An Icy Blast Of Scepticism Greets Climate Expedition
Rescuers in Antarctica have safely transferred all 52 passengers stranded on the ice-bound research vessel Akademik Shokalskiy. The Shokalskiy has been trapped since Christmas Eve. Its 22 crew are expected to remain on board to wait until the vessel becomes free. The ice-bound research vessel has been trapped since Christmas Eve. One of the aims is to track how quickly the Antarctic’s sea ice is disappearing. —BBC News, 2 January 2014
Reporting on the environmental movement has always required a certain sense of humor. In an earlier age, explorers who so badly underestimated the expanse of polar ice would surely have perished. But the 74 passengers and crew of the Akademik Shokalskiy are thriving. In this season of new beginnings we have here a chance to appreciate the amazing technologies created by free people. For they allow us to laugh at the folly of our fellow humans, rather than having to mourn their passing. —Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, 2 January 2014
The aim of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, led by Chris Turney of the University of NSW, was to prove the East Antarctic ice sheet is melting. Its website spoke alarmingly of “an increasing body of evidence” showing “melting and collapse from ocean warming”. As they are transferred to sanctuary aboard the icebreaker Aurora Australis, Professor Turney and his fellow evacuees must accept the embarrassing failure of their mission shows how uncertain the science of climate change really is. They cannot reasonably do otherwise. —Editorial, The Australian, 2 January 2013
Climate scientist Chris Turney’s team of embedded global media and paying science-minded tourists has spent the festive season trapped in sea ice instead of exploring what melting ice caps mean for mankind. Turney is lamenting that he has become trapped in his own experiment. But the bottom line is, once again, nature has drifted from the script. Unfortunately for Turney the take-out of the mission for a legion of sceptical bloggers worldwide has been “global warming scientists forced to admit defeat because of too much ice”. –Graham Lloyd, The Australian, 2 January 2014
Who pays for the rescue of the Akademik Shokalskiy? According to the Age: The operators of a ship stricken in the southern ocean are facing a multimillion-dollar expense bill, as a third vessel began a rescue attempt five days after the tourist ship became trapped in sea ice. Under the Treaty of the Safety of Life at Sea, vessels are required to respond to a distress message, with the costs incurred a matter for the ship owners after the event, the AMSA said. These can include fuel costs, crew costs and loss of revenue. –Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 30 December 2013
Winter sea ice cover in the Antarctic has grown to its largest extent since satellite records began in the late 1970s, defying most climate models and muddying the waters of the global warming debate. The data runs contrary to the projections of many climate-change models. Scientists appear unable to definitively explain the phenomenon, but believe increasingly strong winds in Antarctica and an increase in rain and snow on the Southern Ocean are the most likely factors. Some fear the findings may fuel climate-change scepticism, given that sea ice is said to be the “canary in the coalmine” of global warming. –Matthew Denholm, The Australian, 24 October 2013
Thanks to The GWPF and Dr. Benny Peiser for the compilation
The spin; Turney a modern day Hans Solo? Climate ‘expert’ Chris Turney exposes/blames frozen conditions on big oil villain’s super-secret carbonite machine.
Meanwhile, back in the real world — December 31,2013, six days after the ship of fools were locked in ice, global sea ice area was the largest ever recorded. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/02/december-31-global-sea-ice-area-was-the-largest-ever-recorded/
The BBC News this morning featured this rescue and their resident Climate expert explained how they got stuck in the Ice, it was because the weather and the ice flow was Weird, Very, Very Weird.
ie extreme weather due to Climate change, they will never admit the facts.
‘Why were they rescued at all? Were they in imminent danger? The crew seems to be fine to stay on the ship until it is freed of ice. Why couldn’t somebody have air-dropped a load of supplies and said see you in the spring?’
Great point!
Never mind, the BBC here in the UK has already started the whitewash. This afternoon’s 1pm news programme ‘The World At One’ led-off with this story and then handed the mic to a CAGW zealot to remind us all – entirely uninterrupted – that this was a ‘highly professional scientific expedition’ doing ‘important work for the future of the planet’. She also managed to slip in a few sneering comments disparaging the critics of this ill-fated Antarctic adventure on the twittersphere.
The BBC has never been one to allow any of the actual facts get in the way of the their agreed narrative when it comes to climate change. Must be that famous BBC ‘impartiality’ at work again.
For some real entertainment, the Guardian has decided that attack is the best form of defense. Take a look at the comments!
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/02/antarctic-ship-stranding-delights-climate-change-sceptics
DirkH
January 2, 2014 at 7:07 am
James Madison is considered the architect of the U.S. Constitution (although Alexander Hamilton may have guided him a bit). He wrote that a pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction; a common interest or passion would be felt by the majority and in a democracy there was nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party. He wrote that, as a result, democracies were as short in their lives as they were violent in their deaths.
Following Jefferson, Madison went on to become President of the United States.
I wonder if this fiasco in the Antarctic is an example of democracy at work in science: the democracy Madison warned against. We always [hear] about “the majority of scientists agree.” If science has adopted democracy, in place of replicable experiment, as its guiding light, then perhaps this outcome at the South Pole was inevitable
jaymam says:
January 2, 2014 at 6:53 am
…not once in that report did the ABC mention “global warming” or “climate change” or even “climate scientists”. It did everything humanly possible to cover up the most embarrassing PR disaster in years for the global warming movement.”
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Ditto the BBC TV news at lunchtime today. There was a film from their on-board propagandist which said nothing at all about the purpose of the trip and only in the studio intro and outro was the ship referred to merely as a “Russian research” vessel. This conveniently suggested to the unwary that the research was Russian and omitted any mention of climate at all.
The best arguments against democracy are found in its origins as argued by Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies and the subsequent and more focussed The Poverty of Historicism. Remember that Popper’s next previous masterwork was The Logic of Scientific Discovery here on point.
Popper’s jeremiad begins with notice of Plato’s mistranslation, that led to Hegel’s failed syllogistic dialectic, that gave us Marx’s woeful errors. Historicism is the fallacy that history is premise to a logic-like syllogism and necessary conclusions.
Dr Turney, the first well documented occurrence of a “Tourist Scientist”.
@RockyRoad
I really hope that wasn’t a type “scientits” is the best name for them
Gary says:
January 2, 2014 at 7:22 am
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I think you are being far too charitable. They are already trying to spin it into a success story. The pressure should not come off for them or anyone supporting them. Too many free passes have been given in the last 20 years.
Oh goody, they have been extracted off of the boat. I see that CNN continues the propaganda…. It is not until you get to the end of the article when you find out why they are there (if you can sift it out from the muted tone)…. “Turney’s expedition to gauge the effects of climate change on the region began on November 27.”
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/02/world/antarctica-ship-stuck/
We came
We saw
We got stuck in 🙂
Alok Jha tweeted about an hour ago that the crew had been rescued. I think he actually means the Guardian crew because the link in the tweet goes to a Guardian blog page showing a video of the second (of 5) helicopter arrivals at the Aurora saying that party included him and Topham. A bit strange though to say the crew has been rescued when he’s been referring to the 22-strong Shokalskiy crew as the crew.
Anyway, if you scroll to the next story, he asks the resident Scientist from the Shokalskiy to pronounce on whether she thinks the rescue had any impact on other science in Antarctica due to the Aurora’s diversion. Despite the widely reported disgust of the scientists at [Casey], she said the effect would be minimal. I’m so glad to know that. Thanks for sharing your superior expertise with us. I’ll take the Casey statement with a pinch of salt in that case.
Just a small note: Does everyone know that Turney and his family have heavily and mightily invested in a ‘Green’ company Carbonscape. Everything he says can be viewed as conflict of interest. BUT the second irony is Carbonscape makes charcoal and sells it as Green Charcoal with magic C02 sequestration properties, and since they use microwaves to make it, less C02 was used to make it so it is a better charcoal to burn on your barbie than others!
Whoops! Casey, not Calgary. Got it right second time.
Let the spin begin!
“Our global warming climate expedition was a great success. We discovered where the heat is missing.”
@MangoChutney
I would go with “scientwists” in terms of their public utterances. But “scientits” fits nicely too.
I’m glad to see that their iceolation ended with no injuries.
Now, who foots the bill for all the rescue attempts?
@Stacy
And on the concensus
“I came, I saw, I concurred”
RichardLH says:
January 2, 2014 at 7:50 am
Dr Turney, the first well documented occurrence of a “Tourist Scientist”.
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Considering how close Turney came to getting a whole bunch of people killed, he qualifies as a “tourist fool”.
MangoChutney says:
January 2, 2014 at 7:50 am
Must have been a Freudian slip, although they do suck on the teat of governmental largess.
And it’s a big largess, if you catch my drift.
This comment from the ‘Academic Saul Alinsky’ on why he gave up being a professional archaeologist during the Depression may point to the future career prospects of Prof. Turney.
‘Archaeologists were in about as much demand as horses and buggies. All the guys who funded the field trips were being scraped off Wall Street sidewalks.’
The fact that the crew stayed on is a good indicator. On the trips in to pick up the bone heads the helicopter took supplies for the crew of the Russian vessel so they can stay with their stuck vessel for some time. And the fact that the crew stayed on indicates that the vessel is still considered sea worthy and safe. This despite the reports of some damage caused by the ice and an expressed fear of icebergs in the vicinity before. Now I have a few questions.
Apparently the Chinese Ice breaker is also stuck now so is the USCG Ice breaker Polar Star going to try and free the two vessels when it gets to the vicinity in 8 days or so?
And who the heck is going to pay for the rescue? And will there not be other legal/financial repercussions since both Ice breakers involved were interrupted in the primary missions by the distress call there by impacting other research projects down there?
And exactly what were the circumstances that led to a ship with radar, GPS, and near real time satellite imagery getting caught in a sea ice flow?
I find it interesting to consider that it could be years before the ship is freed.
After,all, it is mid-summer, only a couple of months from the nadir of sea ice for the Antarctic, and current prospects for freeing this ship are poor. When the fall weather sets in, in about March, the sea ice around the ship will begin to thicken, extend in surface area, and become ever more impervious to the ice-breaker ships. This ship could become a semi-permanent monument to Man’s folly (or is that “Mann’s folly”?).