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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I guess these people are not going to get the warmest of welcomes at Casey Base when they arrive since their idiocy interrupted the re-supply of the base.
Incidentally, how about Turney’s blooper in his re-hashed advertisement for punters – promising “hours of complete darkness” at a time when the sun never sets…
Crosspatch,
See my post above at 09.11
Neil from NZ,
At last someone with experience of these waters and knowledge of the vessel. Thanks.
Great link re. crew from Ruth Dixon. (9.21am). Sums up the ‘scientists’ exactly.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live/video/2013/dec/25/mawsons-huts-journey-antarctica-video
They had to make an arduous DRIVE of 65 km to get to Mawsons Huts. I wonder what fuel they used. You just can’t make this stuff up. Unbelievable, eh?
re: Neil from NZ says January 2, 2014 at 11:08 am
Thank you for posting your account of first-person experience on the same type ship, Neil.
.
5. Who applied/approved a research grant for an expedition to explore global warming and the effect of receding sea ice in a region cooling for 30 years and with increasing sea ice ?
TinyCO2 says at January 2, 2014 at 10:31 am… I like that. Perhaps it was just a tourist trip with “scientists” performing the role of lounge singers and salsa dancers.
Except that Turney appeared on BBC Radio 4 before he went adventuring in order to extol the virtues of Mawson (which are real) and then to proclaim that this venture would honour him.
It didn’t, by the way.
And I think it was meant to honour Turney.
My turn for a question:
1. did they see Aurora (apart from the icebreaker) as anounced in the itinerary
(my old man almost peed himself laughing at the prospect of seeing any)
Bonus question:
2. why am I not surprised at vanishing internet contents
(I already urged to keep storing bits and pieces for safekeeping, as those people are definitely going to reverse a story and continue being mainstream consensus lot)
OLD DATA says
January 2, 2014 at 10:01 am
—-
Great article.
What a world it is when Pravda, has such articles of integrity and the BBC is the purveyor of lies and propaganda.
Ballad of the Global Warming Titanic
by John Hayward 2 Jan 2014, 8:37 AM PDT
http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2014/01/02/Ballad-of-the-Global-Warming-Titanic
97.5 percent. Does that % have a familiar ring to it?
Good report here about the MSM:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mike-ciandella/2014/01/02/frozen-out-98-stories-ignore-ice-bound-ship-was-global-warming-missi
They didn’t need to consult weather or ice forecasts, because there’s an overwhelming scientific consensus that Antarctic waters are more ice-free than ever.
It’s summer. Why didn’t they wait for the ice to melt?
Originally the word pilgrimage meant the journey to a site of religious significance. To Canterbury to see the remains of a Saint, or Lourdes to the site of a visitation of the Virgin. To this day the greatest pilgrimage in the world is undoubtedly to the Islamic holy place of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Middle class Warmists, and the ‘priests’ of their religion; tax payer funded researchers and journalists naturally desire to travel to places where their Faith will be confirmed and renewed.
Antarctica is such a place.
Global Warming is a religion…we shouldn’t be surprised when its adherents act like the followers of any other religion.
Has Eric Steig made any media appearances regarding the ship of fools?
Question 15
If the australian Carbon tax delayed global warming in 2100 by 22 seconds(insert proper number of seconds here)
How many seconds did this trip plus rescue bring it forward ?
And how many more of these carbon disasters can the planet cope with ?
“””””…..Steve from Rockwood says:
January 2, 2014 at 10:25 am
I certainly wouldn’t bring my wife and 2 kids into such a potentially dangerous area. Maybe my mother-in-law… This strongly suggests they saw the adventure but did not understand the potential danger……””””””
Seems reminiscent of “Jurassic Park” where the idio-maniac promoter, lets his equally stupid grandchildren go out hunting for a T-Rex , with a great big flashlight to get its attention. Then when it finally pushes them over a cliff to safety in a tree, they elect to climb down the tree directly underneath the car, so it can land on them, when it falls out of the tree.
I can attest to the fact that pedestrians really do run down the road directly in front of pursuing cars, just like they show in all the, shot in San Francisco movies. Well some of them prefer getting hit by the trunk of the car, so they cross the parking lot directly behind the car that is backing out, so the driver won’t know what that thunk! was.
Charles Darwin, wrote a book all about critters that give the finger to that buzzing rain cloud overhead, and also the ones that took their place.
We shouldn’t sink to the CAGW advocates’ level and call them fools like they call people deniers. As all the information comes out about the expedition it will do a sufficient job of painting a picture of the competence of the expeditioners….
No doubt the vast majority involved will have exactly the same first order of business: “get someplace warm.”
Lol.
Regarding the question “why were there tourists on board?”
I’ve read in another forum, that it is very difficult to obtain a permit to travel to Antarctica if you want to bring in tourists. but very easy if you claim to make a scientific trip. So you can sell your “scientific trip” for lots of money to paying tourists, that otherwise can’t visit Antarctica.
So their “tourist business” is in a very gray area
WeatherOrNot says:
January 2, 2014 at 12:24 pm
_________________
I call Bull $4!+ for your entire post.
Good questions. Answers will be forthcoming about the same time the Benghazi answers arrive. Probably from the same source as well.
Oxyartes:
Here are the Key obligations on organisers and operators as defined in the Australian Government Visitor Guidelines:
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/tourism/visitor-guidelines
•Provide prior notification of, and reports on, their activities to the competent authorities of the appropriate Party or Parties.
•Conduct an assessment of the potential environmental impacts of their planned activities.
•Provide for effective response to environmental emergencies, especially with regard to marine pollution.
•Ensure self-sufficiency and safe operations.
•Respect scientific research and the Antarctic environment, including restrictions regarding protected areas, and the protection of flora and fauna.
•Prevent the disposal and discharge of prohibited waste.
The tourism excuse for the non-scientists looks a bit weak.
I hope some mainstream media and public come to realize that these are the “scientists” that are force feeding us all this propaganda about climate change and that they must be scrutinized in some fashion.
Frozen, stuffed turkey is always a “must have” item at Christmas.
However, it is not often that such turkeys come with a Ph.D and are professors in Climate Change!
I have no choice but to name next year’s gobbler “Chris Turney”.
Oh, how I larfed!