9.30am AEDT Saturday 04 January 2014
Aurora Australis released from tasking in Antarctica
Xue Long’s attempt to manoeuvre through the ice early this morning was unsuccessful. Xue Long has confirmed to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) it is beset by ice.
The Master of Xue Long has confirmed to AMSA that the ship is safe, it is not in distress and does not require assistance at this time. There is no immediate danger to personnel on board the Xue Long. The Xue Long has advised AMSA it has food supplies for several weeks. The Aurora Australis was placed on standby by AMSA’s Rescue Coordination Centre Australia (RCC Australia) last night to remain in open water in the area as a precautionary measure.
The Masters of both Akademik Shokalskiy and Xue Long agree that further assistance from Aurora Australis is no longer required and they will be able to provide mutual support to each other. The Aurora Australis has been released from search and rescue tasking by RCC Australia early this morning and continues to make its passage to the Casey base to complete a resupply. It will then continue to Hobart. RCC Australia will maintain regular contact with the Xue Long and Akademik Shokalskiy.
Back in October, another delay may have ruined many real scientific studies.
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/unprecedented-antarctic-disaster-unfolding-darkness.html
As a consequence [of the shutdown], an entire season of Antarctic research will be lost. Because of the harsh weather, “we have to cram all our science into three months of the year,” [Hubert Staudigel, a senior researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography] says. And due to the extremely complicated logistics of working in Antarctica, it will be difficult or impossible to meet the deadlines for this year’s research season, no matter how soon the shutdown is resolved.
“This is a much, much bigger science story than anybody realizes,” Henry Kaiser says. As a scientific diver in the U.S. Antarctic program, Kaiser has spent ten seasons in Antarctica, and is well connected within the community of Antarctic researchers. … Long-term experiments are in jeopardy. “There are essential climate studies, essential ocean studies going on down there,” Kaiser says. “These are multi-year studies, so if you lose a year, that’s it, the study could be over.” Scientists spend years planning such experiments, and count on that data for their careers and those of their students.
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I wonder what the ‘welcoming committee’ has in store for the ‘tourists’.
@Alan, Agreed. Perhaps none of it has to do with legitimate science. I found it interesting since the MSM is now calling it a tourist trip. Well with 45 self described scientists and 5 media people they would have had only 2 tourists on board as stated on their OWN website.
Some interesting stats to work out on Wikipedia .
Aurora Australis is served by a crew of 24 and carry up to 116 passengers accommodated in three or four-bunk cabins with attached bathrooms.
So lets say at best 3 bunks per cabin, 54 new passengers, plus whoever else was already on there and assuming the crew have their own cabins, that means that 116/3 = 39 cabins for the 54 people – at best! Must be wonderful atmosphere they can have little singsongs in pairs.
If the 116 beds include the crew then it is even more cramped. Here is a description of the ship by one of its crew. “This is one of the expeditioner’s cabins. Each of those two loungers fold out to bunks and those other boards at the top there fold down to be bunks. So there’s four per cabin.”
The expeditioners cabins look smaller than the average bog.
http://australianetwork.com/nexus/stories/s1745166.htm
(use the frame on the right to scroll through images)
Here’s one for the calorie counters “We can burn up to 60,000 litres of diesel a day. We can load probably up to 2,000 tonnes, or two million litres, of diesel.”
Apparently, it is possible to earn a “living Darwin Award” so long as another condition is met (concerning propagation of the species)
http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2009-23.html
By now many of us have seen the path the AS took, and a few ice map links have been provided on WAWT threads, and now that we know that, save for a few hours waiting on tourist retrieval this ship might not have been stuck, I have a question
Was getting in and out of this heavy of ice with a non icebreaking ship always a plan? With the information they knew in advance, I’m figuring Turney knew in advance that the trip was really taking a big chance. After all, the trip must have been planned months in advance without the conditions of the ice pack known, and with the knowledge that the ice pack in that area was subject to rapid change due to the position of the large icebergs down there.
Was the ice shift that caused all this mess THAT big of a shift? That big of a surprise? I’m thinking it wasn’t, but I’m not sure. Was this tourist trip relying on a 50% chance of the ice shifting and getting stuck or worse? They rolled the dice on the ice not shifting and lost, that we know. Turney wasn’t as responsible as the captain of the vessel for ice monitoring, but Turney WAS in charge of the tourists who were then the cause of the lack of science on several other Antarctic projects.
I had guessed that Turney wanted to not disappoint his tourists by bringing them down there only to be kept too far from shore to visit due to “some ice”, and the “some ice” turned into too much ice. But after looking at some of the ice maps, pushing the limits of the ice pack was _always_ part of Turney’s plan, which tells me the entire trip was planned in a reckless fashion. That is where we get into the criminal side of things.
SIG INT Ex says:
Turnery, Fogwill, Mortimer variant on the scheme is to target elderly investors whose physical condition can be at risk to strenuous conditions and stress. Many of the “Climate Scientists” on the failed Sprit of Mawson expectation are elderly pensioners with health conditions.
Likely, Ternery-Fogwill-Mortimer had the pensioners to sign “sudden death wills” to forfeit all of their monetary and property to the Sprit of Mawson Ponzi Scheme.
Getting the captain of the Russian flagged vessel to icebound the ship was the ruse to create stress amongst the elderly “Climate Scientists” in order to induce death and forfeiture of their estates.
Having an extra two weeks, given ocean going bureaucracy in the Southern Ocean plays to their hand at achieving their Ponzi Scheme.
Serious.
That chimes with a comment (below) I read on The Daily Mail online a few days ago: Truly shocking if the sick were being cynically exploited.
AliHughes Squirrels Nest, Canada, 1 day ago
Not everyone on the research ship is a tree hugging, global warming whack-nut.. Some of the “tourists” are friends of mine, ticking off items from their bucket list. They’ve been to all the extremes this beautiful planet over the years and the South Pole was the last location. She’s very sick, not expected to make it to 60. Got a little more adventure than they signed up for but they did it. Can hardly wait to hear the stories for when they return. And, by the way, they had to take out extra insurance for just such a rescue occasion, because apparently it’s a common occurrence.
Needs to be an “Explain like I’m Five” (ELI5) bit done for this …
The Lou Dobbs segment with the “Only a select few know guy on” is being reshown here in Texas on Fox Buss News this moment, I’ll try to get the guys name if possible. Others might check to see for sure what he says.
“Marketing the Message” (CAGW)
Professional paid spokesperson advocacy. Scientists can look so pedantic, narrow and pretentious in their ‘book learned’ ways and observation of ‘formal rules’ of the trade; this does not work well (poor visuals) in short, live, blogging videos or in Tweets.
So-called ‘communications majors’ (marketing-live and before camera) exist for a reason …
.
Bill Illis says:
There are huge positive scientific benefits from this expedition.
Everyone involved in the climate science debate now knows that Antarctic sea ice is increasing and is at record levels (surprising few people understood this before).
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Yes, Bill, I think that despite their best intentions they have probably made a significant achievement in communicating climate science here.
MSM have done their best to occult the changes in Antarctica and , by default, everyone ASSUMES it must be the same as in the Arctic that we never stop hearing about.
I have yet to meet anyone face to face who was aware of Antarctic ice trends until I told them and I was equally ignorant until I started regularly reading WUWT.
Thanks to our host for this immensely useful resource and thanks to Prof Turkey for letting the world know about Antarctic sea ice.
OK,
Ken Calderia , head of a institute of Science at Stanford,,
sed to much CO2 on Venus and to little on Mars as the science.
Used “smart money” that is going to mine Anartic now due to the fact Anartic is no longer ice covered due to global warming.
Used “consensus” knows best.
Caz Jones says:
January 4, 2014 at 7:28 am
“Many of the “Climate Scientists” on the failed Sprit of Mawson expectation are elderly pensioners with health conditions.”
That’s also how they looked like in the singing- and partying videos published by the BBC and the Guardian.
ManBeaPig,
AA – the crew have their own cabins.
AA is also a dry ship except for “special occasions”. The Bar is now used a DVD library.
Participant in 2011 SR3 voyage to Mertz polynya.
Another delay?
http://en.ria.ru/world/20140104/186219405/Chinese-Ship-Stuck-in-Antarctic-Ice-After-Rescue-of-Russian-Vessel.html
MOSCOW, January 4 (RIA Novosti) – A Chinese icebreaker that played a key role evacuating people this week from a Russian vessel stranded in the Antarctic ice pack is now itself trapped in dense ice, maritime authorities said Saturday.
The crew aboard the Xue Long ship have food supplies for several weeks and are not in immediate danger, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said, citing the captain of the Chinese vessel.
The AMSA said that the Xue Long doesn’t need assistance for now, but that the Australian ship Aurora Australis was ordered to stay in open water nearby on Friday night as a precaution.
Thankfully, we have the internet to keep from intertwining truth with down through the centuries myth, lore and other stories spun around the campfire (sometimes under the influence or more than just the vino of the time) unlike 12th and 13th century Englanders.
But then, we have our own ‘quests’ or pursuits, such as Bigfoot, ***trails, ‘Fluoride in the water’, oil barons keeping people poor while making a ‘mint’ off them, while our present day banking system is owed to a critter from Jekyll Island and last but not least, CAGW endorsed by a cadre of so-called rational-thinking logic-based ‘scientists’ (who occasionally use super-computing centers to create the tea leaves they eventually read via ‘spaghetti’ ensemble charts)!
The ‘progress’ we have made, eh? (Fortunately, we do not all fall for the same myths/lore at the same time, or total chaos would ensue.)
/mild sarc
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News flash-
Real frozen turkey trumps mythical plastic turkey! Read all about it…read all about it..
OLD DATA says:
January 4, 2014 at 7:01 am
Click menu and then the drop tags to find:
03 Leaders
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There Turkey : “Described by the UK Saturday Times as the ‘new David Livingstone’ ”
So obviously the first thing the Chinese rescue team said to him was: “Dr Turkey I presume.”
I duly hope the new, conservative australian government will make an example out of punishing the leaders of this ill-conceived, absolutely irresponsible “expedition” – aka. CAGW-propaganda-stunt.
McCarthy-style show trials spring to mind. Ah, sweet memories…
On how big liars:
John F. Kerry
New York Times Jan. 2, 2014 article by Coral Davenport “Kerry Quitly Makes Priority Of Climate Change”.
By this known fraud being able to have any creditabilty shows how powerful the lie machie of the msm in fact is still on this.
We can only hope Kerry is a big enough liar to put “fail” in place once more as he has always done. May be he is the guy we need to be leading the liars. His very poor at it and always gets caught in big ones.
Pierre at Notrickszone posted this yesterday.
Today we have Turney’s report in the Guardian
I would be wise to stock-up on milkshake and bananas in case the new LIA materialises (not that I am suggesting it is going to).
DirkH says:
January 4, 2014 at 7:55 am
Caz Jones says:
January 4, 2014 at 7:28 am
“Many of the “Climate Scientists” on the failed Sprit of Mawson expectation are elderly pensioners with health conditions.”
That’s also how they looked like in the singing- and partying videos published by the BBC and the Guardian.
Most of the quote wasn’t mine, I added a quote I found elsewhere which seemed to back things up.
I should have said: Yesterday we have Turney’s report in the Guardian
But here he is again today. Do you think he has noticed people laughing?
What was achieved? The waisting of $100s on their rescue, the derailment of other scientific researcher’s resources, risking other people’s lives, laughter around the world, ridicule, disappointed eco-tourists, disappointed presstitutes from the Guardian and BBC.
AA – the crew have their own cabins.
AA is also a dry ship except for “special occasions”. The Bar is now used a DVD library.
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OH, I can see how that would be “frustrating” for those unfortunate enough to be stuck on board instead of being taken straight home to mummy.
Ladies and gentlemen
Here in Norway we have somthing that we call “Sjøforklaring”. That can be undersood even by those, whoos arbitrary mother has an especially stupid tounge.
Rea: Sea- for- clearing.
in England, Munity is generally forbidden. If you commit munity, you will be hanged at the “Rå-nokk”
But in Norway, if the captain fails, you can tie him up and treat him well with water and bread and wash under him, and thus take over the ship. But the procedure will have to stand in court on land.
Munity may stand in court on land if the captains behaviours has threatened human dignity and life in obvious ways.
I tend to believe that the russian captain has taken too high risks with passengers on board, and that “Sjøforklaring” on land is needed here.
Roald Amundsen sailed the same waters, So did Shackelton and even Scott.
Scott is a bit dubious, but Amundsen and Shackelon at both reputed for having been very responsible and qualified at sea..
By the way, Old documents from court here in Norway state for true that the sea serpent has been the cause of the disaster. That formula may come to validity again. But it is still human errors, by unqualified sailors who do not take the sea serpent for real and for serious.