UPDATE: Perhaps the headline was premature, the latest SITREP from the rescue ship Aurora Australis indicates they are having some trouble getting into open water.
UPDATE2: It seems the cause of getting stuck was nothing more than dawdling while sightseeing.
Since the Guardian reporters shown above probably won’t do anything but complain about beds and lack of milkshakes (that video has now been “disappeared”) while writing glowing reports about the “adventure” of it all, it will be left to others to ask the tough questions. Now that they are on their way to Casey Station in Antarctica, Andrew Bolt starts off with these questions. I have a few of my own.
- Who paid for this expedition?
- How did the expedition team come to include Turney’s wife and two young children?
- How serious was this scientific endeavor?
- Was the choice of ship wise, given it is not an icebreaker?
- How did the ship, in these days of satellite imaging, high quality weather forecasts and radar, come to get stuck in ice?
- How much did the rescue cost?
- Who pays for this rescue?
- Why have the ABC and Fairfax media, so keen at first to announce this expedition was to measure the extent and effects of global warming, since omitted that fact from their reports after the expedition became ice-bound?
- Why have all those reports – and the expedition leader himself – neglected to mention that sea ice around Antarctica has increased over the past three decades – and is greater than the ice cover Douglas Mawson found a century ago?
I have these questions:
- Who pays for the trip back to Australia once they get let off at Casey Station?
- How much damage has this fiasco done to real science expeditions in Antarctica, not only from a delayed logistics standpoint, but also from PR standpoint?
- Why did the stranded ship reach out for weather forecasts and data when they should have been equipped for this in the first place?
- Who will be responsible if the ship ends up being stuck in ice permanently or gets its hull crushed and sinks?
- What will be the duties and fate of the crew left behind?
- Who funded the ARGO ATV’s after Turney’s Indiegogo crowdsourcing campaign failed miserably? Do those people get a refund?
- Why would Turney book this ship when it has only the barest of ratings for sea ice?
UL = Ice strengthening notation of the ship (independent navigation in the Arctic in summer and autumn in light ice conditions and in the non-arctic freezing seas all the year round) More on ratings here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/icebreakers-class.htm
8. Was Turney mislead about the intensity of the ice by his own beliefs that Antarctic sea ice was melting?
9. Did the sightseeing excursion to Mawson’s Huts on December 19th and again on Dec 23rd (apparently to Mertz Glacier, though their blog and “tracker” are unclear on this point) cause delays that caused the ship to be trapped in rapidly changing weather which closed the sea ice around them?
10. Apparently the crew of the Akademik Shokalskiy spoke next to zero English, did this communications barrier contribute to the situation? Was Turney warned that the weather and wind were changing while the second Mawson’s Huts sightseeing tour was in progress, and if he was were those warnings understood/heeded?
11. Why did the ship have a mix of tourists and media when it was pitched as a “scientific expedition”?
5 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.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3898858.htm
Related articles
- Expedition On The Cheap? Did Organizers Recklessly, Negligently Put Lives And Property At Risk? (notrickszone.com)
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Let’s hope James Cameron learns a lesson from this fiasco before he puts A-list actors and actresses in harm’s way during his quest to the Artic to convince us climate change is our fault.
The Akademik Shokalsky was built in 1982 in Finland for polar and oceanographic research and has UL ice class. The vessel dimensions allows it to sail where larger ships couldn’t not pass. The vessel takes 46 passengers for the Arctic’s campaigns and the 48 passengers on cruises to Antarctica. The ship has 26 cabins with sea views. It has passed several upgrades and alterations.
(wiki in russian)
Tim Ball says:
January 2, 2014 at 9:08 am
The irony is that the fools who claim human CO2 is causing warming and melting Antarctic ice were rescued by a helicopter from a Chinese ice breaker. China is the largest producer of CO2 and building coal plants rapidly to produce more.
————–
Absolutely, and the Ship was Russian built as was the helicopter and the Russians are drilling for oil where? The Arctic !! in exactly the same spot as where the Greenpeace fools were detained. It could not be more ironic.
@ur momisugly Bob Webber
Let’s hope not!
That’s it! And it still ‘plays’ here!
.
@Man Bearpig –
The skillz (and time) aren’t there at the moment, but how is this?
https://twitter.com/SemperBanU/status/418817075507761152
Had the dorkish looking Prof Chris(mas) Turkey any competence at all in organising such an expedition?
I guess you need a fair amount bureaucratic oganisational ability to run a university faculty, but he does not look like someone with much extreme sports or outdoor experience.
For a start he seems to have got the map upside down with respect to what he believed was happening to sea ice.
oooooops.
Mas Irony.
https://twitter.com/SemperBanU/status/418817858513010688
For a moving tale of a real expedition in this area I highly recommend:
South: The Story Of Shackelton’s 1914-1917 Expedition
By Sir Earnest Henry Shackelton
You can get it free for your Kindle.
Lubos fun
http://motls.blogspot.fr/2014/01/my-antarctic-diary.html
This is getting hilarious, Canadian CBC, which is on the same biased level as ABC, BBC put an adjusted news report on the so called rescue of course leaving out the details but it is the comment section that is very interesting. The tide, or ice, is indeed changing.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/akademik-shokalskiy-passengers-rescued-1.2481414?cmp=rss
I can comment on the suitability – or otherwise – of the Shokalsky, as I have travelled to the Antarctic on a sister ship, the Professor Khromov, which is chartered by Heritage Expeditions of Christchurch, NZ, on an annual basis for exploration voyages, including at least two Ross Sea voyages each year.
The Shokalsky was previously chartered by Heritage, before they settled on the Khromov, and is entirely suitable for Antarctic voyages – provided it is not required to be used as a proper icebreaker: it is ice-strengthened only. On our Khromov voyage we were able to get right through the McMurdo ice channel, by breaking through a thin barrier of old sea ice which had blocked the channel after the departure of the US-chartered Swedish icebreaker which had formed, and kept open, the channel for the large cargo and tanker vessels which resupply the US McMurdo Station and NZ’s Scott Base. We then returned through the ice channel. and came back in again – the master said our three passes through the ice channel would be sufficient to keep it open for 24 hours, and his judgement was spot on – the channel was beginning to refreeze as we sailed out after visiting Scott Base, McMurdo Station, and Scott’s Discovery Hut at Hut Point.
The Russian master of the Khromov was a vastly experienced ice master, and I have no doubt that the master of the Shokalsky would be equally experienced (the Shokalsky has been used regularly for tourist voyages to the Antarctic Peninsula in recent years). I think the comments above by Clovis Marcus and Richard Verney would be right on the button about the problem faced by the Shokalsky’s master, in the light of the expedition’s determination to reach the Mawson Huts with a small and select group (notably including the expedition leader).
Some mentioned earlier about Aus Freedom of information. If this jaunt was paid for by the tax payer, then surely the charter agreement and all other documents about this jaunt will be available and could be in public domain before the ‘fools’ even reach land. Any people from Aus here that can do that?
Well, they better hope it comes ‘free’ from the ice before March 21, otherwise it will be mor elikely to become yet another ‘ghost’ ship trapped (or crushed) by ice as the Antarctic enters fall/winter.
Aren’t communications with harbor pilots normally done in English? There had to be someone on the crew with a working knowledge of English.
Who would have though that, back in the 1990s, pop-synth band Erasure would get it so right with their hit ‘Ship of Fools’? I love the line: “he really didn’t know that one and one are two, and two and two are four.” What a perfect summary of post-modern science.
Chris Turney @ProfChrisTurney
We’ve made it to the Aurora australis safe & sound. A huge thanks to the Chinese & @AusAntarctic for all their hard work! #spiritofmawson
Alok Jha @alokjha
To the crew of Aurora Australis + Xue Long – heartfelt thanks from all on the Shokalskiy. We know how far out of your way you all went (1/2)
Not a word of thanks or recognition to the poor bastards who have to stay stuck aboard a icebound ship, living with the increasing risk these halfwits are glad to be running away from.
Do they blame the russian crew for getting them stuck or are they just so full of self-pity that they forget those who do not get airlifted to safey and have to deal with a problem which is far from over.
Charlie Johnson (@SemperBanU) says:
January 2, 2014 at 10:53 am
@Man Bearpig –
The skillz (and time) aren’t there at the moment, but how is this?
—
Thank you Charlie, I should buy Photoshop and learn how to do that 🙂 but then there would be another program stuck on this computer that I would not know how to work.
The biggest question for me is how immoral do these propagandists have to be to endanger the ship and crew like they did, then abandon them to their fate?
“Clovis Marcus says:
The headline is very misleading. It’s very important to remember the crew are still out there. I’m hoping for a quick thaw so they can get out soon.
The activists and media will be dead keen to divert you from the fact both the ship and crew are still stuck. I bet the rescue attempts decline now the celebs are off.”
Yes, absolutely. We will remember here that there are still 22 crew aboard the stricken vessel. If they can’t be freed any time soon there is a real danger that the hull could be crushed – there are more than enough historical precedents for that kind of mishap. Our thought should now be with the crew and I’m sure I speak for all when I wish them well and hope for a safe resolution.
No surprise at all to see the ‘scientists’ scarper back to safety at the first opportunity – thank god for those nasty, petrol-fuelled helos, eh? Shambolic and shameful.
Anthony I trust you and your colleagues will keep a ‘weather’ eye on the situation and doubtless continue to offer any data assistance you can to the remaining crew? I fear they may need all the help they can get.
I can anwer number seven.
The ice is melting in Antarctica, so you don’t need an ice rated ship.
SAB says:
January 2, 2014 at 9:49 am
Further to my suggestion (on a previous thread) to award a prize for the least likely/ most original CAGW-compliant explanation of these events. Perhaps we could help – how about a thread composed entirely of helpful efforts of our own. It would save the MSM/ activist community some time, they could just refer to it and choose the one that most appealed.
Paradoxical ice can’t be too hard to deal with, surely? I challenge those more knowledgeable than me, to come up with ten truly distinct get-out-of-jail cards, put them into the public domain, and demand that the CAGW lot try to demolish them (in favour of their own ideas, of course)..
Stuart B
__________________________________
Howdy Stuart,
There are some number of “Climate Firemen” who have been dispatched around the web to counter the ridicule and hard data contrariness that’s surrounded this event.
1) Many claims have been made around the web which seem based on an old study and some have even linked directly to an old post over at SKS, citing as proof proof that warming seas cause more ice. SKS based their article on a model- coupled- to- model study (Zhang, 2007) which makes that claim. Here’s the SKS link:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Why-is-Antarctic-sea-ice-increasing.html
Here’s (Zhang, 2007): http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_20-11-2515.pdf
2) Right here on WUWT, a new troll (Glenn) popped up on an earlier thread and gave the following excuse:
“It is conceivable that melt coming in from different points along the Antarctic coast is getting carried around and freezing only in certain localized areas where the conditions are ideal, and not freezing elsewhere. I don’t know if this is happening but it is not as ridiculous a hypothesis as you are assuming.” http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/30/the-antarctic-research-fiasco-would-you-could-you-in-a-boat/#comment-1520787
From NewsBusters:
Frozen Out: 98% of Stories Ignore That Ice-bound Ship Was On Global Warming Mission
By Mike Ciandella | January 2, 2014 | 12:43
A group of climate change scientists were rescued by helicopter Jan. 2, after being stranded in the ice since Christmas morning. But the majority of the broadcast networks’ reports about the ice-locked climate researchers never mentioned climate change.
The Russian ship, Akademic Shokalskiy, was stranded in the ice while on a climate change research expedition, yet nearly 98 percent of network news reports about the stranded researchers failed to mention their mission at all. Forty out of 41 stories (97.5 percent) on the network morning and evening news shows since Dec. 25 failed to mention climate change had anything to do with the expedition.
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mike-ciandella/2014/01/02/frozen-out-98-stories-ignore-ice-bound-ship-was-global-warming-missi#ixzz2pGsJ5Vr1
Hi Anthony
I’d add back in the possible conflict of interest of Carbonscape, Crowdsourced by several commenters in the initial thread.
Justa Joe says:
December 31, 2013 at 8:22 am
“This guy has some disturbing conflicts of interest that may have led him to inadvertently cause this massive crisis. It seems fairly obvious that this Antarctic PR tour was planned to promote his side venture in Carbonscape. It’s in Turkey’s best interest to call everything “climate change.” This guy needs to be called on the carpet by authorities in Australia.
Bishophill comments
@Paul Matthews – Dec 31, 2013 at 10:37 AM
” ……expedition leader Turney …has set up a carbon capture company”
Interestingly, JoNova commenter redress December 31, 2013 at 8:51 am · discovered Prof Turney decided to ‘hide/disguise’ his direct involvement by having family, rather than himself, as named shareholders:-
The Carbonscape Holdings share registry. There is a total of 29,553,564 shares on record for this company.
Catherine Ann TURNEY, Ian Stewart TURNEY, LATIMER TRUSTEES 2006 LIMITED 4,730,880 shares ~ 16.01%
Christian Stewart Macgregor TURNEY 382,400 shares ~ 1.29%
James TURNEY 290,581 shares ~ 0.98%
Tim FLANNERY 159,733 shares ~ 0.54%
Directors/ Officers
Nicholas Harold GERRITSEN, director, 10 Dec 2006-
Timothy John LANGLEY, director, 22 Jul 2007-
inactive Benjamin Pak-ping CHEN, director, 28 Nov 2011-
inactive Michael Robert ASHBURN, director, 10 May 2012-
inactive Raf MANJI, director, 28 Oct 2012-
Christian Stewart Macgregor TURNEY, director, 28 Oct 2012-
Company Type: NZ Limited Company
Jurisdiction: New Zealand
In USA SEC would probably take a look but this is NZ.
Eric
Who paid for this expedition? *Taxs pairs do
1. How did the expedition team come to include Turney’s wife and two young children?
*Turner did, the idiote would like to show there is no danger.
2. How serious was this scientific endeavor?
*Serious, the rented a ship to look how littel ice there is. They could easeyer look at some sat photo.
3. Was the choice of ship wise, given it is not an icebreaker?
*There is no need for an ice breaker becaus there is no ice
4. How did the ship, in these days of satellite imaging, high quality weather forecasts and radar, come to get stuck in ice?
*Like 3 there is no ice and also there where climate scientist. They do know nothing
5. How much did the rescue cost?
*To much, but why bother you cone pay cheap or not.
6. Who pays for this rescue?
*Try the tax payer
7. Why have the ABC and Fairfax media, so keen at first to announce this expedition was to measure the extent and effects of global warming, since omitted that fact from their reports after the expedition became ice-bound?
*It was to show how little ice there was because of global warming. Theywhere wrong but to stupid to ed mid they are wrong.
8. Why have all those reports – and the expedition leader himself – neglected to mention that sea ice around Antarctica has increased over the past three decades – and is greater than the ice cover Douglas Mawson found a century ago?
*He is a climate scientist showing and shouting the earth is warming. He is to stupid to look at the data, to stupid to ed mid he is wrong but whats more. He is to stupid to see when the game is over. He and others still believe in global warming.
I have these questions:
1. Who pays for the trip back to Australia once they get let off at Casey Station?
*The tax payer.
2. How much damage has this fiasco done to real science expeditions in Antarctica, not only from a delayed logistics standpoint, but also from PR standpoint?
*Non what so ever its due to climate change, the ice extent comes from global warming. And they keep believing that.
3. Why did the stranded ship reach out for weather forecasts and data when they should have been equipped for this in the first place?
*They are to stupid to work the equipment and they don’t believe the results because of there global warming circle.
4. Who will be responsible if the ship ends up being stuck in ice permanently or gets its hull crushed and sinks?
*The children for fooling whit the gps.
5. What will be the duties and fate of the crew left behind?
*Do nothing, pray every thing will be alright and shout to the media its all dandy.
6. Who funded the ARGO ATV’s after Turney’s Indiegogo crowdsourcing campaign failed miserably? Do those people get a refund?
*The tax payers and no tax payers don’t get refunds.
7. Why would Turney book this ship when it has only the barest of ratings for sea ice?
Akademik Shokalskiy: UL
Xue Long: B1
Aurora Australis: A1
UL = Ice strengthening notation of the ship (independent navigation in the Arctic in summer and autumn in light ice conditions and in the non-arctic freezing seas all the year round) More on ratings here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/icebreakers-class.htm
*He in its stupid way believe still there is no ice.
8. Was Turney mislead about the intensity of the ice by his own beliefs that Antarctic sea ice was melting?
*Yes he is and yes he will be still after this.
9. Did the sightseeing excursion to Mawson’s Huts on December 19th and again on Dec 23rd (apparently to Mertz Glacier, though their blog and “tracker” are unclear on this point) cause delays that caused the ship to be trapped in rapidly changing weather which closed the sea ice around them?
*Yes because the weather could not change so hard because it would be warming.
10. Apparently the crew of the Akademik Shokalskiy spoke next to zero English, did this communications barrier contribute to the situation? Was Turney warned that the weather and wind was changing while the second Mawson’s Huts sightseeing tour was in progress, and if he was were those warnings understood/heeded?
*Even if the English was good Turner wouldn’t believe it any way.
11. Why did the ship have a mix of tourists and media when it was pitched as a “scientific expedition”?
*Nothing nicer PR wise then a ship full believers to show how you proof global warming is there and the ice is serious melting.