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)
The UNSW website is less than transparent on the funding question: 'Professor Chris Turney and Dr Chis Fogwill, from the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre, are leading a privately funded team of 48 women and men, including members of the public...'
http://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/expedition-retraces-mawsons-footsteps-0
Heh, Alan, I don't see it that way at all. On the contrary, I thank you for reminding me of that wonderful skit.
Just wanted readers to understand that UW is a degree factory for Marxist historians, although they do some pretty good work in other fields, including science.
The helicopter from the Chinese icebreaker is a large Russian-built Kamov KA-28 dual rotor which weighs about 10 tons.
Not something you'd casually land on an ice floe.
I think helicopter evacuation may be "challenging".
In addition to who funded the trip, who pays for rescue?
I always wondered what happened to Murray. Remember him?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R1nK5GkQJU
Apparently he's stuck in the Antarctic:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25547703
Lot of comments on that Guardian article "failing to meet community standards", can't imagine what the problem might be...
A few desperately staying on message with "more ice = CAGW, less ice = CAGW, rain of frogs, CAGW" which is the real last ditch desperation argument.
One trying to claim that the carbon footprint of the whole thing is "less than a day at Heathrow". How many on the boat compared with the number of people passing through Heathrow in a day, I don't think so.
Is it privately or publicly funded or am I confused?
From here:
and then from this page
There will be a panic up on the futon deck, when the muesli bar is empty and vegan choices run out on the galley menu and by all of the green gods of Shrangli-la Oh no!! "wot no chateau Lafite 2005 dahling?"
When, those incense candles and the emergency 'medicinal weed' is all gone - incantations sent to mama Gaia - 'increase likely'......
Gadzooks, as of from further notice: and all guardian copies to be available placed inside the HEAD!
lets hope serious harm comes to the warmish propagandists
Dec 30, 2013 at 1:15 PM ptw
I think that very few people here on BH will endorse that sentiment. We probably all hope that they will continue to look seriously foolish but serious harm? I don't think so.
I don't really wish them injury nor harm but I abnegate the right to be seriously concerned. In this life - you make your own bed.
Now that the Graun & BBC are furiously downplaying the original political/media purpose of the trip - it's interesting to read the blog of Janet Rice - the Australian Green Party politician on the trip:-
Climate change is a constant thread in all the scientific discussions. Everything which is being studied is being affected. Adelie Penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula are in decline as West Antarctica has warmed considerably over the past decades. There are likely to be more giant icebergs like B09B hanging around in a future warmed climate– that means large variation in the extent and location of sea ice...It’s sobering to think that these are the impacts of climate change being experienced here in remote, wild Antarctic right now. It really underlines that no-where on the planet is pristine, unaffected by humans because of our carbon dioxide pollution. This is the biggest experiment being carried out on Earth ever. And it’s completely out of control.
TerryS:
'Public funded' as in 'funded by individual members of the public' in this case I assume?
stewgreen
"@sHx yes I knew it wasn't your words, I saw at beginning you put in quotation marks"
I am glad that's cleared up. The day I write perfect English like that is the day I start laughing.
johanna
I don't usually follow people who are generally categorised as right-wing cranks by my side of the political divide but that Jo Nova piece about the media spin is well worth the time and attention.
It is amazing how a cheerfully optimistic intrepid expedition, with embedded journos and all that, and supported by a cast of self-assured contractors, can so easily get bogged down by the realities and turn into a panicky retreat. We have seen this movie before.
Foxgoose,
"It really underlines that no-where on the planet is pristine, unaffected by humans because of our carbon dioxide pollution."
The BBC disagrees with this diagnosis:
"New technology is being used in a building in Mexico City that transforms pollutants into harmless chemicals.
The structure is made out of titanium dioxide, which its designers claim produces water and carbon dioxide from the city's smog."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-25538944
So CO2 is not a pollutant, it's a harmless chemical that can be created from pollution.
It's getting harder and harder for them to weave all these disparate wackadoodle sub-plots together into a coherent narrative.
@ Foxgoose.
The delightful Janet Rice can be seen on the Guardians video blog. She looks as reasonable as she sounds....not at all like a rabid-greenie fruit-loop. No sirree. Ms Rice puts on a brave face, though.
On a side note, it seems spirits are beginning to sag right across the crew. Alok Jha looks resigned and sad, Greg Mortimer looks extremely concerned and Laurence Topham simply looks physically and mentally exhausted.
Despite this being hilarious at their expense I for one don't want to see any casualties at all. Bruised egos is enough. However, one gets the feeling this is slowly spiralling out of their control.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/30/antarctic-rescue-mission-fails
There will be an investigation.
Did supervisors behave recklessly / put undue pressure on the ship's crew to travel further into the ice than was prudent ?
The wind might lessen and change direction, then again it might not.
While the fuel, food and booze last - they're "having fun" (©Terry Gostlow) and obviously their satcoms are still operational. The tone of their missives will soon change if any of those three resources mentioned expires.
I smell hubris.
I also wonder as other folk have - who will be picking up the extending tab for this - if say the vessel is marooned / temporarily abandoned - and we get back to - why did they get stuck?
If they have to trudge 10km over dodgy sea ice in poor weather with what they can carry, indulge in an equally dodgy ice to small boat transfer and then transfer at sea in that same poor weather onto the Chinese or Australian vessel I wonder how they'll spin that one.
I hope that all the people involved in this fiasco get out of it with health intact. I also hope that they end up looking utterly, utterly stupid. They already look utterly stupid, but hopefully a few wobbles with the helicopter will add the extra "utterly".
The Janet Rice quote above reveals her lack of knowledge or, more likely her skill in green spin
Antarctic icebergs are not caused by melting. They are formed when bits of the ever expanding iceshelf fall off the edge of the continent. As for the "large variation in the extent and location of sea ice": is she saying that sea ice extent and location used to be constant before 1979? A bit like the perfect, unchanging climate that we used to have before the 20th century.
"Look children, global warming has made the arctic sea ice melt and that's bad m'okay?....But in the antarctic it has caused the sea ice to vary and that's really bad children, m'okay?"
When I first joined BAS, when the New Romantics roamed the earth, the poor buggers at Faraday were constantly hoping for sea ice, otherwise they couldn't escape from their little island paradise for winter jollies. Unfortunately, they rarely had it, or it didn't hang around very long. Now (due to global warming, no doubt) they get it all the time. They must be really happy now. At least they would be if Faraday hadn't been flogged off to the Ukrainians and renamed Vernadsky.
You've got to love it! There actually is a "climate scientist" named Grant Hose!
Let's hope he gets back soon to confirm to us that climate change has made the Antarctic eco-system depauperate - this seems to be his long suit. If depauperism turns your crank, there really is no better place to go than the Antarctic.
Who would have thought that one could hose taxpayers out of grant money by specializing in depauperism!
Love the word - depauperate, depauperate, depauperate, depauperate. Can't wait for my next cocktail party.
Tomo,
I think that the main reason that this has happened is due to commercial pressure on the ship's operators and a bit of bad luck with the weather. Most vessels operating in Antarctic waters (in ice) are run by national entities such as BAS and have rarely got stuck (RRS John Biscoe did, but escaped). That is because lack of commercial pressure means that itineraries can (and do) change at the drop of a hat if bad weather or ice conditions are encountered (or if someone needs rescuing....) . The ship's master always has the final say in the navigation of the vessel but with these expensive, semi-private, charters complete with media hoi-poloi and 24/7 FaceTube Tweeting, there must be a lot of pressure on the operators to deliver.
The people I sympathise with are the members of the genuine Australian Antarctic research program (Australian Antarctic Division) who's base relief and science programs are disappearing (anti-clockwise) down the toilet while their logistics ship is obliged to help the "Antarctic 74"™ .
Buffy Minton,
"When I first joined BAS, when the New Romantics roamed the earth, the poor buggers at Faraday were constantly hoping for sea ice, otherwise they couldn't escape from their little island paradise for winter jollies."
I bloody knew this was tied in with Duran Duran somehow. Bastards.
"Her name is Rio." Yeah, right. Her name is Vladivostok, more like.
Even the faithful at the Gruniard comments are taking the proverbial. There is some justice.
None of the BBC reports seems to allow comments. I wonder why?.
P.S. I've just found the bottle of port that I was given for Christmas. All comments of mine over the next few hours should be taken with that in mind.
James Evans,
I was wrong to implicate the New Romantics, it should have been Dire Bloody Straits. Anyone who was on RRS Bransfield crossing the Weddell Sea in 85/86 season will know what I mean. It (Brothers in Arms) must have been the only bleedin' tape in the FIDS bar that season and I have been unable to listen to any song from it since. And to make matters worse, when we got to Halley, one of the new FIDS (a met-man, whose name I can't remember but probably a senior climate change scientist now) had one of those new fangled CD player thingies which we were keen to hear demonstrated.
Yep, his favourite CD was BrothersInBloodyArms. At least I didn't have to winter there....
Sorry! I just noticed that in a post above I wrote "who's" instead of "whose".....embarrassing, it was the smartphone spell checker etc, or senility kicking in.
7:23 PM Buffy Minton
It's my experience that be it north or south - luck isn't something that prudent seafarers deploy as part of their skill set... These areas when the vessel is away from formal icebreaking capacity and routes you're "off piste" and we've also had quite a prominent example of where that can end up. I wouldn't have been reassured by Greg Mortimer's little piece to camera - at all - pretty shifty that was.
The weather seems quite active near their location. I personally hope their booze runs out and they're reduced to whatever's lurking in the far recesses of the vessel's freezers (knowing smirk) and dry store.
Hubris compromised jollies aren't unknown in Antarctica as the bits of Air NZ Flight 901 still littering Mt Erebus prove.
As you say it's quite unusual for any of the regulars down there to get themselves "well stuck" - the re-tasking of sorely needed assets to rescue some incautious grandstanding activists should be made good by said activists. I see they're already finger pointing and painting themselves as victims of unforseeable circumstance lashed up with some technojargon.
Buffy Minton,
"I was wrong to implicate the New Romantics, it should have been Dire Bloody Straits."
Typical alarmist nonsense.
"Money for nothing" was a heartfelt cry for honesty in climate science.
James:
"Your Latest (Nature) Trick" was one of my favourites.
How's it going with the port?
Tomo: I agree, the vessel is ultimately the Captain's responsibility and he needs to make his navigational decisions based on all available knowledge and his own experience. The luck comment was just me trying to be kind to the poor sods (the crew, not the science and media luvvies).
I'm a little amused/bemused by this lot being stuck in the ice,
I constantly wonder just how much global-warming fossil fuel they are using for their research/getting stuck in thick ice?????
Is it all worth it?
"Opinion: Ship Stuck in Antarctica Raises Questions About Worth of Reenacting Expeditions"
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131230-antarctica-ship-ice-rescue-expedition-reenactment-opinions-mawson/
I'm not sure that we should take the NG opinion too seriously, given that they announced a couple of days ago that the Shokalskiy mob had already been rescued.
Really, they did that. I read it.
With New Year approaching, can I suggest Ice Breaker cocktails;
3/4 oz dark rum
1/4 oz cognac
1/4 oz gin
2 oz lemon juice
1 oz orange juice
1/2 oz creme de noyaux
Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker half-filled with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into a highball glass, garnish with a fruit flag.
Cheers!
I can't stop laughing.... Turney's Grand Plan (still looking for Investors - pile in boys!) to Save The Planet.
http://carbonscape.com/microwave-technology/overview/
as Tomo, TerryS & others have noted - re - "Is it privately or publicly funded or am I confused?"
me to,
from the page Tomo & Terry refer to, this "public funded expedition" has raised $1,000USD by 11 funders, of $49,000 Goal (2% with 26 days to go).
so who is paying the real cost ? Munich Re ?
but at least they give a get out clause for unforeseen circumstances -
"Flexible Funding
This campaign will receive all funds raised even if it does not reach its goal. Funding duration: November 29, 2013 - January 24, 2014 (11:59pm PT)."
Some cracking good comments on that Guardian thread - my favourite:
'A touch of the norovirus should get em all moving.'
Footnote:
'Outbreaks of norovirus infection often occur in closed or semiclosed communities, such as long-term care facilities, overnight camps, hospitals, prisons, dormitories, and cruise ships, where the infection spreads very rapidly either by person-to-person transmission or through contaminated food' -Wiki
I'm imagining an onboard "12 Angry Men" scenario (except there are 18+ of them...) with one dissenter gradually convincing all the others that the 'crime' was never committed in the first place.
Walls and flies have nothing on it........
Norovirus or Cabin Fever. Either will do.
This is another act in the drama. During the NH summer, yachts and boats of all kinds were stuck in Arctic sea ice, as the owners apparently believed the warming story.
"Churchville, VA—The naïve advice of ardent activists can kill. Last spring, Paul Beckwith of Sierra Club Canada predicted that the Arctic seas would be ice-free ice this summer. (So did Britain’s BBC network.) This exciting adventure opportunity attracted a variety of yachts, sailboats, rowboats, and kayaks owners to try sailing the fabled Northwest Passage.
"As a former sailboat owner I can understand their excitement, but my heart aches for the agonies they now face. The Arctic sea ice suddenly expanded 60% this fall, after the coldest summer in the modern Alaska temperature record. The passage is now impassable. More than a dozen of the boats are trapped, apparently even including a group of tiny American jet-ski “personal watercraft” that were attempting to cross from the east coast of Russia to the North Atlantic. Arctic observers are now warning that even Canadian icebreakers might not be able to rescue them."
http://www.cfact.org/2013/09/19/gullible-green-sailors-trapped-in-the-arctic/#sthash.cbDye791.dpuf
Commenter No. 402 on WUWT "Saving the Antarctic scientists, er media, er, activists, er tourists trapped by sea ice" posting, remembered Mr Lean's prediction:-
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/why-antarctica-will-soon-be-the-ionlyi-place-to-live--literally-58574.html
Should've gone to icebreakers.
Turney-geddon--apocalypto---gate---ic?
Looks like our dear friend Julia of the Met Office has been rewarded for "playing a blinder".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25551588
The story reminds me somewhat of that of the swimmer Lewis Gordon Puigh, who tried to reach the North Pole in kayak in 2008. From Wikipedia:
"In September 2008, Pugh, accompanied by a team aboard a ship where he slept, attempted to kayak the 1,200 km from Svalbard, across the Arctic Ocean, to the North Pole, but the team abandoned the effort 135 km from the start.[17] The aim was to further highlight the melting sea ice. The expedition coincided with some scientists predicting that the North Pole could be free of sea-ice in the summer of 2008, for the first time in thousands of years.[18] Pugh stated that despite several attempts, they were unable to find a gap in the ice. In his autobiography Pugh wrote:
"Ironically, global warming played no small part in undermining the entire expedition. We believed that the greater melting of summer ice would open up large areas of sea and allow us to paddle north at good speed. What we did not fully appreciate was that to the north of us there was a widespread melting of sea ice off the coast of Alaska and the New Siberian Islands and the ice was being pushed south towards us ... The evidence of climate change was stark. Fourteen months before I'd sailed north and I'd seen a preponderance of multi-year ice about three metres thick north of Spitsbergen, but this time most of the ice was just a metre thick"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Gordon_Pugh
So they were able to cover only 135 km out of 1200 in an attempt to "highlight the melting sea ice", but the failure was due to... melting sea ice. And they expected to fail due to a three metres thick ice barrier (that is of course the reason they used kayaks), but it was only one metre thick, so they ... err... succeeded in failing, and for the right reasons. Or something like that.
tomo:
Pemmican?
I could understand the hilarity from you disgracefully uncaring lot if those on the Akademik Shokalskiy were assorted climate scientists, enviro-journalists and Greens, especially if the gin and tonic was running out. However you are WRONG!
The Sydney Morning Herald some days ago informed us that they are in fact tourists -
Furthermore, and to reinforce the point, recent updates from their "science" editor in the same paper are in the travel section.
I think the adventure should be awarded the title of "TurnFoggyGate" in honor ofits two leaders Messrs Turney and Fogwill
The WUWT thread is worth reading, although it is very long. Some very witty comments, as well as a lot of useful info about the Antarctic, and also ice-breaking in polar conditions from people who have done it. But here is one quote (h/t sasha for finding it) that encapsulates it:
And how is everybody on board dealing with all this global warming?
“…On Christmas Eve, a blizzard hit our ship with 50-knot winds – mild for these parts – that made it difficult to stand up straight on the deck … By Christmas morning, we were beset with ice. Our expedition was forced into a temporary pause, while we waited for the polar winds to be kind to us and blow the pack ice out of our way.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yup, another "temporary pause."
And the belief that Gaia is kind or cruel, rather than indifferent.
The photo earlier in that thread of the hipsters setting up a "media hub" (sitting in a circle and tweeting) is just nauseating.
Millions of dollars are being spent, and people are risking their lives, to save them, and all they can do is a circle jerk about how brave they are.
Further down in the comments, Steve McIntyre reminds us that expedition leader Turney was one of the authors of the Gergis et al baloney paper, which Jean S. at Steve's destroyed within weeks of its release, and has now been disappeared from the official record.
johanna - beat me to it reference Steve McIntyre's comment. But to be more precise it's Dr Joelle ("it's called research") Gergis BSc PhD (Applied Snottiness).
BTW - like ZBD isn't it wonderful we can play here while the UK sleeps.
Yes and no, Grant. The Bish's innate authority has got me bluffed. I wouldn't even think of being naughty just because he is not around ... ;)