Ice trapped alarmist Australian climate change professor and his followers rescued - Australian taxpayers likely to foot the bill

Chris Turney ‏@ProfChrisTurney 1h

We've made it to the Aurora australis safe & sound. A huge thanks to the Chinese & @AusAntarctic for all their hard work! #spiritofmawson

Australian climate change alarmist, professor Christ Turney and his followers - scientists and tourists on a research ship trapped by Antarctic ice since Christmas Eve - have been airlifted to safety.

They were flown by helicopter from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy to an ice floe next to the Australian icebreaker the Aurora Australis, after which they were taken by a small boat to the vessel.

According to a posting on the expedition website by Dr. Turney on Dec. 31, the nearest open water from the ship was 16 nautical miles away across the ice:

It has been a sobering week. At the time we were initially caught by the sea ice, the Shokalskiy was just 2 to 4 nautical miles from open water. Now the sea ice distance has become even greater with the continued winds from the east, putting our nearest point of exit at some 16 nautical miles. The international effort has been extraordinary and we are incredibly grateful for all the hard work and effort everyone has provided to assist the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013-14 in escaping from the ice – a big thanks in particular to the Chinese, French and Australians, co-ordinated by the Australian Maritime Rescue Centre.

It is of course fine that the alarmist professor and his followers have been rescued. But as so often, the bill for the huge rescue operation, probably running up to several million dollars, is likely to be footed by the Australian taxpayers - money that could be used for some more meaningful purposes.

Among the rescued climate change tourists, one was the BBC's Andrew Luck-Baker (Senior Producer, BBC Radio Science Unit, Brighton, UK). Why on earth does the BBC waste money on this kind of useless global warming tourism?

Climate change Professor Chris Turney and his followers ringing in the New Year in Antarctica

Australian climate change professor Christ Turney and his followers are still waiting to be rescued in Antarctica:

Passengers on a climate change research ship stranded in Antarctica are likely to ring in the New Year on the ice-trapped vessel – as a rescue helicopter on a nearby Chinese ship waits for the weather to clear.

The helicopter on board the Snow Dragon will be used after the Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis failed to reach the Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said today.
But the rescue attempt is on hold due to ongoing blizzard conditions.
“Weather conditions are unlikely to start improving until tomorrow and decisions related to carrying out the rescue may be made at short notice,” AMSA said. --

The 74 passengers on board include scientists and tourists and the 22-strong Russian crew.
Expedition leader Chris Turney said the last week had been “sobering” but morale was good.

Happy New Year 2014 to you professor and your co-passengers! We hope you all will soon be safely back home - perhaps a little bit wiser.

British Antarctic Survey: There is much more ice in Antarctica than previously thought

(image by wikipedia)

Great news from the British Antarctic Survey: There is much more ice in Antarctica than previously thought!

These are the main findings included in Bedmap2, "the most detailed map yet of Antarctica's landmass":

• The volume of ice in Antarctica is 4.6% greater than previously thought
• The mean bed depth of Antarctica, at 95 metres, is 60 m lower than estimated
• The volume of ice that is grounded with a bed below sea level is 23% greater than originally thought 

The new findings are of course a severe disappointment for all global warming doomsday prophets. In order to console the disappointed warmists, the people at the British Antarctic Survey have added this, basically meaningless piece of information:

(Because there is much more ice than expected), "there is a larger volume of ice that is susceptible to rapid melting."

Greatest mass of sea ice ever in Antarctica leaves warmist "experts" almost speechless

The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center last week confirmed that Antarctica is surrounded by the greatest mass of sea ice ever recorded there, 19.44 million square kilometres. And it is growing, although slowly. 

This of course goes against the official warmist teachings of a warmer world, with sea levels rising and ice melting. The newly confirmed facts have left these "experts" in almost a state of shock. Here you can read how two of them, Gordon McBean, director of research at the University of Western Ontario’s Centre for Environment and Sustainability and Jing Chen, professor with the department of geography at the University of Toronto desperately try to explain away the "inconvenient" truth: 

McBean says while the Antarctic is still cooler than the rest of the world, it is also warming up. “Just not as quickly,” he said.

The phenomenon in the Antarctic is not inconsistent with global warming, said McBean. “It was expected . . . it’s a complex situation.”

Meanwhile, Chen says the new data from the Antarctic is “very interesting” but warns against getting satisfied.

“We should not be too complacent about the recent ice increase,” he said. “If (global) warming keeps increasing, it pushes average temperatures above freezing points and the Antarctic area ice will decrease and the trend will quickly reverse.”

Growing sea ice in the Antarctic is good news “but (we) have to take it in the right perspective: it will not increase forever.”

PS

Dr. McBean is right about one thing: " . . . it’s a complex situation.”  McBean, Chen and all the other alarmists would have been well advised to keep that in mind before they started to peddle their bogus global warming models to greater audiences.

Could Antarctica regain its position as a subtropical paradise?

This could be how the Wilkes Land "Croisette" in the Antarctica will look in the future

The Antarctic continent had a rather pleasant climate about 50 million years ago, with palm trees growing in the near-tropical warmth. That is the main message of a new study published in the scientific journal Nature: 

We show that the climate in lowland settings along the Wilkes Land coast (at a palaeolatitude of about 70° south) supported the growth of highly diverse, near-tropical forests characterized by mesothermal to megathermal floral elements including palms and Bombacoideae. Notably, winters were extremely mild (warmer than 10 °C) and essentially frost-free despite polar darkness


Could a little (most probably natural) global warming bring back those golden days of the Antarctica? That at least seems to be what the Chinese are rooting for. They have commissioned Finland´s Aker Arctic to design a new polar research icebreaker, which might come in handy for the first Antarctic land claims and palm tree plantings:  

The polar research icebreaker for China will be designed to accommodate a total of 90 persons and will have a length over all of about 120 meters, a maximum breadth of 22,3 m and draught of 8,5 m. The vessel will have the ability to break through 1,5 m of level ice at 2 to 3 knots speed, including multi-year ice. The vessel will be fitted with twin azimuthing propeller drives. Ice class will be PC3 and the vessel will have dual classification from China Classification Society (CCS) and Lloyds Register of Shipping (LR).


For marine biological and ecological programs the vessel will enable marine organism and ecological surveys and acts as a biological research platform. The vessel may be used also for the Antarctic station supplies logistic tasks undertaking some of M/V Xuelong’s mission especially in the heavy sea ice condition.


(image of the Croisette in Cannes by wikipedia)

Confirmed: Antarctic ice shelves NOT melting

Remember all those reports about the fast melting Antarctic ice shelves? A new study - based on real measurements, not computer models - by researchers from the Norwegian Polar Institute published in the journal Geophysical Letters shows that they we wrong: 

“It has been unclear, until now, how much warm deep water rises below the Fimbul Ice shelf, and previous ocean models, focusing on the circulation below the Fimbul Ice Shelf, have predicted temperatures and melt rates that are too high, suggesting a significant mass loss in this region that is actually not taking place as fast as previously thought,” said lead author of the study and PhD student at the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), Tore Hattermann.

The Fimbul Ice Shelf – located along eastern Antarctica in the Weddell Sea – is the sixth largest of the forty-three ice shelves that dapple Antarctica’s perimeter. Both its size and proximity to the Eastern Antarctic Ice Sheet – the largest ice sheet on Earth, which if it melted, could lead to extreme changes in sea level – have made the Fimbul Ice Shelf an attractive object of study.

The team is the first to provide direct, observational evidence that the Fimbul Ice Shelf is melting from underneath by three, equally important processes. Their results confirm a 20-year-old theory about how ice shelves melt that, until now, was too complex to be further investigated with models that had no direct observations for comparison. These processes likely apply to other areas of Antarctica, primarily the eastern half because of its similar water and wind circulation patterns, Hattermann said.

--

It turns out that past studies, which were based on computer models without any direct data for comparison or guidance, overestimate the water temperatures and extent of melting beneath the Fimbul Ice Shelf. This has led to the misconception, Hattermann said, that the ice shelf is losing mass at a faster rate than it is gaining mass, leading to an overall loss of mass. The model results were in contrast to the available data from satellite observations, which are supported by the new measurements.

The team’s results show that water temperatures are far lower than computer models predicted, which means that the Fimbul Ice Shelf is melting at a slower rate. Perhaps indicating that the shelf is neither losing nor gaining mass at the moment because ice buildup from snowfall has kept up with the rate of mass loss, Hattermann said.

“Our data shows what needs to be included in the next generation models, in order to be able to do a good job in predicting future melt rates,” Hattermann said.

Read the entire article here

New study: Plenty of penguins in Antarctica

Even in a worst case global warming scenario, there  would be  plenty of  emperor  penguins  in Antarctica

A new study, based on satellite image tracking, shows that there are twice as many emperor penguins in Antarctica than previously thought:


University of Minnesota researchers have counted twice as many emperor penguins in Antarctica as were previously estimated.
Doctoral student Michelle LaRue is perfecting techniques to enhance high-resolution satellite images to accurately counts Emperor Penguins — these are the penguins who sit on their eggs through the cold Antarctic winter, and were the stars of documentary, "The March of the Penguins."
LaRue's images were analyzed by the university's Polar Geospatial Center, which revealed that nearly 600,000 penguins live in Antarctica.   

Not surprisingly, the warmist researcher issued a warning about the influence of possible future global warming:

The biggest challenge for the penguins and seals is the loss of sea ice due to global warming, LaRue said. Scientists expect the population of emperor penguins to decline by half in the next 50-100 years because of global warming.


PS
Even if the emperors would decline by half in 50-100 years, they would still be as many as experts previously thought they are now!
      
(image by wikipedia)