMI “typical” Arctic day at 80 north in mid-September: Average air temperature is about -15 C. Top of the sea ice with typical Arctic winds of 2-3 m/sec will also be at -10 C (263 K); and so the sea ice will try to radiate into space (or into clouds) at 263 ^4 power, right? But, if that sea ice is replaced by open ocean water under the same air temperature the top of sea surface will be – not -15 degrees! but rather 2-4 degrees C or 278 K. Emissivity of sea and ice are very close, both would radiate into identical conditions (either clear night sky or cloudy daytime skies), and so every sq meter of open ocean will radiate more energy to space by a proportion equal to (278^4)/(263^4) or 1.248 times that lost by ice-covered seas. 25% higher losses are substantial, true?
2. Evaporation losses are greater from open ocean, but are almost nothing under sea ice.
(Yes, the air may “warm” later when the vapor condenses, but where is it condensing? The open water is losing about 107 watts/m^2 that ice-covered seas retain.
3. Convection losses from air blowing over the open ocean remove heat from the water more rapidly than from the top of ice covering that water. Heat exchange right at the water-to-ice boundary are aided by the intimate contact between the two, but are slowed by the requirements of freezing ice to slowly “squeeze out” the salt from each gram of water before it can freeze up into the lattice of ice crystals. Look at the “clouds” forming above each polyna in the ice – as the open water loses heat immediately even in the most modest of breezes. .
Again, consider the top of ice at -10 degrees, almost the same as the air (with a little surface losses across the boundary layer) at all normal wind speeds. But, then that 1 -2 meters of ice then separates and insulates the 2-4 degree water under the ice from the -10 degree air above the ice, and so the net heat transfer from water to air is reduced by the “insulating” effect of the ice between the two. If “hotter” open water is present directly contacting the -15 degree air, the water is losing heat much faster each hour of the day the ice is missing.
Note that it doesn’t matter “why” the Arctic ice may be missing – winds, melting, ice breakers, or helicopter or Martians. If ANY ice is missing from Arctic water anytime between mid-August to mid-May under today’s conditions, the planet (the Arctic Ocean) cools even more.
You mentioned heat gain from sunlight: Classic CAGW Arctic amplification feedback holds that open water gains more energy than does ice-covered water, and so the open water heats up and melts more sea ice, thus increasing the amount of energy gained.
What constants do you (or Glenn, or any one else use to support this claim that open ocean gains more energy from the sun than does sea ice, and under what conditions and what time of year in the Arctic do you find that to be true? (Actually, that’s almost a trick question, because you will find the answer is much, much more subtle than the simplistic propaganda approved for release by the CAGW dogma.)
Glenn says: January 1, 2014 at 9:34 pm
Spreading back out though to a more widespread scale, what is your general feeling as far as why glaciers have been retreating rapidly across the globe (Greenland, Patagonia, Kilamanjaro, Rainier, Glacier National Park, Iceland, etc. etc.) I ask this genuinely, not as some sort of gotcha question.
I don’t really have a “general feeling” per se, but based on the evidence I’ve seen, it is likely associated with continued retreat of glaciers since the Little Ice Age ended in approximately 1850;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850
the warming that Earth experienced between 1975 and 1998;
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/global-land-ocean-mntp-anom/201101-201112.png
anthropogenic influences other than CO2, such as black carbon and deforestation, as well as natural variability.
I haven’t made any comments regarding CO2. Take AGW out of it for a second. I haven’t actually made any statements specifically referring to CO2 causing anything, in fact I should have made a disclaimer in earlier posts that my interests are not in pushing any particular reasons for changes in climate, more so an objection to the idea that there have not been interesting shifts. We know forces stronger than man can change the climate as well (including regional changes such as the Sahara alternating between lush jungle and arid desert over the millenia). As far as “regional pattern shifts”, I am referring to things like the increased precipitation trend as you approach the antarctic circle. Will Texas continue to see more long droughts, or did we just happen to hit a short isolated case there? etc. etc.
If we take CO2 out of the picture, then I think that everyone here agrees that Earth’s climate is changing, as it has for the last 4.5 billion years, that these changes are interesting, and that we should be aggressively studying these changes and their causes in order to better understand Earth’s climate system and how forthcoming changes may impact us. Furthermore, I think that most of us agree that humans are impacting Earth’s climate, through land use changes such as deforestation and the urban heat island effect, through pollution such as black carbon, through waste heat, runoff, damning waterways and array other methods. However, the reason why we find ourselves here tonight is that we collectively have wasted more than a trillion dollars trying to “prevent climate change” by trying to decrease the increase in anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This is the result of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Narrative, which is predicated on accelerating runaway alarming CO2 driven warming. If we could take CO2 and CAGW out of the picture, then I think we could all Kumbaya, take a sober look at the true challenges we and Earth face and work together to address them in a reasoned and methodical manner. Unfortunately, the likes of the IPCC, CRU, UEA, Al Gore and an array of others have put us in a position where we are all wasting each others time arguing about why some ship is trapped off the coast of Antarctica.
berniel comments after my NZ City piece about helicopter evacuation seemingly called off:
And Chris Turney tweets:
The Chinese helicopter has arrived @ur momisugly the Shokalskiy. It’s 100% we’re off! A huge thanks to all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_13rQBXKa0A …
but then:
Mario Lento commented:
“I don’t get it. The helicopter dropped off 6 people and left. I thought it was supposed to pick up 12 people?”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/01/amsa-helicopter-rescue-of-akademik-shokalskiy-likely-to-commence-shortly/#comment-1520988
RACookPE1978
maybe you could learn to read (understand)
Glenn says:
January 1, 2014 at 9:34 pm
“If you are making the case about trends in Arctic Ice change, then the perspective of a people who not only live in the region, but are significantly dependent on the land for survival, is a valuable insight. If they are having to change hunting and fishing patterns significantly from the previous generation, there is something up”
————————————————————————–
I might point out that the people now living in the area are more dependent for survival on their local supermarkets than they are on hunting and fishing.
Similarly, their “previous generation” did their hunting and fishing while paddling sealskin kayaks and using hand propelled spears.
Now they hunt and fish from aluminum boats with outboard motors while equipped with high powered rifles and electronic fish finders.
So the perspective of the people living in the region does not really provide any kind of valuable perspective or insight.
Aphan,
No that is not me on the newsbusters site. Glenn isn’t that uncommon of a name you know 🙂
Just The Facts,
Apologies that your posts to me did not get the level of in-depth responses they deserved. I got myself buried trying to respond to everyone. I’ll try to get back to you tomorrow night.
Hmmmn. Ok. Let’s try it the hard way. Mid-September, at today’s minimum point of Arctic sea ice extents.
1. Under clear skies, at 7:00, 9:00, 11:00, 13:00, 15:00, and 17:00 hours, how much direct and diffuse solar energy is available, according to your constants and coefficients, to heat an Arctic surface right at the edge of the arctic sea ice? How much strikes a horizontal surface at the edge of the Antarctic sea ice at its maximum extents?
Under cloudy skies, how much diffuse energy is available to strike a horizontal surface at sea level at those same latitudes?
Under clear skies, at those same latitudes, if that much energy strikes a horizontal sq meter of average sea ice, how much energy is absorbed, and how much is reflected?
Under cloudy skies, at same those latitudes, how much energy is absorbed and how much is reflected from the same average sea ice?
If that much solar energy hits a horizontal sq meter of open ocean at 2-4 m/sec wind speed, how much is absorbed, and how much is reflected?
Glenn says: @ur momisugly January 1, 2014 at 6:07 pm
…. My position is more that I think too many people assume the field of Climate Science itself is tied completely to “man-made” climate change, and many of the critics of the science are simply ignorant of the field and the underlying math and science itself. That charge isn’t directed at everybody here of course. I just reacted negatively to the idea that appeared to be pushed on this site that one ship stuck in the ice in Antarctica supposedly discredits the entire field of climate science.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You haven’t been on this site for long reading peer-reviewed paper after peer-reviewed paper that would get an F if submitted to a competent teacher. Many on this site ARE college professors or industrial engineers and scientists, some are statisticians. The disgust at the incompetence and out right lying get rather thick at times.
Another Conservation Success Story Hijacked by Climate Alarmists is an example of a peer-reviewed paper that twists the facts and is written solely to support CAGW. There are many many more.
As commenter Rud Istvan states in that thread:
johanna says:
January 1, 2014 at 7:10 pm
Hi Glenn
Any comment yet on your claim about children not being on the ship? Thanks – J
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Both of Turney’s kids are on board as well as his wife. They are there to provide propaganda for schools.
The Guardian has a clip of the helicopter landing, wheels sinking ito the ice, for about 20 seconds, long enough for ahalf dozen crew to jump out, and taking off again, with a voice over of Turney saying; “If all goes well we’ll be off in about an hour’s time”. (Nothing about women and children first).
Guardian has updated this piece, now saying:
2 Dec: Guardian: Bridie Jabour: Antarctic rescue under way as helicopter lands next to trapped ship
A helicopter sent from the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long landed next to the trapped Akademik Shokalskiy on Thursday afternoon and the first group of passengers was due to be evacuated shortly after 8pm local time (7am GMT). The passengers were due to be taken off in five groups, with two further flights to pick up their baggage.
In a change of plan, the passengers would be taken not the Xue Long, but to an ice floe near the icebreaker Aurora Australis, which tried but failed to break through to the trapped ship earlier this week…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/02/antarctic-rescue-under-way-akademik
@ur momisugly negrum says:
January 1, 2014 at 7:10 am
Sorry
——————–
Yes, you are sorry, but that’s not really the point…
Which “thinking” section of the CAGW ? The one that put us in this AGW debacle, or the one that is still [delusional and] presenting AGW as real ?
These battles are not won by letting the other side present falsehoods (“lie”) unchecked. Ask all those scientists and other professionals whose careers were derailed by speaking out about AGW if patience works for them ?
What about the policies and regulations build on this false theory that are negatively affecting millions of people and economies around the world ? Ask those who freeze to death (from policies resulting in higher energy cost) because of these misguided believers in the “consensus” to CHILL so you can be patient with your civil discourse.
I’m not sure who is more delusional, those global warming fanatics with their man-made Co2 centric theory or persons like you who think the AGW movement will lay their weapons down and go quietly because you tamed them with your logic and discourse…
Glenn says:
January 1, 2014 at 7:55 pm
… I would encourage you to actually look up the definition of “The Scientific Method”.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Climate Scientists on “The Team” tossed “The Scientific Method” out the window a long time ago. A critical part of science is replicate and validate, the reason so many papers eventually fail. (See paper Why Most Published Research Findings Are False )
Here is another example of ‘Hiding the Data” as Frank Lansner and Nicolai Skjoldby try to examine the BEST results. I don’t know how BEST did that… perhaps some urban Prag stations etc? For sure, yet again, the BEST project is not presenting reality
Phillips on the Aurora Australis:
2 Jan: SMH: Nicky Phillips: Antarctica rescue of passengers on Akademik Shokalskiy begins
The passengers will be evacuated from the ship by the Xue Long’s helicopter and taken to a thick ice floe next to Australian icebreaker the Aurora Australis.
At 4pm Sydney time, four Australian Antarctic Division staff were lowered to the ice in a small boat to prepare a helicopter landing area and a safe walking passage to the Aurora for the Shokalskiy passengers…
The Xue Long also sent a helicopter crew with engineers to test the landing area before it left to collect the Shokalskiy passengers, who are expected to arrive on the Aurora in the next few hours…
Deck areas on the Aurora have been closed as the operation begins.
Plans to rescue the Shokalskiy passengers changed this morning when it became apparent the Xue Long was itself unable to move out of the pack ice…
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/antarctica-rescue-of-passengers-on-akademik-shokalskiy-begins-20140102-307mv.html
With apologies to Judy Garland, Prof Turney’s song:
I’m always chasing penguins
Watching icebergs drifting by
My schemes are just like all my dreams
Just pie in the sky
Some fellows look and find the sunshine
I always look and find the rain
Some fellows make a winning sometime
I never even make a gain, believe me
I’m always chasing penguins
Waiting to find some little chicks in vain
Six words changed from the original
Latest as of 10 minutes ago: :
AMSA has been advised that the first passengers have boarded the helicopter. 2/3
11:46 PM – 1 Jan 14
Glenn says:
January 1, 2014 at 7:55 pm
….Climate Science is not based on the idea that “humans cause global warming, lets prove it”….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
ROTFLMAO<
Glenn, old chap of COURSE it is, they even come right out and say so!
Two statements put what you said in a very clear light.
The banker’s stake in CAGW
This is a fraud that produces nothing but poverty. It does not produce a single penny of wealth and instead acts as a short circuit across the advancement and wealth of an entire civilization. Do not forget an employee of the World Bank, Robert Watson was the chair of the IPCC and the Danish Text Leak that killed off Copenhagen. From the Guardian: Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that … hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank;
The IPCC mandate states:
You can not separate politics and money from CAGW.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. ~ H. L. Mencken
CAGW fits Mencken’s definition of practical politics like a glove.
“AMSA has received confirmation that the first transfer of 12 passengers to the Aurora Australis has been completed.”
12:01 AM – 2 Jan 14
This is the most dangerous part of the operation.
ABC Australia are now reporting this as a Russian Ice Breaker and they are totally not saying anything about climate change research.
Glenn says:
January 1, 2014 at 7:55 pm
I don’t know if you are serious or a troll. The odds are about even the way I see it. You may be dead serious. I live in a college town where adult men and women roll their eyes and snort with derision—like high school girls—-when someone questions the “science” of anthropogenic global warming. When they get challenged they invoke authority and experts, claim it’s all obvious and settled science, call skeptics ignorant, drag in all kinds of unrelated stuff, and when they finally realize they cannot answer even the simplest questions they exit with more eye rolling and snorting.
Your condescending reply to Dirk concerning “The Scientific Method”, complexity, math, etc. sounds just like that. Since you brought it up, would you kindly reply to John Robertson at 8:20 and state your scientific theory the way you say it should be done? I am one of the many who’ve been waiting for a long time. Arm waving, snorting and eye-rolling doesn’t do it for me.
Huh? You seem to have no clue what is happening in countries like Germany and the UK, among many, otherwise you would have never made such a statement (again, assuming you are not a troll). But since you did, would you like to say who in your opinion politicized “Climate Science”?
How do they get away with calling it “a Russian Ice Breaker”??? It’s just an ice strengthened ship. If it was an ice breaker, presumably it wouldn’t have got stuck in the first place.
While the dolts party on, they spare no thoughts for the genuine scientists whose programs have been wrecked this summer by the diverting of the ice-breakers with their unloaded supplies.
Selfish is the word, along with bog-ignorance and underclass form.
Tourney need not return to Australia, and they probably don’t want him back in the UK, either.
He is a blot on Antarctic research.
Philip Tomas (@BadScience) says:
January 1, 2014 at 6:20 pm
I want them all to be safely rescued, by Fulton lift.
—–
It is perfect, “It is only used with dummies except in real emergencies”
jorgekafkazar says:
January 2, 2014 at 12:05 am
This is the most dangerous part of the operation.
Helicopter from ice to ice. I pray it goes well.
Glenn says at January 1, 2014 at 6:07 pm
Which, it seems, doesn’t include me; ah well.
Perhaps, I was too hostile when challenging him to distinguish between science and climatology as practiced by pre-arranged media demonstrations – such as the ship of fools?
The difference between Astrology and Astronomy is that the outcomes are agreed in advance for Astrology but Astronomy lets the evidence lead to hypotheses that are then tested or discarded as the evidence requires. In Astrology all evidence is selected or spun to fit the known outcome – because that outcome is what is wanted.
This ship is following IPCC Climatology – looking for evidence for manmade climate change. Not looking for evidence for natural events because that is not the mandate of the IPCC.
So, Glenn, is IPCC Climatology closer to Astrology or Astronomy?
Me, I think it is pseudo-science and the function of the press corps is the main purpose of this mockery of Mawson.