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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Is a Turney a climate study that boomerangs on you?
ktwop says: @ur momisugly January 2, 2014 at 9:51 am
A Ship of Fools or a Ship of Wimps, or both?
If the crew can remain on board and there was no shortage of provisions…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The helicopter could have dropped a care package of Chinese emergency rations and saved a lot of people a lot of trouble. /snark
Some folks say that the cAGW is a religious cult. Others say it is a massive fraud for money, position, and prestige. Still others say it is the effect of a modern “science” that has lost its way due to over reliance on computer modeling. I see a bit of all of that in the cAGW scam. But I really do think that funding of science by the government though its various means is the single most detrimental aspect of the whole affair. The State funds science and gets back what it wants to hear — that strong governmental control of the economy is critical to saving human existence. It is no coincidence that James Hansen of NSA led the way in “adjusting” past temperatures to make the past look colder and the present look warmer.
A crowd funded and run data set of temperatures that is not fudged to yield predetermined results would be most welcome. Too bad it will probably never come to pass.
Gobsmacked of Gippsland says:
January 2, 2014 at 12:44 pm
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!
______________________
They’d expected Christmas Turkey
All they got was one big goose
Comrades, do not believe reports in capitalist media. Lies by decadent Vesterners. This scientific research by People’s Scientific Academy is glorious discovery of new continent. Inhabitants form communes as proved by dialectical analysis by Academicians. Propose to call these inhabitants ‘penguins’.
I raised this issue some weeks ago when the Aurora Australis was ice bound on its first resupply mission to Davis base losing a massive 3 weeks from its precious Antarctic Summer timetable.
But now I would imagine the Australian Antarctic Division programmers have just about torn their hair out as the rest of the season’s shipping schedule must now be in tatters.
The issue is “Is recent record Antarctic sea ice the “new norm?”
I recall Greens leader Christine Milne and climate scientist Will Steffen falling over each other in their haste to get in front of a TV camera to pronounce early bush fires were now the “new norm” after a spell of hot dry weather combined with some high winds and some careless Army activity and shoddy power line maintenance resulted in some devastating wild fires in the Blue Mountains NSW.
However they have been completely missing in action over Antarctic sea ice.
Surely the question must be asked if higher sea ice in the Antarctic is the “new norm” planners must now take this into account when developing timetables for summer resupply shipping and other miscellaneous jollies such as the MV Akademik Shokalskiy fiasco.
Just check the funding.
If it was all privately funded, there’s no complaint you can make. Everyone has a perfect right to do stupid things with their money.
If, however, there was BBC funding, or some other grant or university funding, then you can certainly ask questions intended to ascertain whether this was a right and proper use of taxpayer funds, and whether due care and attention was paid to the dangers…
BBC’s reporting of above fiasco:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25573096
“Despite being trapped, the scientists continued their experiments, measuring temperature and salinity through cracks in the surrounding ice.
One of the aims was to track how quickly the Antarctic’s sea ice was disappearing”
How fast the ice is disappearing? Are you kidding me?
Propaganda at its most in your face and up-is-down, war-is-peace as you can get.
Maybe only Brit’s ‘ll see this as an attempt at levity – but Prof Turney has collaborated with Baldrick in the past – ‘ere… I’ve got this cunning plan…. really, I do
I have my own question:
Did the Guardian’s Laurence Topham reach for a banana or for a peanut butter milk shake first?
This old Coast Guard Icebreaker hand says, now if they had the Mighty USCGC Eastwind, no problem. Anything less than 17 ft thick fine with us. Unfortunately I’m using my old ship as razor blades, Progress ?
Credit where credit is due, when a PR genius talent like Prof. Turney creates a vision that is at once timeless and unforgettable . Truly one of the iconic images of CAGW will in future years come to be seen as “Baghdad Chris” Turney, blogging around the world from the ice-bound deck of the Academic Shokalskiy, “The sea ice is disappearing due to climate change.”
Mods
For the fourth or fifth time in a row (on different threads of course) my perfectly ordinary comment has been sent off to moderation. Perhaps it is because I log in using my wordpress.com account? (but why does any comment I make that starts with “mods” always get published right away?) I think I am getting too old to figure out the Zen of the net. 🙂
hmmm…another possible excuse for the warmies –
“The science is (has) settled
….
around our ship”….
A couple more questions. How much fuel did they use and the cost? Further, how much pollution does this emit in a very pristine environment? For what?
markstoval says:
January 2, 2014 at 1:08 pm
“For the fourth or fifth time in a row…”
“I think I am getting too old to figure out the Zen of the net.”
__________________________________
I wasn’t going to say that.
Really.
Typo: “Was Turney mislead…”
Was Turney misled
GAZ says:
January 2, 2014 at 1:03 pm
I have my own question:
Did the Guardian’s Laurence Topham reach for a banana or for a peanut butter milk shake first?
Just a whinging pom.
translation: term ‘a whinging pom’ describe a person of British origin who will insistently complain about any situation that they may face.
y brain went into overdrive thinking on the Clitanticdisaster as a pantomime so I dumped my ravings. songs & sketches & notes, Show Title : Title Jack-in-the-Green-Talk on ice
Here : http://www.bishop-hill.net/discussion/post/2266326
The ship Akademik S from pictures seem to be somewhat tilted. Ship in trouble could explain the evacuation hurriness. If the ship was ok they could have waited, still two months left of melt season and winds would have dispersed the ice eventually.
Prof. Turney in a collaboration with Dr. Gerghis will undoubtedly publish important scientific discoveries made on this bold journey.
“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”
We can be sure that this Turkey Turney character has read enough of these stories of polar explorers to have come to the conclusion that the hardships of these ventures are what makes for the status of hero.
Here’s where it turns pathological- =
Subconsciously, he had the kernel of thought, that if and when the trip were to run into some sort of life threatening episode, he too could go down in history as a legend of polar exploration. Possibly they could go ashore, leaving the ship waiting for an extended period
-then when the global warming melted the ice, the ice would paradoxically surround the boat.
Then, if the ship were to steam off, for fear of impending Global Warming meltoff-and refreeze –they could be stranded to freeze and die heroically for their cause!! – All the while leaving behind diary blogs of their plight.
Sort of a MSbProxie -= becomes MSbpsGWP –Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxie .
Munchausen’s Syndrome by pseudo-scientific Global Warming Proxie
It is not uncommon for the Munchausen types to even put the lives of their own children at risk.
What a bigger polar explorer he would have been if this had turned into threat of a grisly scene -combining the scenes of the outcome of Jonesville with the scene at the summit of Mt Everest, which is still littered with hundreds of frozen corpses.–
And then brazenly to make videos of it happening while giving it the twist of how brave they are singing and boozing like kids on Spring Break .
MSbP perpetrators are willing to fulfill their need for positive attention by hurting even their own child(ren), thereby assuming the sick role by proxy. At times, as on this “trapped in the ice by Global Warming”, they are also able to assume the hero role and garner still more positive attention, by appearing to care for and save their child (along with the drunken childlike tourists).
In http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/30/the-antarctic-research-fiasco-would-you-could-you-in-a-boat/#comment-1519771
there is a great comment/explanation that I think should be kept in the face of the
MSM and others who keep pushing the idea that this ice formation was “weather”,
“wind”, “luck”, “unexpected” or other drivel. The conditions are known to be hazardous
and well out of the range of “normal” even when normal….
Also need to keep reminding MSM & co. about the 22 brave souls still aboard the ship.
Even though it’s their job, it’s no picnic even in the best of times. Tacky indeed if Turney
and his lot didn’t mention them at all, let alone thank them…
“Aphan says:
December 31, 2013 at 10:08 pm
Here’s a problem I have with the whole thing.
In 2010, the Mertz glacier tongue (the part that sticks out into the sea when a glacier reaches the shore and keeps going) was broken off by a huge iceberg called B09B, that had been “nudging” and battering into the side of the Mertz tongue for almost 18 years. The debris along with the remains of B09B moved north and west into Commonwealth Bay-where Mawson’s expedition base camp was. They filled in and froze in the bay three years ago. Satellite images captured the whole event beautifully.
The captain of the ship KNEW this because the ship/cruise ships webpage states that it cannot promise any passengers that they would make it to land to visit Mawson’s huts/camp due to the passage being blocked by ice and the iceberg, and it being summer and all, the ice might not be safe to travel across.
Now, the Mertz tongue had FORMERLY kept random sea ice chunks from entering the bay. It acted as a sort of “shield” and deflected anything floating out and around it into open water. Prior to 2010, getting into Mawson’s Commonwealth Bay was fairly easy to do in the summer without encountering a lot of ice at all.
But for THREE years, scientists, anyone who checks a satellite image once in a while, or reads an occasional article on the area, and ALL ship captains who take cruises there, has KNOWN that conditions near the Bay are unpredictable and different than they had been before. They KNEW that the “protection” of the Mertz tongue was GONE, and that any OLD ice in the area could easily at least damage their ships, if not seal them in during a storm.
So why…why on earth would ANY knowledgeable ship’s captain, familiar with the conditions and fierce events of that region, anchor a ship at the edge of a sea ice sheet that is known to shift, ESPECIALLY in the summer when the natural temps cause the ice on the shelves to calve more and break free? A captain who KNOWS that the sea ice blows into the Bay area MORE when south east winds blow? A captain who knew he was STILL two miles from open water as a storm blew in?
Was the captain stupid? Inexperienced? Pressured by the “media” presence on board? Or the AGW activist/scientists that couldn’t claim AGW was melting the Antarctic if they didn’t actually get to explore it where Mawson did?
Just how much about the Commonwealth Bay area did Chris Turney KNOW before he left? Did he research the area for years and have a perfect knowledge of the “new” shore conditions in that area since 2010? Or did he just pick a popular meme (Mawson) and decide to ride it’s coattails to media fame (by bringing along his own reporters) and head out with a group of innocent citizens who thought it sounded like a fun and “noble” thing to do?”
I’ve read through the PR put out by Turney on the team’s website, as well as the PR surrounding the greater Australian agency (AASP) that sees this fiasco as part of it’s charter. From what I have read the AASP has “drunk the kool-aid” and is fully on board with the CAGW religion and is therefore not out to determine scientific truth, but rather to gather as much proof as possible supporting the meme. However, at one point in this “explanation” of their organizational mission I read the following: “As well, there will always be logistical and budgetary limits on the amount of science that can be supported by the Australian Government in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica, which will vary from time to time in line with government priorities. Therefore, there will be a need to prioritise within and across themes. Field work in these remote, challenging and dangerous environments is expensive, and requires SIGNIFICANT LOGISTICAL SUPPORT, and CAREFUL PLANNING and coordination.” (I’ve added the CAPS to their propaganda.)
With this statement in mind, Anthony I think you should add this question to your list of questions:
On your website you listed these as the primary research goals of your summertime cruise down south to Antarctica:
“We are going south to:
1. gain new insights into the circulation of the Southern Ocean and its impact on the global carbon cycle
2. explore changes in ocean circulation caused by the growth of extensive fast ice and its impact on life in Commonwealth Bay
3. use the subantarctic islands as thermometers of climatic change by using trees, peats and lakes to explore the past
4. investigate the impact of changing climate on the ecology of the subantarctic islands
5. discover the environmental influence on seabird populations across the Southern Ocean and in Commonwealth Bay
6. understand changes in seal populations and their feeding patterns in the Southern Ocean and Commonwealth Bay
7. produce the first underwater surveys of life in the subantarctic islands and Commonwealth Bay
8. determine the extent to which human activity and pollution has directly impacted on this remote region of Antarctica
9. provide baseline data to improve the next generation of atmospheric, oceanic and ice sheet models to improve predictions for the future
http://www.spiritofmawson.com/the-science-case/
Question 12.) Could you please provide us with a copy of the “careful ‘research’ plan” that you surely must have developed to accomplish all 9 of your goals while you “cruised” around in the ice floes and right up onto the ice sheet off the coast of Antarctica? Please highlight in your plan how you also planned for avoiding getting trapped in this extensive ice sheet. After all, your parent organization claims that, “For the past decade, Australia has been one of few nations undertaking major field research programs on Antarctic sea ice characteristics and processes and their potential response to climate change.” Therefore, surely you must have known about the significant INCREASE in ice coverage over the ocean near Antarctica’s shoreline!
For each of the 9 goals surely you must have developed structured plans including scientific methods, experimental plans, equipment requirements, time to complete your analyses, storage facilities for samples etc as well as a detail safety plan. Please include in these plans the justification for including your wife and children as well as the other “tourists”.
Didn’t read all the comments, but my question goes to the CAGW explanation of the expanding sea ice, rather than to the faults of the expedition itself.
Q: Is the CAGW crowd’s explanation that Antarctica is losing land ice which is then ending up adding to the (floating) sea ice extent an argument supported by the facts, and theory, as to what has, and would, happen? One of their answers seems to be that the continent has been shedding (i.e.,melting) ice resulting in an increase in sea ice as it refreezes upon entering salt water that is slightly below freezing itself. Another explanation could be that glaciers are calving, reducing ice on the continent, but adding to floating sea ice, although they seem to be relying upon the first explanation, probably because calving glaciers would indicate a piling up of ice, rather than a reduction, on the continent overall.
If this has been discussed here in other articles, I’d appreciate a link. If it’s bogus, a discussion as to why would be appreciated. The first question should be, I suppose, is it clear that the continent is losing ice cover?