There are a lot of news items in major media starting to appear about the folly of Professor Chris Turney’s tourism disguised as science expedition. Turney is now backpedaling on the idea that “climate change” caused them to get stuck. Perhaps the laughter has finally reached him. A roundup and video follows.
First, from the NYT:
Stranded Antarctic Ship Story, Like the Ice, Will Not Let Go
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
A team of rescuers from a Chinese icebreaker may need to be rescued themselves, soon after they plucked dozens of people from the Antarctic ice aboard a ship that had been stranded for more than a week.
Chris Turney, a leader of the expedition whose members were evacuated by the Chinese vessel Xue Long’s helicopter on Thursday, shared more photographs of the mission and then an update on Twitter about the unexpected turn of events in the rescue ordeal.
Full story here: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/stranded-antarctic-ship-story-like-the-ice-will-not-let-go/
Here is a video of the rescue operation in progress:
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From the Guardian, authored by Turney himself, who links to WUWT in the article:
Antarctic expedition: ‘This wasn’t a tourist trip. It was all about science – and it was worth it’
Chris Turney, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, says his critics are wrong: the team was prepared, the risks were known, and much was achieved
The last 24 hours have been sobering. I am sitting in the comfort of a cabin on board the Australian icebreaker the Aurora Australis, one day after evacuating the Australasian Antarctic Expedition from our Russian-crewed vessel, the MV Akademik Shokalskiy. After sleepless nights thinking about keeping everyone safe, it is a relief to know everyone is on board the Aurora and well.
There is relief, but there is also frustration over what appears to be a misrepresentation of the expedition in some news outlets and on the internet. We have been accused of being a tourist trip with little scientific value; of being ill-prepared for the conditions; putting our rescuers at risk; and making light of a dangerous situation. Others have remarked on what they describe as the “irony” of climate researchers stuck in unexpected ice.
…
Let’s be clear. Us becoming locked in ice was not caused by climate change. Instead it seems to have been an aftershock of the arrival of iceberg B09B which triggered a massive reconfiguration of sea ice in the area.
[See story below on the statement -Anthony]
Full story here: http://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live/2014/jan/04/antarctic-expedition-was-worth-it-chris-turney
Note: This bit of justification in the article from Turney (bold) about the cost is laughable, he’s only off by a factor of 5-6. So much for scientific precision.
The aim of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) is to lead a multidisciplinary research programme in one of the most scientifically exciting regions of our planet, straddling the Southern Ocean and East Antarctic. Using the latest in satellite technology, we are beaming images, movies and text in an attempt to excite the public about science and exploration, inspired by one of the most scientifically successful efforts in the Antarctic: the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1914, led by British-born Sir Douglas Mawson. Starting out at the unbelievably young age of 28, Mawson managed to raise £39,000 in a year – equivalent to some $20-25m today. With this he kitted out an entire ship to discover what lay south of Australia.
Umm, I don’t know where Turney gets those numbers, but using the calculator provided by the Reserve Bank of Australia here: http://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html
I get:
$4.2 million is sure a long ways from $20-25 million, but I suppose when you are always using other people’s money, being accurate doesn’t matter.
The article with Turney’s calc is saved here as a PDF Turney-spiritofmawson-and it was worth it _ Science _ The Observer -Anthony
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Turney Backpedals! Now Says Getting Stuck In Sea Ice NOT Due To Climate Change”!
By P Gosselin on 4. Januar 2014
It appears that now even Professor Chris Turney admits blaming his expedition mishap on global warming was an astronomical stretch after all.
Yesterday I reported here, quoting flagship Swiss daily (NZZ), that his communication director Alvin Stone blamed global warming for the vessel getting trapped in ice. The whole world laughed.
I couldn’t believe it myself so I wrote an e-mail to Stone asking if they really believed this.
Stone answered circa 9 hours later:
Dear Pierre,
That is not quite the quote that I gave.
This is my understanding from talking to Chris and other glaciologists.
- The 120km long ice berg B09B that is grounded in Commonwealth Bay broke away from the continent three years ago, very likely as a result of climate change.
- B09B collided with the Mertz Glacier, smashing a large ice tongue that released the ice into that area.
- It was a mix of this ice that was blown across the path of the Shokalskiy, which led to it being trapped and explains why much of the ice surrounding the ship is old ice.
– See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2014/01/04/turney-backpedals-now-says-getting-stuck-in-sea-ice-not-due-to-climate-change/#sthash.rG7qwsHv.CeXyK3bZ.dpuf
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Australian taxpayers will pay $400,000 cost for climate scientist’s ship stuck in ice. Total cost “millions”.
The saga just keeps going. The Chinese Icebreaker is now also stuck, and has asked for help so the Aurora Australis with 52 extra passengers rescued from the Russian Charter boat have to stay nearby to help. Twenty two Russian sailors are still trapped on board the Russian boat — the Akademik Sholaskiy. Plus other scientists in Antarctica still don’t have their equipment. Costs for everyone involved are continuing to rise. Though there is a free-for-all on social media…
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/01/australian-taxpayers-will-pay-400000-cost-for-climate-scientists-ship-stuck-in-ice-total-cost-millions/
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Antarctic Debacle Probably Biggest Setback For Campaigners Since Climategate
- Date: 03/01/14 Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times
The debacle in the Antarctic ice is probably the largest setback for global warming campaigners since Climategate scandal in 2009.
When a Chinese helicopter rescued 52 passengers from a Russian climate-science cruise ship trapped in ice off Antarctica, it was a skilfully managed end to an ordeal that had begun on Christmas Eve. It was also a debacle for climate change activists. The 233-foot Akademik Shokalskiy, a Russian meteorological ship leased by the Australian tour outfit Aurora Expeditions, had been on a mission called the “Spirit of Mawson”. It aimed to replicate part of a gruelling voyage the explorer Douglas Mawson had made in 1912. The ship carried 22 scientists looking to perform various experiments, led by Chris Turney, a professor of climate change at the University of New South Wales. They were joined by 26 tourists paying for the adventure, along with journalists for The Guardian, BBC and The Sydney Morning Herald.
http://www.thegwpf.org/ft-antarctic-debacle-biggest-setback-campaigners-climategate/
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This speaks for itself, now the USA is involved:
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Even NYT’s Andrew Revkin, who has been on such expeditions himself, is calling it a fiasco:
A helpful update on several facets of the #spiritofmawson Antarctic fiasco from @RTCCnewswire: http://t.co/bdsY1Fn92Y
— Andrew Revkin 🌎 ✍🏼 🪕 ☮️ (@Revkin) January 2, 2014
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As are the French:
French Polar Chief slams SpiritofMawson fiasco
This really has been a PR debacle of amazing proportions. The ship stuck in ice has captured something larger than I would have expected. Methinks the timing must be apropos.
Good scientists are distancing themselves from the publicity hungry climate lightweights and commentators on both sides of the fence are agreeing in their criticism.
A third effect we are barely starting to see may ripple on for months — that’s when mass-media victims realize that the “Russian Tourist ship” was really a boat load of Australian and New Zealander scientists, paid for mostly by taxpayers and loaded and advised by supposedly “expert” climate scientists. This misinformation was despite the boat having BBC, and Guardian media on board, and Fairfax press in one of the rescue icebreakers. Today I see evidence of the first two effects.
From Skynews. The French chief of polar science calls the Spirit of Mawson trip “pseudo-scientific” and laments the effect it is having on real research.
The head of France’s polar science institute has voiced fury at the misadventures of a Russian ship trapped in Antarctic ice, deriding what he called a tourists’ trip that had diverted resources from real science.
More here: http://joannenova.com.au/2014/01/french-polar-chief-slams-spiritofmawson-fiasco/
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This animation is hilarious:
ACM on Chris Turney and the Akademik Shokalskiy fiasco
By Simon on 4 January, 2014
ACM on Chris Turney and the Akademik Shokalskiy fiasco
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Anthony writes: “$4.2 million is sure a long ways from $20-25 million, but I suppose when you are always using other people’s money, being accurate doesn’t matter.”
The climate science exaggeration factor appears in line with other estimates.
Chris Turney: “This wasn’t a tourist trip. It was all about science – and it was worth it”?
Worth it to whom?
Not to me. Wait, I take that back. The embarrassment to the CAGW cause was well worth it.
Looks like Turney put $39,000 through the Mann-o-matic.
sea ice increase is climatic.
That article doesn’t make sense.
If there is a disaster, such as a Taifun and at the same time global cyclone energy is unchanged or decreasing, we still hear it is due or partly due to AGW, because a (probaly un-) related variable (temperature) increased. This is nonsense. If global cyclone energy is not increasing you can’t come up with another variable to explain why it should have increased, then assume it increased when its not and blame it on global warming.
But here, we have 30 years plus of of cooling and the very variable sea-ice increasing. (By the way, the Antarctic peninsula is now cooling as well after the PDO flip to negative.). 30 plus years are regarded as climatic timescale. When sea-ice increases for 30 years and someone gets stuck in sea ice there is a climatic connection.
The tribulation of 3 y old berg B09B breaking off “very likely due to climate change”, its collision with Mertz glacier and the storm “not due to climate change” blowing it off to encase their ship is truly collector! 😉
It would be a big splash when all the ice broke off? But ok AGwers alike believe him so trip saved.
Turney’s napkin calculation of the cost of Mawson’s expedition is wildly out….by a factor of five or six in fact. But of course it’s more about the ‘effect’ of his statement (making his profligacy seem small) than the accuracy of the numbers. A bit like Global Warming itself really.
“…..a misrepresentation of the expedition in some news outlets and on the internet. We have been accused of being a tourist trip.”
Yes, first and foremost by the ABC and BBC. This guy sure is good at kicking own-goals.
It must be the sensitivity settings on the Reserve Bank calculator are too low. They should be adjusted however needed to be more inline with the predetermined reality.
Do you suppose there will ever be an honest accounting of the costs of this fiasco?
A couple of negative comments from the French viewpoint, one from the head of their reearch programme there.
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“The head of France’s polar science institute has voiced fury at the misadventures of a Russian ship trapped in Antarctic ice, deriding what he called a tourists’ trip that had diverted resources from real science.
In an interview with AFP, Yves Frenot, director of the French Polar Institute, said he had no issue at all with rescuing those aboard the stricken vessel.
He said the trip itself was a ‘pseudo-scientific expedition’ that, because it had run into difficulties, had drained resources from the French, Chinese and Australian scientific missions in Antarctica.
‘There’s no reason to place Antarctica off-limits and to keep it just for scientists, but this tourism has to be monitored and regulated so that operators can be sure of getting help if need be,’ he said.
The Russian vessel, the Akademik Shokalskiy, became stuck on December 24 in frozen seas, 100 nautical miles east of the French Antarctic base, Dumont d’Urville.
Its 52 passengers – scientists, tourists and journalists – were airlifted on Thursday to an Australian government supply vessel, the Aurora Australis, using a helicopter from a Chinese icebreaker, the Xue Long.
The Xue Long itself may now be trapped in the ice, and the Aurora Australis has been placed on standby to see if the Chinese ship needs help.
In addition, a French Antarctic vessel, the Astrolabe, which resupplies Dumont d’Urville during the Antarctic summer between October and March was requisitioned for a week to help in the rescue operation.
The trip on the Akademik Shokalskiy was aimed at emulating a 1911-1914 expedition by the Australian explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson.
‘This kind of commemorative expedition has no interest from a scientific point of view,’ said Frenot.
Because of the rescue operations, French scientists had had to scrap a two-week oceanographic campaign this month using the Astrolabe, Frenot said.
‘The Chinese have had to cancel all their scientific programme, and my counterpart in Australia is spitting tacks with anger, because their entire summer has been wiped out.’
Antarctica has about 80 scientific bases, of which around 40 are permanently staffed and others manned on a seasonal or temporary basis.
Only three bases are inland; the others are on the coast.
‘If we want these bases to operate all year round, it is essential to resupply with food and fuel during the brief window of opportunity,’ Frenot said.
Diverting supply ships to rescue tasks ‘imperilled’ this link, he said.”
http://www.skynews.com.au/topstories/article.aspx?id=939155&cid=BP_RSS_TOPSTORIES_3_PolarchiefslamsAntarcticcruise_040114
Another French viewpoint while UK media pretend it was just a tourist ship:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&ie=UTF-8&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.contrepoints.org%2F2014%2F01%2F04%2F152161-akademik-shokalskiy-le-temps-des-interrogations
I’m not sure why Turney and others continue to mischaracterize iceberg B09B as having calved in 2010.
It did not. It calved off the Ross Ice shelf in 1987.
For over 20 years, instead of moving north, it moved slowly around the coast until it got grounded just east of Mertz Glacier.
It wasn’t until 2010 that it ground against the Mertz Glacier Tongue, which broke off.
The Mertz Glacier tongue, now called iceberg C28 drifted away from the coast and broke up. Then B09B continued around the coast and has been in the Commonwealth Bay area for years, resulting in heavy ice. This was well known to the expedition before they left. The effects of this ice movement and resulting changes in the polynyas have been studied for years.
The day they got stuck in the ice, they were out counting penguin nests. The population has decreased in this area because of the heavy ice from these icebergs, but should rise again once B09B and the “fast ice” around it moves out.
That may take years.
i just posted the following on the “Xue Lond beset by ice” thread, along with some other stuff in response to artwest on how James Randerson at the Guardian is responding to many of the comments on the Turney article. surely this contradicts Turney’s “all about science” remark:
11 Sept: ABC PM: UNSW organises Antarctic trek to celebrate centenary of Mawson expedition
MARK COLVIN: One of the expedition leaders is climate change specialist Professor Chris Turney.
CHRIS TURNEY: There’s a number of things we’re hoping to do, and we’re going to start the science program as soon as we head south. This is very much not just for pure science research program: we’re taking the public with us, berths are for sale.
MARK COLVIN: It’s a privately funded expedition.
CHRIS TURNEY: Privately funded expedition, so we’ve just secured an ice-strengthened vessel, something called the Shikowski (phonetic), which is up in Vladivostok at the moment heading down towards us very soon…
MARK COLVIN: Alright, well Australia’s just elected a government which, I think it’s fair to say, is more sceptical about global warming and certainly about what to do about it. Do you think they’ll be listening to you when we get back?
CHRIS TURNEY: I think to be perfectly honest, that in the first instance, we’re just trying to get people excited by the science, and rather than it being an issue where people have a gut feeling about whether they believe in climate change or not, it’s actually getting them to be re-engaged and excited about the science.
And if politicians listen and get excited about what we’re doing, that’d be brilliant.
MARK COLVIN: And as you know, the scepticism has extended right into the science. What do you think about that?
CHRIS TURNEY: It has in the public domain somewhat. Certainly in the scientific community, it’s remarkably solid…
MARK COLVIN: But a lot of scientists feel kind of somewhat besieged at the moment because of this public scepticism.
CHRIS TURNEY: Yeah, some do certainly; those who engage a lot with the public and some individuals do struggle with that a little bit. Other people, though, I’ve met and I’ve given talks to – when you explain the science – completely understand the basic premise and at the end of the day for us, it’s so self-evident, what we see now.
MARK COLVIN: What is that?
CHRIS TURNEY: Well, the fundamental issue is if you didn’t have carbon in the atmosphere, the planet would be about minus 50 degrees centigrade, give or take – that’s what you’d have. So a little bit of carbon warms the planet, and that’s good, it’s where we’re at today – an average planet temperature of about 14, 15, degrees.
If you put more carbon in the atmosphere, you’d expect the planet to warm, and basically that’s what you see…
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2013/s3846720.htm
So our modern day Titanic deliberately runs into icebergs named B00Bs ? And get trapped in B09B? Flat, icebergs that don ‘t look like any other iceberg ever? Icebergs that look like, well…seaice?
after this, If you believe in Anthropological Global Warming, the true scientific world is laughing. AT you!
Guess whose name is dirt in both the Antarctic research community (actual science) and among “the team” for singlehandedly pissing off both groups with the impact of his Keystone cop trip and the resulting PR nightmare for the AGW narrative. This makes you almost want to donate so he can do another one.
Bob Greene,
I doubt there will every be any accounting of the costs of this fiasco honest or otherwise.
A Chinese Ka-32 suffered an accident in Antarctica on Dec. 8, 2011. The Kamov series of counter-rotating twin blade helicopters began life as Russian anti-sub platforms.
There is a way for Prof. Turney to refute characterizations of the Spirit of Mawson undertaking as lacking in scientific merit & value.
That will be, to get the raw data they have collected during the expedition posted online, so everyone can see what was achieved.
I doubt that will happen, because I imagine that as Dr. Turney forthright describes in a different context, he & his expedition have put their priority attention on the needs of paying passengers.
They made their enterprise a ‘cruise’, rather than an ‘expedition’, in order to get funding. And even at that … MV Akademik Shokalskiy has berths for 54, and they took only 52.
Questions that might be asked of Turney:
Why aren’t you still on the ship? Exactly why did you need to be “rescued?”
If the answer is: “We were in imminent mortal danger,” then why is the full crew still on the ship?
Apparently there was no shortage of food and the ship could have been supplied by air drops if and when it became necessary. If there was no imminent danger then the whole expensive, disruptive and dangerous “rescue” operation was solely for the convenience of Turney and the other “eco-tourists” whose Antarctic escapade had run low on booze and who were simply becoming bored.
Turney’s background with Carbonscape deserves wider scrutiny. https://opencorporates.com/companies/nz/1882024
A few of these shareholders were on board the ship of fools.
Wow wow wow !
50 degrees due to CO2 – Chris Turney does not even know the very basics of climate science.
CHRIS TURNEY: Well, the fundamental issue is if you didn’t have carbon in the atmosphere, the planet would be about minus 50 degrees centigrade, give or take – that’s what you’d have. So a little bit of carbon warms the planet, and that’s good, it’s where we’re at today – an average planet temperature of about 14, 15, degrees.
If you put more carbon in the atmosphere, you’d expect the planet to warm, and basically that’s what you see…
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2013/s3846720.htm
In Russia, ice breaks you!
The jokes just write themselves.
It could be that some people are moved by the irony, specially if they realize this is already summer down there in Antarctica.
I’m wishing the best for the crew still aboard the Akademik, they will have to work very hard against the clock to get it to move again, and float.
“Clitanic” as Ice Queen embodies Warmists’ baldly fetishistic hyper-pilosity. Can’t something be done?
Wow wow wow !
65 degrees due to CO2 – Chris Turney is not even familiar with the very basics of climate science. And the context shows, it is not a lapsus. It his fundamental argument to brush of sceptics ! How could he miss water vapour ?
MARK COLVIN: But a lot of scientists feel kind of somewhat besieged at the moment because of this public scepticism.
CHRIS TURNEY: Yeah, some do certainly; those who engage a lot with the public and some individuals do struggle with that a little bit. Other people, though, I’ve met and I’ve given talks to – when you explain the science – completely understand the basic premise and at the end of the day for us, it’s so self-evident, what we see now.
MARK COLVIN: What is that?
CHRIS TURNEY: Well, the fundamental issue is if you didn’t have carbon in the atmosphere, the planet would be about minus 50 degrees centigrade, give or take – that’s what you’d have. So a little bit of carbon warms the planet, and that’s good, it’s where we’re at today – an average planet temperature of about 14, 15, degrees.
If you put more carbon in the atmosphere, you’d expect the planet to warm, and basically that’s what you see…
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2013/s3846720.htm