Sunday
Jan022011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill More cold
Jan 2, 2011 Climate: Surface The BBC is reporting that ten ships and 600 mariners have been trapped by sea ice in the Sea of Okhotsk. Apparently it's minus 22 out there at the moment.
Reader Comments (19)
I'd double double check that BBC report as their geography has been found woefully lacking.....
Surprised they didn't use "unprecedented" and "local" in the report, but then again Richard Black n all are probably on holiday....
Tut , I should have looked at the page heading - it's filed under http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12099928
The Page headline say "NEWS EUROPE"
Clots
600 sailors all dressed up with nowhere to go. What on Earth will they all do to pass the time?
Keep themselves warm with a rousing sea shanty or several ?
Way - hey blow the man (down)...
Not a pleasant thought. I hope they all get home safely and soon. Things are not going to warm up there for a long while yet.
The 600 mariners could all sing "what shall we do with the climate sceptics".
Now where have I heard that sea shanty before?
http://www.australiannews.net/story/726437/ht/Rescue-attempt-leaves-icebreakers-stuck-in-frozen-sea
Two icebreakers have become stuck in the Okhotsk Sea in Russia's Far East.
The ships had been sent to rescue people caught onboard three ships which had also become stuck in ice.
As the icebreakers were en route to the other ships, the drifting ice hemmed them in.
The large vessels are in an area of ice about 12 inches thick.
Picture looks a bit nippy!
North put some flesh on it
I'm with Jorge on this. Get back safely folks.
If you're curious about ice - you can see the Baltic freezing up here in real-ish sort of time. I wouldn't fret too much about the guys in the Sea of Okhotsk - if it freezes more they can probably get home by bus.
Thank goodness for those erupting volcanoes along the Kamchatka peninsula or those marines would have been freezing.
or even mariners
Twelve inches of ice, says the Beeb, converted by them from 30 cm.
Heh.
Looks to me as if the reporter/editor of this information didn't use the proper brain cells, because they were probably sooo chuffed to get the 30cm = 12 inches right.
From the pictures, I reckon they dropped a zero, and the ice is 300cm thick, that would be three metres. Makes more sense - how could the very powerful Russian ice breakers be stuck in a piffling foot of ice?
But that's the Beeb for you - and another pitiful example of what comes out of our educational system.
The U.N should make all ships that may get stuck in the growing ice season to carry a G.Mombiot in a glass box , in case of emergency they can break him out and all be warmed by his eco passion !
We've just been watching the recent BBC documentary about the polar bears, filmed by camouflaged cameras, some of which the bears demolished (rather satisfactorily, although those Zeiss lenses looked expensive). My son and I were listening for GW references and were not disappointed, but they were not too forceful, and the film could not disguise the bears' ability to swim.
It would be good the trapped ships story on the main news here in the UK, especially as they seem to be at roughly the same latitude!
"It would be good" = "it would be good to see"
"12 inches of ice"
More BBC cut'n'paste. I don't think 12" would bother this ship, which was sent to rescue the others, but also got stuck:
Link
What strikes me is that the Sea of Okhotsk is well below the Arctic Circle. I think I'll stop worrying about the polar bears.
Dud link, sorry. Try this:
Ice-breaker