Sea ice and snow cover experts support global climate study
Dartmouth College
HANOVER, N.H. – September 20, 2019 – Dartmouth experts on Arctic sea ice and snow cover are taking part in what is billed as the “largest polar expedition in history.” The year-long, multinational Arctic expedition began today when a German icebreaker, the Polarstern, set sail from Tromsø, Norway.
Beyond simply cruising across the Arctic over the next year, the Polarstern will intentionally lock itself into the Arctic ice. Once frozen into the ice, the icebreaker will drift with the floe as it tracks across the ocean to study the health of the high Arctic.
The “Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate” (MOSAiC) expedition marks the first time a modern research icebreaker will be set to drift in the Arctic for an entire year. The path of the drift is expected to allow scientists to comprehensively investigate the region, including by observing the Arctic winter in the vicinity of the North Pole.
“The threats posed to the planet from global climate change are real and they are coming on fast,” said Donald Perovich, a professor at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and the expedition’s co-lead for sea ice research. “Hopefully, this study will be historic not only for its scale, but for its ability to allow us to understand the causes and consequences of changes in the Arctic.”
Focused planning for the MOSAiC expedition began about a decade ago. Climate processes in the central Arctic that will be studied in the research form a missing piece in the puzzle that is needed to better understand global climate change.
“After over ten years of planning, this research mission could not come at a more important time. The impacts of climate change are amplified in the Arctic, so this could be our best shot to explore the region while there is still time to assess and respond to change,” said Perovich, a member of the expedition’s project board.
MOSAiC is led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). According to the organizer, the expedition’s rotating crews of researchers and support teams will gather data on the Arctic atmosphere, sea ice, ocean, ecosystems and biogeochemistry “in order to gain insights into the interactions that shape the Arctic climate and life in the Arctic Ocean.”
During the year-long expedition, nearly 300 researchers from 17 countries will rotate aboard the Polarstern. The project will deploy an international fleet of four icebreakers as well as helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to support the research. In total, the expedition will include 600 international participants and cost about $155 million.
“The uncertainties in our climate models are nowhere bigger than in the Arctic,” said Markus Rex, head of MOSAiC and an atmospheric physics expert from the Alfred Wegener Institute. “There aren’t any reliable prognoses of how the Arctic climate will develop further or what that will mean for our weather. Our mission is to change that.”
Dartmouth researchers participating in MOSAiC include Perovich, Thayer graduate students Ian Raphael and David Clemens-Sewall, as well as Christopher Polashenski, an adjunct assistant professor at Thayer and a research geophysicist at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL).
“Due to logistical and scientific constraints there is much we don’t know about processes in the Arctic,” said Clemens-Sewall. “The multidisciplinary approach and superior logistical support will enable us to learn more about the Arctic and help us predict future climate change.”
Perovich, Clemens-Sewall and Polashenski will sail on later legs of the expedition. Raphael will join the Polarstern for a second time in August 2020 for the expedition’s final leg.
“MOSAiC is so critical because the sheer volume of data that we will collect simply isn’t feasible any other way,” said Raphael, who will research ice growth and the melting of sea ice. “We already know that the climate is rapidly changing, and we have enough data to understand why. We desperately need structural change, and that starts with evidence that can’t be ignored.”
###
In addition to the Dartmouth team, countries represented in the expedition include Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The ship-based teams will be supported on land by researchers from Austria and South Korea.
For more information on the MOSAiC Arctic expedition: https://www.mosaic-expedition.org/
The MOSAiC web app tracks the Polarstern’s drift route live: follow.mosaic-expedition.org
Follow MOSAiC and the Dartmouth researchers on social media:
Twitter: @MOSAiCArctic (#MOSAiCexpedition #Arctic #icedrift)
Instagram: @mosaic_expedition (#MOSAiCexpedition)
I’m just going out, I may be some time.
Farewell, Captain.
Don’t worry, this story will be repeated every 16 days.
Nothing like adding some sensationalism to try to spice up a totally unnecessary “expedition”.
And iffen one includes the salaries and entitlements of those 600 international participants the total cost of that charade will be about $250 million.
If you couple ……. totally unnecessary “expedition” with totally unnecessary “expenditure” ….. you get what government entities do best, …… frivolously spend taxpayer monies.
A quote attributed to Captain Lawrence Edward Grace “Titus” Oates in Scott’s diary.
Captain Oates died during the Terra Nova Expedition to the Antarctic (1910-1913).
Oates was afflicted with gangrene and frostbite and walked out of his tent into a blizzard.
His death was an act of self sacrifice as his ill health was seen as compromising his companions’ chances of survival.
Instead he chose certain death.
Sly but amusing historical analogy, Jones.
We all knew that Herbert.
At $425,000 a day, this is huge operation predicated on detecting climate change. I bet they come up with some really harebrained conclusions. 300 rotating researchers and 600 participants. There’s going to be a daily shuttle service, which makes a joke out of being in a remote place. Why such a huge entourage and so many scientists? It sounds more like a PR event for anybody who goes to the ship and spends a day “frozen the Arctic ice.” Everybody wants that “badge of courage.”
Who would have thought that the science was settled years ago? It’s all about money.
They haven’t quite reached critical OPM yet. Once they reach critical OPM, the reaction is self perpetuating however, the reaction is eventually controlled through “resistance” so as not to lead to a runaway “effect” where the source of OPM becomes depleted and the masses become revolting. In such a case, those who sucked on OPM loose their heads.
I am pretty sure this has not happened before.
They will all write papers citing each other and the consensus will be increased.
and that ship and the in/outgoing others planes etc are all throwing heat into the area not normally there… making it rather farcical
I reckon the money could be far better spent
Just the heat released from the cooling water of the ship’s generators and engines will be enough to perturb the local environment. On the other hand it might be a good place to study the UHI generated by the ship in an otherwise pristine environment. :<)
There wouldn’t be any “carbon footprint” would there?
Carbon footprints are offset by smiley faces on the daily tracker chart.
“We desperately need structural change, and that starts with evidence that can’t be ignored.”
Snort! What?
These clowns can’t even speak English, let alone do science.
Yeah, maybe they could start by refusing aid from fossil fuel powered helicopters, planes, icebrakers, etc. and stay the whole year without rotation of staff on the ship since the weather there is so pleasant.
And rely on their own emissions greenhouse effect for heating.
So they are not going out to do objective scientific observations, they know we “need structural change ” ( to society ? ) and they are going out to get the evidence to ensure that this “can’t be ignored”.
Anything countering the predetermined narrative will be filed under “evidence that CAN be ignored.”
deluge of rotten ice reports in 3 … 2….1
Aye, Greg, Scissor and Bruce!
“there is much we don’t know”</b?,
“enable us to learn more about the Arctic”,
“help us predict future climate change.”..
Obviously, they do not intend to conduct science.
They’ll stay on the ship, mouth exclamatory nonsense for every unprecedented datum collected; then send press releases to compliant news services regarding how Earth is doomed.
“After over ten years of planning, this research mission” Sounds like they spent ten years prewriting climate alarums and dooms.
Dartmouth plans to waste a great deal of college and Federal funds.
They waited 10 years for the Arctic to be ice free in summer. They’ve finally realised that they better get out there, let the boat get stuck, and hope the ice carries them to the North Pole, before the Climate Scam falls on its face.
Because soon people won’t be willing to blow Millions of dollars on this kind of
Arctic CruiseScience Expedition.~¿~
More like “evidence that needs to corrected”.
Gawd, I thought the same thing…I’m like, what?
Bruce, can you speak Swedish? Science is some sort of English language exclusive?
Try to focus on arguments…
Being intelligent and talented gets in the way of a career in climastrology.
Excellent observation.
(…) allow scientists to comprehensively investigate the Arctic winter in the vicinity of the North Pole,
Armed with the forgone mandate and conclusion about “(…) threats posed to the planet from global climate change” (…) to “understand the causes and consequences of changes in the Arctic” (…) to “form a missing piece in the puzzle that is needed to better understand global climate change (…) while there is still time to assess and respond to change”
https://www.awi.de/en/search.html?q=anthropogen&id=14&L=1
155 results in 4 milliseconds.
https://www.awi.de/fileadmin/user_upload/AWI/Ueber_uns/Organisation/Leitung/Dateien/AWI_Annual_Report_2017_EN.pdf
1000+ employees with a budget og €145-180 million. No match on source of funding.
Feel free to look up scientific staff, board members and such to track their belief systems and political affiliations.
Märkel in Germany and Europe is in dire need of more propaganda to force-feed its population before it all collapses.
Oddgeir
” “We already know that the climate is rapidly changing, and we have enough data to understand why. We desperately need structural change, and that starts with evidence that can’t be ignored.”
Code for … we will make sure that our data supports the CAGW agenda to assist in the push for “structural change” …. ie., policy etc of the green agenda … that can’t be ignored. AND since no deniers or real scientists will be aboard, we will be free to “create” all the data we need for this purpose.
What a crock.
If these guys want my respect, I would advise them to make sure there are scientists on board with an alternative agenda …. ya know, the guys who admit “we don’t know why”, and who suspect a different cause ….. then compare notes.
I doubt that they will find any ’causes’ in the artic…
They could look for the cause of the melting which was far faster than climate models predicted. They could look for the reason that this years sea ice minimum is indistinguishable for 2007, despite ever growing emissions and atmospheric CO2.
They could discover the heat lost from open water by evaporation LWIR emissions 24/7 which have countered the naive assumption of more sun getting absorbed by open water leading to run away melting as was expected but failed to happen since 2007.
They could look at pCO2 in open water and under the ice to discover why the Arctic has the largest CO2 annual swing of anywhere on the planet.
But I doubt they will.
If they had historical observations, er… Let me rephrase:If they had historical observations they trusted; they could measure modern humidity levels.
Thus testing the question whether El Ninos pump extra water vapor into the atmosphere, reaching even the Arctic and Antarctic.
Providing another possibility that other atmospheric components could be masking the effects of CO₂.
Though, exactly how a ship icebound and at the mercy of Arctic Ocean Currents, can collect measurements and samples as they drift with the pack.
Not that the ship’s passengers are currently showing greater intelligence than the pack ice.
Basically, they are collecting the same information that an ocean buoy collects.
Hopefully, they know enough not to treat frozen sea ice as a play ground.
Maybe they’ll find out that the Arctic isn’t ice free like Al said it should be?
That’s the Big One from Big Al. We ignored him and look what happened. Ice still there. Had we listened, who knows?
Maybe it will be millions of degrees beneath the ice?
You mean: people with real jobs.
What if there’s no ice?
All using fossil fuels products, diesel to keep warm, plastic overed foods, helicopters flying in food and more diesel, But lets save the planet 😐 why not use the 155 million on energy solutions, new fuel ideas?? If they are so sure the world is ending, why not find ways to save it, rather then spent 155+ million on finding the same conclusion they had years ago?!
During the year-long expedition, nearly 300 researchers from 17 countries will rotate aboard the Polarstern. The project will deploy an international fleet of four icebreakers as well as helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to support the research. In total, the expedition will include 600 international participants and cost about $155 million.
BINGO
Well now, we’re not sure how they plan to rotate the researchers. I’m sure they will be using dogsleds and foot power to move about on the ice floes.
j/k
$155 million dollars !?!
600 international participants
That’s more than a quarter million per international participant!! Is this boondoggle for science or global wealth redistribution? I cringe to think how much funding for MOSAiC is from US taxes.
Oh No!
This is not being funded completely by some billionaire environmental kook like Tom Steyer. One of the big three sponsors of MOSAiC is CIRES which is a NOAA and Colorado University at Boulder partnership.
That means that at least $50 million funding for this probably comes from US and Colorado tax dollars 😢
Intentional Ship of Fools? What’s not to like about this venture? Who has nothing better to do than spend a winter in the high arctic, where the sun does not shine, so to speak, drifting at very slow speed trapped in an ice flow? This is crazy on so many levels.
…and being paid for it…
“The uncertainties in our climate models are nowhere bigger than in the Arctic”
da? how about the entire made up model?
“We already know that the climate is rapidly changing, and we have enough data to understand why. We desperately need structural change, and that starts with evidence that can’t be ignored.”
No, “We” do not know, “We” lie seeking money, power and control.
So they watch ice form and melt for a period of time then announce they have ‘proof’ it is caused by Climate Change? I can only hope those that paid for this understand that their money could have been used to help human kind, not just a select group of rent seekers.
I just listened to the interview on Markus Rex in a big audience channel in my country and he said exactly this:
*****************
“We will be able, for the first time, to observe the main climate processes in the central Arctic over the course of a year, and this observation is the basis for our understanding. We need to understand them to realistically insert them into our climate models. So far, all climate models have somehow tried to guess how these processes work in the center of the Arctic. Now, come on, look at them and get more consistent weather forecasts.”
Markus Rex
*****************
At least, we heard someone that admits that the knowledge is not settled, the Arctic processes are rather unknown, poorly represented in the models and they will try to improve that.
That’s a start…
Kudos to the mission. I’ll be paying attention.
Yes getting data is a good start. I have wondered what the DMI 80degree N Latitude temp chart represents in terms of accuracy. It will get cold where this ship floats. Should be fun December 25.
So they will study it for one whole year and extrapolate that for the next 1000 years….
What kind of crack piping smoke are they inhaling and calling it science?
They have not observed the processes,yet; but they are committed to inserting their understanding of central Arctic’s main climate processes.
At least those they can observe from an icebound ship.
The failure of the climate models are incorrect assumptions, causing the models to run hot. Not because they need to rewrite initiating Arctic weather processes.
Nor is grandstanding, overweening pride and hubris a solid start to this Arctic expedition.
We do not know is a great start.
We are going to learn about what we do not know, is a great start.
We are going to fix climate models with what we do not know is a really bad start.
Looks like Josh gets a lot of inspiration ….. we get a lot of laughs .
😉
Wasn’t the Arctic supposed to be ice-free by now?
“Hopefully, this study will be historic not only for its scale, but for its ability to allow us to understand the causes and consequences of changes in the Arctic.”
It won’t ‘…allow you to understand’ anything.
It may (perhaps) help you to understand;
but for that to happen, you will need an open mind…
Where is evidence for polar amplification theory?
In what ways is climate changing rapidly?
Where is a benefit:cost analysis for that $155 million?
Where the story says crews will rotate, will they also reciprocate in inevitable sex acts?
Nice money if you can get it. All based on unverified models and unproven hypotheses. Geoff S
I don’t recall having heard anything about uncertainties before. It is that Arctic sea ice was melting much faster than models anticipated. That is called getting it WRONG, not having a pre-declared “uncertainty”.
So post-1990 melting was much faster than models predicted and now since the OMG low of 2007 it is still at the same level. You did not get that bit right either did you?
Well if you understand why, why did Arctic sea ice melt much faster than anticipated and why is it now exactly the same as it was 12 years ago despite ever rising emissions.
If you have enough data why the $115 million expenditure ?
Maybe in their time up there they will be able to measure the heat flow in and out of unfrozen ocean, compared it to heat flow through the ice and work out whether open water is a negative or a positive feedback to melting.
I already know the answer to that one by looking at the satellite period. But I guess they’ll need to work things out for themselves.
You nailed it. According to them, they already believe the climate is changing rapidly, so this investment wilm just confirm that.
Yes. I suppose plonking a dirty big drifting Heat Island in the middle of their observations will confirm all their preconceived notions.
Well I’m glad they’re going up there with an open mind, looking to let the data lead them to a conclusion instead of carrying their preconceived notions with them.
In unrelated news, does anyone know the ASCII for an eye roll?
@@
42.
There have been numerous research islands in the arctic for nearly a hundred years which were set on ice floes and drifted with the ice.
https://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre/history/history_drifting.html
Not sure what is different with this latest venture apart from the scale
Tonyb
Tonyb. 155 million… and a year of free food a roof over your head, and a wage at the end of the month. Who wouldn’t want to go…
A wage at the end of the month – and nowhere to spend it!
Too cold for me, though.
Publicity.
Deja vu all over again.
Carl Weyprecht is smiling somewhere.
Does anyone know whether SS Malmo escaped from ice above Svalbard?
I love how most of these studies begin with “experts on this” or “that”. To me it’s become a code word, “I’m an authoritative person of the new global world order” –> nothing more than virtue signaling.
If they were what they claim they are there would be no need to say it.
Lets see: 300 scientists gathering data such as: location, air temperature, atmospheric gas composition, wind velocity, barometric pressure, water temperature, water chemistry, , solar and cosmic radiation levels, magnetic field strength and motion and what-not. Since much of the instrumentation is automated, there will undoubtedly be ample time to learn the finer points of various card games. Not to forget the guys with the guns, tasked with thwarting nosy polar bears in order to save them from themselves.
On the outer barcoo…. I thought all the polar bears were dead?
The Barcoo population is doomed. Functionally Extinct I believe is the term.
Just a year long party at tax payer expense. Probably be lots of drinking and sex. I hope they get trampled by a herd of angry yaks or that a whole lot of hungry polar bears find them. Maybe they will find Santa Claus’ hidden work shop at the North Pole and write it up in their learned journals.
Consider this:
A resupply mission –
In the middle of the winter –
In the middle of the Arctic night –
It is really dark and really cold, and that is not going to change anytime soon.
Your ship really is locked hard into the ice.
You are one helicopter crash away from disaster.
Have a nice trip.
I’m guessing that re-supply will be pretty routine and done by fixed wing aircraft. In my experience, it would take a few missed supply flights before having to worry about disaster. ie. you take the possibility of unforeseen events into account and you sure don’t let your supplies get anywhere near zero.
And the Dominos delivery person gets a huge tip.
You do realise who’s planning this operation? Climate Scientists…. I’d say the chances of a major failure are better than 100%.
I expect the ship’s Captain has final ruling on how the ship is provisioned.
Once they’re stuck in the ice, it’s just a floating hotel.
With several hundred missions over the arctic in the 55 Weather recon squadron I can tell you that the weather over the ice is zero, up to maybe 10,000 feet. We routinely flew anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 and being the Navigator I had to fix the aircraft (no Nav aids) every hour and I used celestial but would have to climb over 10,000 feet to get out of the blinding snow storms. It was very rare we flew when it was sunny with no wind. I know helos don’t do well in that environment. Fixed wing can do supply drops but it is over 50 below and even in artic gear you get cold.
My experience is within the Canadian archipelago. What snow you see is mostly wind driven rather than actual precipitation. We were able to operate our helicopters almost every day, mostly during the spring, when there was sufficient light and before the ice got so thin that supply flights couldn’t land.
Even without blowing snow, an overcast day would create whiteout conditions where you couldn’t tell the ice from the sky. Sometime in the mid 1970s, a Canadian Government leased helicopter plowed into the ice because of that. Fortunately the pilot and crew member survived. I saw the pictures. The Bell Jet Ranger 206 was spread literally over acres.
Around the same time, the Canadian Government issued an edict stating that having to put down on the ice and ‘camp out’ over night is not considered to be an emergency. In other words, if you’re caught in a whiteout, land and stay landed until conditions improve.
“rotating in and out” This may be a great deal more difficult – and risky – that they think. The weather – think visibility – up there can be pretty nasty fro long periods of time. Is there any assurance the ice near the ship will remain flat for a runway? Helicopters have very limited range/payload capabilities especially when carrying human payloads.
Re-supply will almost certainly be by fixed wing aircraft. Most people aren’t aware that the people who operate in the arctic are extremely competent. The folks who aren’t competent are the ‘adventurers’ who think it might be a good idea to ride their motorcycles to the north pole.
You can do this with a buoy. I am pretty sure this was done before with buoy and it also had a webcam attached. What else are they going to investigate? That it is a cold and dark place? What a bunch of clowns. Who pays for this stuff? I hope no goverment money is wasted on this.
My guess is that it’s only government money involved.
The government doesn’t have any money. The government hands out our money.
How much fossil fuel will their trip require? HYPOCRITES!
If they are so worried about the melting of Sea ice, why do they keep sending “Icebreakers” ? D’OH !
They might just be doing this so they can say they got stuck in the ice ON PURPOSE. At least this time…
[Catastrophic Anthropogenic] Climate change, huh. So the crew will return in 30 years and check if the scientists are still viable? Three trimesters to gestate a belief in a hypothetical climate model.
I hope they know more about icebreaker hull strength than they do about the climate. Oh, actually, I do not. Few things would please me more than to see this “ship of fools” hoist by their own petard! I wonder if that Australian foolish academic will join this one, and again prove that he does not understand the weather!
Which one? We have a few you know.
I’ve no doubt whatsoever that this behaviour lies somewhere on a psychological Lorenz attractor.
We get these breathless press releases that imply that something has never been done before. Actually, people have been doing this for more than a century, starting with Nansen in the late 1800s. The Soviets/Russians have had floating ice stations more or less continuously since 1937. link
It took the Fram over 3 years to transit the Arctic ice cap. Nansen left the ship on skis to try to reach the North Pole. As I recall neither he nor the ship actually made it to 90 degrees North. The ship made to through to Svalbard, and Nansen made it to Franz Josef Land. Both the ship and Nansen and his companion were gone 3 years, without reprovisioning.
We hear about the heroic exploits of British explorers like Scott and Franklin. We don’t hear about the heroic exploits of Amundsen and Nansen and a host of other Scandinavians because they knew what they were doing and didn’t need to be heroic.
Roger. And this bunch will only be there a few months. What will they learn in one year?
Maybe there will be rapid warming in May.
If they are frozen in, will they get out in less than a year? There may be less ice, but I don’t think it is that much less. And the multi-year ice is in the cross Arctic current.
These are trained scientists. They will come back with the “truth”. Remember what Biden said.. “Truth over Facts”. That is be the motto of these learned people.
They have to dash to the North Pole to find the truth before it sinks to the bottom of the ocean due to global warming.
“Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate” (MOSAiC)…
…staffed by the Floating Arctic Research Team (FART).
LOL, that there is a good one, at least in my boat.
… from Unimaginably Naive Intelligensia Cannot Outwit Raw Nature Satisfactorily
Sounds like they are fully prepared to confirm what they believe. Bravo.
From the article:
“The threats posed to the planet from global climate change are real and they are coming on fast,” said Donald Perovich, a professor at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and the expedition’s co-lead for sea ice research.”
And
“said Raphael, who will research ice growth and the melting of sea ice. “We already know that the climate is rapidly changing, and we have enough data to understand why.”
end excerpts
There are two unsubstantiated claims.
There is no evidence that human-caused climate change (that’s what they mean) is real , or is coming on fast, or is rapidly changing the arctic. The globe has been cooling for over three years. How is that “coming on fast”? The arctic has more sea ice now than in the past.
Alarmist climate scientists are prone to exaggeration and hyperbole. The above claims are a few examples of such. It seems that just about every human-caused climate change article/study has at least one example. It’s amazing to see how many scientists actually think it is a good idea to assert something as fact that they have never verified.
Somebody ought to give these scientists a class in “The Pitfalls of Assuming Too Much”.
The alarmist climate scientists are being led astray by assuming CO2 is the control knob of the climate when there is not one shred of evidence that this is the case. They just assume there is evidence without actually verifying it themselves.
They are depending on hear-say. They are appealing to authority. Unfortunately, the authority they appeal to in the case of human-caused climate change, is corrupt, and is creating a false reality where CO2 is an evil gas that is destroying the Earth’s atmosphere. Not true! Not true at all! No evidence of such! None! Yet climate scientists talk like there is. They are either being disengenuous or they are clueless Useful Idiots/True Believers.
Tom abbott… The biggest problem is that they are winning, they are everywhere, destroying peoples lives with “the world is going to end”.’ Anxiety and stress is not funny, in fact I went through it before finding this site… The scientists who have factual data on co2 not being the cause of weather changes, need to speak up and out, and fast, as the green tax scammers will win!! I absolutely dislike the protesters who live the same lives we do, yet want to destroy our society…
“The threats posed to the planet from global climate change are real and they are coming on fast,” said Donald Perovich”
So much for scientific objectivity.
Yes so any evidence to the contrary will. at least, be a “surprize”, if ever reported.
Er sorry, dut didn’t Amundsen do this over 100 years ago?
No, it was Nansen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridtjof_Nansen#Fram_expedition
Maybe they’ll figure out that “ice” caused the Ice Age?
Maybe they’ll figure out that the the Arctic isn’t ice free like some proponents of CAGW said it should be several years ago?
Maybe they’ll admit they were wrong?
“Climate change is real, and it is coming on fast.” Where, exactly? In what ways, exactly? Temperature has remained fairly constant, or near it, for decades. I see this article consumed with scare tactics, not facts.
So the ship is to be “locked” into the ice. I do hope the ice floes between which the ship will rest don’t suddenly start to move: if the part north of the ship slides east, and the part south of the ship slides (let’s say) southwest, the entire vessel could suddenly be a demonstration of the power of millions of tons of ice, in oblique or contrary motion. [crunch!]
Good questions. Have you noticed that there is a considerable emphasis on it being “real” of late?
More and more people are doubting and thus the emphasis on the word real. Not sure what ‘coming fast’ implies. Do they mean it is not yet here, but soon will?
This has been before…by one man in a small sailboat. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/167520/north-to-the-night-by-alvah-simon/9780767904469/
I loved the book.
If the Ice in the Arctic isn`t melting fast enough to meet the climate change rhetoric there can only be one solution . . .
send a boat with a `thermal` engine in it for 365 days along with 300 bundles of flesh at body temp along with copious amounts of additional thermal energy to warm the air, heat the water, cook the food, make ice for the drinks, wash the clothes, play music over the tannoy, drive the computers and comms and radar systems, to allow phone calls to home, and to power the lights. Without mentioning the other thermal engine ice breakers running staff changes and supplies out, . . .
and then measure how fast the ice is melting !
new headline . . . percentage increase in annual CO2 emissions in the arctic sea ice area reach all time high !
Pretty sure the final report has already been written, and it starts with the words “It’s worse than we thought..”
Despite the enormous expenditures of fossil fuels to keep the people alive on the ice locked ship, and resupply missions, and swapping personnel, there is also a possibility of the ship’s hull being crushed instead of just lazily drifting about and going nowhere! Ice Breakers have reinforced BOWS, but relatively normal hulls. And resupply in total darkness will give rise to potentially catastrophic crashes, whichever type of aircraft they decide to use. There is nothing “friendly” about Arctic Winters!
Sssshhhh.. they probably don’t realize that night-time lasts for months up there.. let’s not spoil their surprise.. 😉
Just wondering what the “observer effect” will be on this.
I wonder whether the icebreaker is outfitted with a glass bottom so scientists will be able to study some of the previous expeditions.
“Climate processes in the central Arctic that will be studied in the research form a missing piece in the puzzle that is needed to better understand global climate change.”
Hang on a moment. The science is SETTLED. Damn it.
When this happened to Henry Hudson, it did not end well for him and his son.
All these projects start off with the answers. They want to gather the evidence to show why the Arctic Climate is changing so fast, not find out IF the Arctic is changing so fast. And to say the ice melted far faster than models calculated is total BS. The experts have been telling us the Arctic will be clear of summer ice by about 2009 and then every two years after that.
Ive had a life long interest in weather as a prairie boy and later remote territory worker (geolgical surveys and mining exploration) and Ive had reasonable success with forecasts. I predicted the bitter cold winter and cool summer this year in eastern and central Canada and I’m predicting another one as bad this year.
The last El Nino effects wore off a year and a half ago and NOAA’s modest forecast 2019-20 El Nino I predicted here on WUWT to be a bust when it came out earlier this year, simply because of the lack of warm water volume in the Eq. Pacific plus the unusual slanting equatorward of additional cold water from temperate zone “cold blobs”.
The final piece of the puzzle was the discovery a couple of weeks ago by a giant Russian nuclear “cruise icebreaker” taking wealthy adventurers on a trip to the North Pole, of extraordinarily thick solid pack ice from Svalbard all the way to the pole. Whereas Bremen and other ice thickness specialists were reporting 50 cm ice ( and still are!) The huge powerful ship had to bash its way throughout the entire transect through 3m and thicker packed ice of 100% ‘extent’. The icebreaker had to back up frequently to charge the ice and the voyage to two days longer than expected.
Chicago endured its coldest winter last season since records began in 1872. The cold air flowed down unimpeded from an Arctic basin registering over -50C at the time. My suspicions of much thicker ice than was being reported was confirmed by the Russian breaker. Present temperatures there have dropped to -15 to-20C (DMI temperature map). This 3m of ice is being preserved and will be added to by the coming very cold winter and should mark the unequivocal recovery of Arctic Ice extent and volume after a decade of marking time at the bottom of its earlier decline.
I wish everyone well on this expedition, but caution when winter takes a turn for the worse in the polar regions margins of safety are tdangerously thin. Don’t be careless.
If you’re wondering what’ll keep them warm and cook the food, also on board, four 14MW diesel engines.
Amundson on the Fram already did this over 100 years ago. So what is new.
Amundsen on the Fram already did this over 100 years ago. So what is new.
So 1890s.
So ….. gonna leave their part of the Arctic well fertilized ….
sanitation ? What sanitation .
😉
At least there will be no problems chilling the beer for the after-research-hour parties.
“understand the causes and consequences of changes in the Arctic. How the *** do they figure this stunt will have any insight into the CAUSES of any change? A one-time snapshot.
Translation
the (MOSAiC) expedition marks the first time a modern research icebreaker will be set to drift in the Arctic for an entire year
So any data we collect will need to be re-collected for at least another 30 years before it begins to make any sense.
The threats posed to the planet from global climate change are real and they are coming on fast
And what exactly are those threats and how are they related to this particular first time trip?
The uncertainties in our climate models are nowhere bigger than in the Arctic
We really have no idea whats happening, thus the reason for this first ever trip.
There will be more. Many more.
Let’s see…. a “scientific team” dispatched to prove AGW. No matter what they find it will be bad for man because we use fossil fuels. How many of these wasteful ventures must we endure before we call bull shit? Fund a team to find something and they will find it.
Interesting hull design. What is the evacuation plan in the case of the Polarstern getting crushed in the ice?
According to Tony Heller (YouTube rrleased today), the location that the ship will be icebound in was open water in the early 1900’s.
Not.
Evidence pls?
Reference please?
What is the point? If all the sea ice melted it would not cause the “global sea level”, whatever that is, to rise.
Personally I don’t foresee much science getting done. Once they find out how cold an Arctic winter actually is, and how dark it is way out there, probably many hours will be wiled away in nice warm ships quarters.
Is the bar well stocked?
I’m astonished at some of the comments here: this is primary research into an important area of the planet… why wouldn’t we fund the best new research in this area? whatever your views on climate change, surely we want and need to know how the polar ice operates in winter?
It’s agenda-driven pseudoscience. You can smell the confirmation bias. Well maybe not you specifically, but anyone with at least half a brain.
One Tony Mcleod lost his bet about ice loss, you were behind him. He lost and, AFAIK, he’s not been back under that name (Well done Tony, I know you are watching like a good Queenslander). Will you take a bet, lose, and go away? You did say somewhile back you were done with WUWT and would not return. And, still, like a rash, you return.
Ice “operates”?
This is a repeat of Nansen’s Fram expedition, 1893-96. How much did it cost then?
Wikipedia:
Nansen’s original estimate for the total cost of the expedition was 300,000 kr. After giving a passionate speech before the Parliament of Norway (Storting),[a] Nansen was awarded a grant of NOK 200,000; the balance was raised from private contributions which included 20,000 kroner from King Oscar II of Norway and Sweden. The Royal Geographical Society in London gave £300 (about NOK 6,000).[20] Unfortunately, Nansen had underestimated the financing required—the ship alone would cost more than the total at his disposal. A renewed plea to the Storting produced a further NOK 80,000, and a national appeal raised the grand total to NOK 445,000. According to Nansen’s own account, he made up the remaining deficiency from his own resources.[21] His biographer Roland Huntford records that the final deficit of NOK 12,000 was cleared by two wealthy supporters, Axel Heiberg and an English expatriate, Charles Dick.[22]
One of the experiments is an engineering one. To see if the hull can withstand the pressure.
Not one positive comment about an important research project.
100 comments so far and the vast majority seem that they are just not interested in the science. Thats the tell. The vast majority here don’t wont this kind of research done because it will probably confirm their fears.
How pitiably small-minded and sad. Shame on this site for its anti-science dog-whistling.
That’s rich, given the destruction of data at UEA and Canada, and Mann refusing to give up publicly funded data so it can be checked. If you’re so pro-science why don’t you call out those destroyers of data?
probably because theyve shown a strong preconcieved/ desired result?
and because all of this apart from the ship being crushed by ice could be done with remote sensors?
Yeah, we’re not as impressed by Alarmist pseudoscience as you are. Go figure.
“100 comments so far and the vast majority seem that they are just not interested in the science. Thats the tell.”
I think the main sentiment of skeptics about this voyage is that the people involved are True Believers in CAGW and skeptics are not sure what kind of “science” will be produced.
After all, we already have an organization, the UN IPCC, that set out to find human causes to the Earth’s climate, and low and behold, they found the connection, to their satisfaction, and it pays very well. This arctic voyage may be more of the same.
We will be able to judge much better after we get some results from this expedition. Until then, be very skeptical. Of everything, not just climate science. 🙂
That’s pathetic Loydo- after an an unbelievable tally of failed predictions, numerous carbon spewing conference, endless hypocrisy, lies, lies, lies and failed climate models. No chance of biased “science” here LOL. The question is: when are scientists in this field going to be honest and try to reclaim some dignity and trust?
It is an important research project. It is also being over-hyped, which annoys me. It is not like 1893 when we had no remote sensing data; today we have even nuclear submarines launching nuclear bathyscaphes with lithium batteries catching fire.
I agree entirely with Loydo above. This terrifically important experiment will emerge near the autumn solstice 2020 and will be able to prove that the ‘melt’ bottomed out at over four million square kilometres as it has done for the last 12 years pace 2013. Known as four Wadhams after that climate scientist who does Arctic science like all these other Arctic scientists. It will be interesting to watch. (Btw ‘charctic’ shows we are scraping round just above 4mkmsq as I write. Phew!!)
Sorry I meant equinox. And I’m a sailor!
Getting stuck in the ice on purpose will be a nice change for them.
This has been done in almost exactly the same way twice before. By Fram in 1893-96 and by Sedov in 1937-40.
Sedov found considerably milder winter temperatures (about 10 degrees) than Fram and only two thirds as thick ice (c. 2 meters as against 3.5 meters), despite a more northerly drift path:
https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/ihr/article/download/27195/1882519950
I wonder which will be used for comparison?
“Quackademics On Ice” sounds like a good show. Popcorn time.
Good for them raising the money and all the jobs being created “green jobs” Maybe spending a week at a time, with internet access and fresh vegetables sounds good. I spent a year in the arctic(N of the 72nd) before sat communications, weekly flights brought in mail, 3 movies etc, but normally there for 4 months at a time listening to a few cassettes, watching 3 of which 2 definitely crappy movies and no ability to make phone calls. This sounds like a cake walk…
I wonder, how do you make prognoses far into the future of a caotic and nonlinear system as climate, or weather for that part…?
“The threats posed to the planet from global climate change are real and they are coming on fast,” said Donald Perovich, a professor at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and the expedition’s co-lead for sea ice research. Sounds sto me that they have already “decided” that the “climate changes” are not net beneficial.
I would love to sequester all the CAGW alarmists in the Arctic aboard a floating vessel stuck in sea ice for a year or more, or a decade, or for all eternity would be the best. But while they’re there, I hope we can cut off their links to the Internet, satellite phones, cell service, etc. so that the rest of us would not be burdened by their pointless utterances and opinions and fear mongering. I would not prevent them from having access to Netflix or Game of Thrones, or streaming content on a Read Only basis.
I thought this was going to be a news item originating in The Onion or The Babylon Bee.
“Academic team to be frozen in Arctic ice for historic polar expedition”
Will they prove the collapse of arctic ice due to man-caused global warming by thawing out and resuscitating themselves in in perhaps 2050?
They need four ice breakers to show how little ice there is.
If you are planning on being stuck, why do you need four ice breakers?
“Hopefully, this study will be historic not only for its scale, but for its ability to allow us to understand the causes and consequences of changes in the Arctic.”
A rhetorical trick to get us to think it important.
It will be as historic as my riding my motorcycle through Lockhart Sunday. His declaring it historic doesn’t make it historic. Sticking your boat in ice intentionally may be a first, but that doesn’t make it historic.
Will their expedition be “famous or important in history?” Not if it goes as planned.
Wouldn’t it be a lot cheaper and more efficient to just rent local freezer space and stash them in there?
Guess I just don’t understand academia.
All those helicopters and planes flying in and out will probably release a substantial amount of heat and CO2.
But not much to see up there, since the sun won’t shine most of the winter. BRRRRRR!