Monday
Dec302013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Akademic shambles
Dec 30, 2013 Greens The travails of the green climatologists on board the Akademik Shokalskiy have been providing us all with a lots of fun over the last few days. I've been a bit busy painting the office, so haven't been posting, but there's an excellent roundup over at WUWT.
With the latest rescue attempt having been postponed, prospects for the ship to escape the ice are not looking too good at present, although fortunately an air evacuation is available as a backup option. We will have to wait and see how things go. But in the meantime one can appreciate the sheer majesty of the propaganda failure that Prof Turney and his colleagues have achieved.
Reader Comments (172)
@Foxgoose something linking in TITANIC would be memorable
- anyway you idiot deniers .. this ice is NOT climate ..it's JUST WEATHER
A helicopter rescue may not be that easy. Apart from the poor current and forecast visibility - Turney tweeted yesterday that the ice around the ship is softening & cracking.
The Chinese helicopter seems to be a big heavy job (modelled on the old Russian M1-8) and the Aurora skipper has already said it's too big for his helipad.
Will the Chinese skipper risk landing it on soft, cracking, snow-covered ice?
Does it have winch rescue equipment and expertise to lift people off while hovering?
Seems to me this could require serious backup from Australian or NZ military.
I bet the Russian ship's insurers are crying into their vodka.
stewgreen - you've hit the nail on the head..!
NEVER FORGET - the IPCC was set up to PROVE that man-made CO2 emissions were warming the climate...
Perhaps if the scientists/media/tourists/whatever on that ship were to 'huff' on the ice a bit, it would all melt..?
lets hope serious harm comes to the warmish propagandists
@sHX "The increase in sea ice has freshened the seawater below, so much so that you can almost drink it. This change will have impacts on the deep ocean circulation.
Underwater, forests of algae are dying as sea-ice blocks the light. Who can say what effects the regional circulation changes may have on the ice sheet of the Antarctic plateau, or whether the low number of seals suggests changes to their population."
- A strong certain opinion ..yet where's the proper scientific evidence ?
very much sounds to me like just unquantified wild speculation
another example of SCIENTISTS SAY is not the same as Validated Science
..cherrypicking talk of possible seal population reduction, but doesn´t mention the recent vast increase in peguins and lobsters etc.
Foxgoose wisely remarks
'I bet the Russian ship's insurers are crying into their vodka.'
But it raises the interesting question of how the ship's master got his vessel into such a pickle in the first place...had he been on the vodka too? Or was he pressurised by the Cultists?
No doubt about it. If you are a warmist/warm-monger you are either in on the scam, and making money out of it, or you are a bloody idiot.
Jimmy Haigh - both....
Can we to TRUST Professor Chris Turney to navigate on Climate Change ?
Given his record ..should we spend the billions how he says ?
The ice might not let got of the ship even if they waited the whole summer:
"ship..caught in formation of a new area of fast ice, which could stay in place for several years"? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/30/antarctic-rescue-mission-fails … #spiritofmawson
Sandy S and I have already been over this ground.
One event is weather. A persistent change in system behaviour may be climatic.
@ Foxgoose
Will the Chinese skipper risk landing it on soft, cracking, snow-covered ice?
Risk a valuable helicopter to rescue a bunch of ecofascist psychopaths?
To ask the question is to know the answer.
I found this in my Christmas cracker -
Q.Whats the difference between an eco-loony and a penguin ?
A.One has a bird-brain, is an expert at feathering it's nest, lives on the ice and smells funny, the other is black and white with flippers
Dec 30, 2013 at 12:53 PM | Foxgoose:
I like the sound of "PenguinGate" - it's got a ring to it!
Oh, and I see that the Guardian are spinning it as a failed rescue mission rather than the cock-up that it actually is.
sHX /StewGreen
The increase in sea ice has freshened the seawater below, so much so that you can almost drink it. This change will have impacts on the deep ocean circulation.
That doesn't sound right to me. Going back 50 years to physics classes.
Sea ice forms at the ocean surface once the surface temperature drops to the freezing point. The freezing point for salty ocean water is about -2'C, slightly colder than it is for fresh water 0'C. When sea ice forms, a lot of the salt is expelled from the ice crystal structure, but the ice still ends up being slightly salty, about 1% salt, compared with about 3.5% salt in the ocean. This is distinct from the ice of ice shelves, which originally formed from snow falling on land, and so are completely fresh.
Now what I think these "scientists" are talking about is the layer of melt-water under the the ice and above the sea water. The two will not mix immediately and may well stay as separate layers whilst the ice remains, requiring some surface agitation.
However I could well be wrong and what is reported is what they actually think
The Jumblies
By Edward Lear
I
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be drowned!’
They called aloud, ‘Our Sieve ain’t big,
But we don’t care a button! we don’t care a fig!
In a Sieve we’ll go to sea!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
II
They sailed away in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they sailed so fast,
With only a beautiful pea-green veil
Tied with a riband by way of a sail,
To a small tobacco-pipe mast;
And every one said, who saw them go,
‘O won’t they be soon upset, you know!
For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long,
And happen what may, it’s extremely wrong
In a Sieve to sail so fast!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
III
The water it soon came in, it did,
The water it soon came in;
So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet
In a pinky paper all folded neat,
And they fastened it down with a pin.
And they passed the night in a crockery-jar,
And each of them said, ‘How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
While round in our Sieve we spin!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
IV
And all night long they sailed away;
And when the sun went down,
They whistled and warbled a moony song
To the echoing sound of a coppery gong,
In the shade of the mountains brown.
‘O Timballo! How happy we are,
When we live in a sieve and a crockery-jar,
And all night long in the moonlight pale,
We sail away with a pea-green sail,
In the shade of the mountains brown!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
V
They sailed to the Western Sea, they did,
To a land all covered with trees,
And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,
And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,
And a hive of silvery Bees.
And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws,
And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,
And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,
And no end of Stilton Cheese.
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
VI
And in twenty years they all came back,
In twenty years or more,
And every one said, ‘How tall they’ve grown!’
For they’ve been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,
And the hills of the Chankly Bore;
And they drank their health, and gave them a feast
Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast;
And everyone said, ‘If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,—
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
I haven't looked extremely hard - but hard enough ....
It would seem that it isn't clear at all who's ponying up the £35,000++ a day charter fee for this floating media train crash
Ah... Google starter for 10
Transparency in funding doesn't look like one of their strong points in any way shape or form - something smells here.
Entropic man
I'm don't know if we ever got to a point where we knew where the breakpoint between weather and climate is though. I could be wrong on that, but I'm not entirely sure if there is a point where one can safely say the climate has changed as tomorrow (in climate terms) is a known unknown. Your use of the word may suggests you have the same uncertainty.
stewgreen
Those were not my words. That bit of pure speculation belongs to Chris Turney, the doomsday scientist in charge of the operation. No doubt there are half a dozen pal-reviewed 'scientific' papers somewhere in the 'vast body of literature' that climate doomsday science consists of. They shall begin to appear in Skeptical Treehut Science website shortly.
BTW, that Q and A you quoted earlier ought to be repeated:
"Q: Dr Adam Rutherford: The fact that it’s expanding, that - that sounds counter-intuitive, when we talk about the polar ice caps melting, as a result of global warming.
A: Prof Chris Turney: Yeah, well, it’s a fascinating thing, isn’t it, really. Ultimately, global warming covers a vast array of different responses by our planet. And one of the fascinating things that we’re seeing is suggestions that large parts of the oceans off East Antarctica are actually getting fresher. And yet you’ve got this expanding sea ice, and one of the ideas we’re testing out here is this idea that when you’re melting the sea ice around the East Antarctic coastal fringes, at depth - not from air temperature but from warmer oceans - what you’re doing is you’re putting that fresh water from the Antarctic ice sheets into the oceans. It’s lighter, it’s less dense than salt water, so it floats to the surface relatively, and then it’s more vulnerable to freezing. And hence you get an expansion of sea ice cover. So that’s one idea that we’re testing at the moment."
As every reasonable person can see and understand well, the cause of this is either Abracadabra or Hocus Pocus and climate doomsday scientists are hard at work trying to figure that out. Clearly, more research and money is needed.
Meanwhile, according to the latest dispatch on the ABC:
"Despite the delays, spirits remain high on the Akademik Shokalskiy and expedition members continue to post messages and videos online.
"It's blowing an absolute blizzard here, there's a total white-out, there's snow blowing everywhere and it's damn cold outside," said expedition member John Black in his latest video message.
"Everybody's fine on board... it's a fantastic adventure we're having."
Expedition spokesman Alvin Stone says the group is not worried about spending New Year's Eve on the ice.
"They've got a good two weeks of fresh food and if that runs out they've got another two weeks of dehydrated food, so I suspect New Year's Eve will still be a pretty good time," he said."
Does anyone else detect a creeping panic in that statement?
How many more Kauri trees will need to be planted to offset the AAE 2013 carbon (DIOXIDE) emissions, especially if they have to commission the heavy icebreaker USCGC Polar Star from Seattle. 800 trees are alleged to have been planted already, but how large a slice of the BBC licence payers’ fees have been squandered on this jaunt, is something I’d really like to know!
http://www.spiritofmawson.com/our-legacy/
These charlatans, swindlers & mountebanks should be left to fend for themselves, UNTIL HELL FREEZES OVER.
Latimer Alder: 'Or was he pressurised by the Cultists?' Same scenario as the airplane crash a few years ago in Poland?
How nice it is to learn that the sea ice around the Antarctic is 'melting', according to Chris Turney, "not from air temperature but from warmer oceans", whereas in the Arctic it is the air temperature that doth the melting, not warmer currents or anything else.
Hmmm...'Professor Turney-out-on-ice-again!!'
TurneyGate.
You know, I do wonder what the PHD students are thinking out there on the ice. In that kind of environment in a confined space with increasing levels of climate science being spun on the fly.
It could provide the backdrop and plot for a whole Blackadder series on it’s own, although Richard Curtis (10:10 no pressure) wouldn’t write it and the BBC wouldn’t broadcast it.
Rather than use the obvious 'gate' appendage, why not call it what it is : the Akademik Shokalskiy Tragi-Comedy. Currently in the comedy phase and perhaps moving to tragedy some time early in the new year? The question then will be for those who return, will it be comedic ridicule for them thereafter or tragedy because they are unemployable?
Using the dollar value published on the SpiritofMawson web site - $8050 per person for 28 days on board - they don't even specify the currency!
That translates to $386,400 for 48 paying passengers which is $13,800 a day. Down there including heating - the vessel likely burns in excess of 5 ton of fuel a day at a rough cost of $5000, 24 crew at $100 a day ($2400 = v.cheap, more likely $5K a day wages).
I suspect charter rate for this vessel will be in the $20K to $35K + a day bracket - which is $560K to $980K.
The expedition web site seems remarkably reticent about who's contributing between $200K and $600K for what is looking like little more than a PR cruise.
My experience of research cruises is that it's customary for the science program to be itemised / laid out before the cruise sets out - the Spirit of Mawson site is simply a mess.... A quick tour didn't identify a single project web site - lots of earnest emoting though.
AU$8,000 a pop for the cheap seats, apparently.
Not so bad for an extended Christmas cruise.
3:09 PM Alan Reed
They'll start bleating when the booze runs out.
The Guardian reader comments on this "fantastic adventure" is well worth a read. Where have all the regular doom merchants gone?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/30/antarctic-rescue-mission-fails#show-all
News from the rescue ship:
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/akademik-shokalskiy-rescue-how-mission-came-undone-by-one-giant-meringue-20131230-3036s.html
The Cli-tantic prounounced Cl-eye
I name this ship Cli-tantic (due to it's crew of cli-ts, Climate sci-activists)
2013 the year of the Cli-tantic disaster
How about CINATIT-GATE (Titanic backwards - 'cos the ice crashed into the ship this time)
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then you get yourself and others killed in idiotic publicity stunts for which you're not prepared. Then Darwin wins.
@Foxgoose ..come on man, Cli-tantic Disaster sounds good
Hey did someone just say "2013 Darwin award winner Chris Turney" ?
How about just CLITANIC - GATE?
WUWT has a video of a 1912 movie showing Commonwealth Bay as ice free with a man, likely Mawson, walking along the rocky shoreline amidst the penguins. If the movie is indeed of the same location of todays "expedition," its an ironic contrast. Do these people ever read anything but their own stuff?
According to Sky News, they're now going for the helicopter option:
http://news.sky.com/story/1188528/antarctic-ship-helicopter-to-rescue-passengers
Jo Nova's post about the stranded climate change warriors is a hoot. As she points out, Mawson's expedition 100 odd years ago not only came within a few miles of the coast (as did missions for 3 successive years later), the only thing that stopped them was that the water was too shallow for the draft of the boat. This lot are 60 miles out and frozen in, possibly for years.
Now we get these weird theories about the missing heat somehow being responsible.
The missing heat is looking more and more like the Scarlet Pimpernel.
And it's a Dedicated Follower of Fashion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA5gJ0hZpCc
For those who are wondering, Australian taxpayers are picking up most of the bill, via universities and government departments who sponsored this ill-begotten venture under the guise of "science." Specifically, (although they don't want to mention it just now) "climate science."
Given the likely rescue costs, taxpayers will be shocked to hear that this latest government funded project has gone a wee bit over budget.
@sHx yes I knew it wasn't your words, I saw at beginning you put in quotation marks
@Foxgoose - Its not a Gate, cos a gate is a coverup, but it is a disaster
- Is a shoehorn a standard Climate Sci-activists bit of kit ?
...Cos they are always shoe-horning data to make it fit into their pet dogma
DHR,
"If the movie is indeed of the same location of todays 'expedition,' its an ironic contrast. Do these people ever read anything but their own stuff?"
Their on-board historian should be able to fill them in on all the details (he's one of the "Science Team"):
"Ben is an academic historian, currently employed at the University of Wollongong in Australia. His love of history began at high school in Sydney, and led to an MA in Social and Industrial history (1987), and a PhD in Australian history. His teaching profile includes polar history, with an emphasis on the contribution of working class people to Antarctic and Arctic history. An active researcher, he is published extensively in Australian and international historical journals. There will be a pre-publication launch of his forthcoming book Class and Colonialism in Antarctic exploration 1750-1920 (Pickering and Chatto, 2014) somewhere in the vicinity of Commonwealth Bay."
http://www.spiritofmawson.com/aae-science-leaders/
Oh, lord, James, another Marxist historian from the University of Wollongong. They churn them out like widgets there.
"Class and Colonialism in Antarctic exploration 1750-1920" sure sounds like a load of left wing nonsense. Straight to the top of the best sellers list, I don't think.
Someone has suggested using dynamite to free them. I'm not sure. Maybe US artillery would provide a more predictable outcome.
You're right of course - it should henceforth be known as THE CLITANIC DISASTER
Monty Python's Bruce sketch:
It involves a group of stereotypical lounging Australians who are revealed to be the Philosophy Department at the fictitious University of Woolamaloo.
Sorry Foxgoose, I've been too pushy and I mistyped Cli-tanic
- dynamite ? We could shatter the dogma which their minds are trapped in
I think this hasn't got to the interesting bit yet - If the weather really closes in aerial rescue isn't an instant option.
I wonder what their real contingency plan is - they should have brimmed the tanks on departure. They should have stocked the food to the ceilings. But then ... they should have been doing science...
The tyres are obviously flat on this expedition vehicle and a few sparks are starting to jump from the rims.... did the hubris of the warmy gang lead them to recklessness at the edge of the ice ?
Alan Reed, you've missed the nuances there. Woolloomaloo is a real place, at that time in the slummiest dockyards of Sydney. It was a very funny skit, but the University of Wollongong is a cat of a different colour. It is about 80km down the coast, in an old coal and steel town with a long left-wing tradition (but not much industry left). "No poofters" would get you expelled from the university - which didn't exist then - nowadays. It is infested with people who still think that the only problem with Communism is that it hasn't been tried yet.
I nearly choked on my tea this morning when I heard there's a biologist on board by the name of Grant Hose.
Thanks Johanna,
You're right. Most of my ethnic slurs need a very serious overhaul.