Shokalskiy soap opera – rescue ship stuck too, climatologists asks skeptics Coleman & Watts for weather-info

Who could’ve dreamed up the script for this one? If you are following the saga of the climate-scientists stuck in sea-ice-they-think-is-shrinking,  the latest patchy news is that the icepack is so thick and so wide that the Chinese rescue icebreaker is also stuck and has been for a day or so. It can’t send out the helicopter to pick up the scientists on the Russian chartered boat, the Akademik Shokalskiy, until it is clear of sea ice, and the wind has slowed. The Australian ice-breaker now is trying to free the Chinese ice-breaker (the Shokalskiy is too far into the ice pack). The 74 passengers on the Shokalskiy are waiting for either the helicopter to come, or, with more luck, the wind to change and the ice to break up.

Never before in modern satellite media communications has it taken so many journalists to say so little, so slowly and so vaguely.

Who would have believed it? The expert climate scientists have a media-crew-on-a-satellite link on-board, but they don’t have a meteorologist with access to the weather and wind information they needed. (If they did, perhaps they might have seen that ice coming?) The stuck scientists “phoned a friend” who called a friend, and one thing led to another, and before you know it, Johnathon Coleman (skeptic and meteorologist) is calling Anthony Watts (major skeptic blogger and meteorologist) and they are doing all they can to get the right information down to the people on the ship. As you would, good on them.

UPDATE#1: See Coleman KUSI on this video for the info. Skeptics Joe D’Aleo  and Joe Bastardi of Weatherbell were also part of the team of meteorologists.

UPDATE#2: Press release says helicopter rescue should go ahead today. / Nope. AMSA announces conditions changed. It’s off.

Don’t expect to find out about this twist  of the mainstream media though (KUSI aside), where The ABC and others won’t mention the phrase “climate change” when reporting this fiasco. In the magical world of media spin, a boat full of mostly Australian climate scientists has turned into a Russian passenger ship stuck in ice. (See my post where media crew on-board take hours to get the news out and everyone pretends this mission was not about promoting climate fear via the BBC World Service. See also Andrew Bolt’s take on the 7:30 report tonight.) The media contingent is so large on this mission there is not only a BBC journalist, and two Guardian reporters, but it also includes two Fairfax reporters on board the Aurora Australis as well. Never before in modern satellite media communications has it taken so many journalists to say so little, so slowly and so vaguely.

BTW: Note the mystery message on the deck of the Aurora Australis (Seen in the SMH article). What could it mean?

View from the Aurora Australis | Photo: Colin Cosier (Fairfax Dec 30, 2013)

Who pays?

Anyone know what it costs to rent an icebreaker for a day?

If things get worse there is a bigger American icebreaker which is coming to restock an American Antarctic base, and could get there in a week or two. If things go seriously (but slowly) pear shaped, there is a Russian icebreaker called the Federov, a mere 28 days (and a gazillion roubles) away. Ponder the cost of unexpectedly diverting 3 – 5 boats and full crews to the end of the Earth in dangerous conditions to rescue a boatload of experts and documentary crew on a reenactment and “raising awareness” mission. They were trying to let the world know about melting ice but instead ended up singing songs on deck, and bragging about how much they are enjoying their adventure, while taxpayers probably foot most of the bill, real researchers lose valuable help and resources, and real sailors risk their lives trying to get them out. It’s a bit like the ultimate school leavers party for those who never grew up.

Australian taxpayers have paid for much of the $1.5m mission (by proxy though agents and are quaintly referred to as “supporters”) with help from UK, US and New Zealand taxpayers too. But who will cover the cost of the rescue? (Speaking of which, I discovered that if we were serious, there are even nuclear icebreakers around Russia which apparently cost $100,000 a day.)

Volunteers to pay weren’t coming forward with too many donations at the Spiritof Mawson site. As usual, much of the money for the grand adventure comes from coerced payments. And most of the people on board the Shokalskiy would probably say they like “free market” solutions. Right? (Except when they prefer forced ones.)

Who authorized the expedition? Was there a cost-benefit study? Who is responsible?

Following the rescue

Naturally, despite the entertainment, schadenfreude and all, we feverently hope everyone involved stays safe.

If you have the urge, you can check the webcams off the Aurora Australis icebreaker here . It’s still light — of course — all night in Antarctica, so I guess they can work at 3am if the conditions are right.  At the moment, judging from tweets I’d guess that could be the Chinese vessel in the background in this shot (though the port camera shot at 11pm will change as the boat moves). Victor Cauchi@tightorbit commenting in #spiritofmawson seems to know something. (I don’t.)

….

Updated shots here: Bow camera | Stern camera | Port camera

 

Curious bits about icebreakers: NBC News

The Aurora Australis is designed to break through level ice that’s up to 4 feet (1.23 meters) deep, at a speed of 3 mph. It can handle thicker layers if it backs up and rams the ice. But the fused-together ice floes that surrounded the Shokalskiy were just “too thick to penetrate,” Captain Murray Doyle told the Sydney Morning Herald.

America’s icebreakers
AMSA’s Rescue Coordination Center is in charge of the rescue effort, but the fact that a Chinese ship is playing such a key role points to the international cooperation that’s often required for Antarctic operations. The U.S. Coast Guard currently has two Seattle-based polar icebreakers in service: the medium-class Healy, which recently wrapped up an Arctic expedition; and the heavyweight Polar Star, which is en route to Antarctica to clear a channel to the U.S. base in McMurdo Sound.

The Polar Star is just returning to service after a years-long, $90 million overhaul. It’s designed to get through a 6-foot-thick (2-meter-thick) layer of ice when it’s sailing at 3.5 mph — and when it’s in its backing-up-and-ramming mode, it’s capable of handling ice that’s up to 21 feet (6.5 meters) thick.

“Sometimes you have to get a running start,” the Polar Star’s captain, George Pellissiere, told NBC News from the ship.

At the time that NBC story was filed, the Polar Star was on “standby” but had not been officially asked.

9.4 out of 10 based on 172 ratings

513 comments to Shokalskiy soap opera – rescue ship stuck too, climatologists asks skeptics Coleman & Watts for weather-info

  • #
    Paul in Sweden

    If a fund were to be established to ship/airdrop any and all additional IPCC ‘Climate Scientists’/highly paid Greenpeace/WWF/BBC executives, Eco-‘journalists’ and any of the other rubber boot on the head or polar bear costume wearers to the ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy so that they could consolidate their efforts I would gladly contribute.

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    • #
      Danielle

      All that hot air would free them from the ice in no time

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      • #
        PhilJourdan

        That would require “focus”. They have not gotten to that lesson plan yet.

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        Albert

        What ice ??

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      • #
        Brian Hother

        Its official, 2013, warmest year on record, by a long shot
        http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/

        2013 was Australia’s warmest year since records began in 1910. Mean temperatures across Australia have generally been well above average since September 2012. Long periods of warmer-than-average days have been common, with a distinct lack of cold weather. Nights have also been warmer than average, but less so than days.

        The Australian area-averaged mean temperature for 2013 was +1.20 °C above the 1961–1990 average. Maximum temperatures were +1.45 °C above average, and minimum temperatures +0.94 °C above average. Temperatures were above average across nearly all of Australia for maximum, mean and minimum temperatures, with large areas of inland and southern Australia experiencing the highest on record for each.


        ———————
        Australia represents what, less than 2% of total global surface area and less than 0.2% of the energy stored in the surface. Careful, dribbling with excitement over something so irrelevant shows your religious bias … Jo

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        • #
          Brian Hother

          dribbling with excitement over something so irrelevant shows your religious bias … Jo

          I thought you said this was a science site Jo, explain “religious bias” then or would that be an ad hom.

          ——————————–
          Obviously, since you have faith in the pronouncements of certain people, but you are unable to even start a discussion about empirical evidence to support that faith, your belief is unscientific and has a religious nature. Feel free to prove me wrong. I’m sorry but I will be unable to keep tutoring you in the most basic philosophy and English for long. If you do not try to answer the simple question I asked, or admit you can’t, agree not to use terms you cannot substantiate, and apologize (it’s not that hard) your comments will go straight to the spam filter. I hope you can manage an honest conversation and look forward to your reply. I have given you at least 2 warnings and a polite request. – Jo (UPDATED: No response from Brian to further emails.)

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    • #
      Peter Miller

      The BBC has video footage of the clowns being rescued by a Chinese helicopter.

      Apparently the cause of their problem had nothing to do with their incompetence and everything to do with the A Factor, which of course is the well known Antarctic Factor.

      In other news, the IPCC in its final document has significantly reduced (from Version 2) its forecasts of global warming by the end of the century. Strange that the world’s media has not picked up on this. Perhaps ‘Brian Hotair’ can help explain why.

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      • #
        John Knowles

        Surely the passengers are not being rescued but being transferred to land so that people like mountaineer Greg Mortimer can keep the expedition up to schedule. As summer sets in the shifting ice will melt and the ship will move closer to shore.
        Some years the breaking up sea-ice gets blown around in early summer but no-one is there to get caught in it. This year the ocean currents are not warm so there is very little under-side melting taking place.
        Sounds like a lot of fuss about mother nature being normal and not doing what humans want.

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      • #
        Jon

        I think that when the newspapers and Media started establishing a turf for a small group of Eco-journalists, that’s when scientific critique vanished and green consensus was established?

        It’s strange that general scientific journalists no longer have a say on enviro and climate topics?

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  • #

    I reckon that the Master of Akademik Shokalskiy will have his nuts on the anvil trying to explain to the owners how he got stuck in the first place.

    I would put money on it that his better judgement was over-ruled by pressure from “Authority” – after all, wouldn’t “Climate Scientists” know all about ice?

    Putting it another way, I bet he wouldn’t have got his ship stuck if he had a bunch of farmers on board – the farmers would have let him get on with the job.

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    • #
      RetiredDave

      I had the same thought FijiDave – A lot has been said about Prof.Turney as leader of the expedition but ultimately The Master has final responsibility for his vessel and the souls aboard. The pressures of the client (and even the owner) can be high but in the end The Master will carry the can and should make decisions accordingly. Being Master of a vessel is not always a comfortable place.

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      • #

        Being Master of a vessel is not always a comfortable place.

        Too right, RetiredDave. Having been there and done that, I can attest to the veracity of your statement! 🙂

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      • #
        redress

        “The pressures of the client (and even the owner) can be high…..”

        Remember what caused the loss of the Titanic….exactly the above.

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    • #
      john robertson

      Seems the scientists/”tourists” failed to return to the ship quickly enough from a shore&ice jaunt.
      Apparently the captain recalled them on a change in weather, but did not get a prompt response.
      Crew and captain may be blameless here, as they could not sail, for the safety of the ship, while abandoning their ill equip passengers ashore.
      The failure of the expedition commander to properly plan shore and ice floe tours is obvious.

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      • #
        Ursus Augustus

        Now that thesis has the ring of truth about it. Having seen “expedition leader” Prefessor Turney’s egotistical, narcissistic personal web site (www.christurney.com) and seen the WUMT summary of his just published paper caliming that the models are wrong because they UNDERWESTIMATE global warming by 2100 by about 2˚C it would not suprise me if he acts like he was in complete charge.

        Re his web site/self homage page just have a look. And wait, there’s more … “You can follow me as Intrepid Science on all manner of social media : Google+, Facebook; Blogger; YouTube; Instagram; and Twitter (@ProfChrisTurney).” (!!)

        Wow, W.A.W.

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        • #
          James (Aus.)

          I’d guess the captain and Turney might not be on the best of terms at the moment.

          A study of Turney from his media appearances and website suggests a self-important know-all who would be better suited to ‘leading’ a junior high school science outing than any serious scientific expedition. On second thoughts, this expedition does have more in common with the former type of trip.

          The inquiry into this amateurish debacle will be most interesting; playing the ‘scientist’ where adults only cautiously tread and allying the name of the expedition to a scientist and engineer of renown is a travesty.

          Deciding that “climate change” is settled (aka spitting in the eye of the philosophy of science) and then using this jaunt to bolster that lie, complete with the ready-to-crow BBC and Guardian Warmist (but now Whineist) brigades, is beyond belief.

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        • #
          Ursus Augustus

          I venture that AMSA ( Australian Maritime Safety Authority) will be obliged to conduct a formal investigation into this incident/debacle/freakshow as the national maritime agency. It will be most interesting to peruse the report when it is made available. I do not think the Master will pull any punches in his evidence.

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        • #
          Greg Cavanagh

          I watched one of his Youtube inverviews before the expedition. Even without looking further I thought he was a reckless fool.

          Having a little survival training in warm weather, he became an expert. Exactly the type of personality that I wouldn’t trust to buy a used car from.

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        • #
          ROM

          I have placed this near the start of the threads as it provides the probable real reasons why this example of arrogant stupidity from a bunch of very unscientific and unprepared warmist fools ever occurred.

          It is from the Greens senator elect Janet Rice’s blog site and explains how this debacle came about’
          What the hell a ignorant green seantor who is still wet behind the ears is doing on a family group [ Turney with wife and kid along as well ] quasi “Scientific expedition” [ sarc / ] probably nearly all at our, ie tax payer’s expense is something I’ll leave you to work out for yourselves.

          Rice’s casual expose of the manner in which the so called leaders of this tourist jaunt acted in the very hostile Antarctic conditions and the very serious situation the ship’s Captain was then placed in, in that he could not just abandon a bunch of blatantly and rank amateur so called Antarctic expeditionists as the rapidly changing Antarctic weather shifted again to a point where they could become frozen in really brings home the utter unpreparedness and casual arrogance of this entire group of alarmist warmist fools.

          The Captain of the Shokalskiy was apparently forced into a situation not of his own making to leave much later than he wanted too when he already had a very good idea that the deteriorating weather conditions might mean that he could not make it to the open sea outside of the ice pack fringes.

          So now due entirely to the casual stupidity of Turney and his accompanying and equally incompetent warmist fools the Captain of the Shokalskiy may now even lose his ship, one of the worst outcomes that any Captain might have to endure.

          This entire quote below is direct from Rice’s blog and came originally via the NoTricksZone blog
          _______________________________________

          [quote ]
          It’s past 1am. It’s hard to make yourself go to bed when it’s constant daylight outside. I’ve just returned to my cabin after a bracing constitutional around the deck, following a very pleasant evening socialising and imbibing a not inconsiderable amount of red wine.

          The ship is making very slow progress through pack ice. There is a narrow channel that we are inching our way along – it of course is pretty frozen in itself. There are icebergs on either side of us, some kilometres away – hard to tell exactly how far. We oscillate between hardly moving to suddenly being jolted sideways with a crunch as the ship bashes and barges its way through.

          It’s blowing a gale, snowing slightly, visibility not brilliant, rather gloomy and grubby. I’ve got the porthole window open a whisker and the wind is whistling through it. Most of the day the temperature was minus 2 or less; it’s probably not that much colder than that now, but the windchill will make it somewhere equivalent to minus 15.

          We were out in similar conditions this afternoon. Somewhat brighter – in fact there was blue sky and sunshine for some periods. The weather has been better than the forecast blizzard, so that was good.

          We had another fabulous day, albeit with a few mishaps. We made the continent! Or almost! To one of Hodgeman’s Islets west of the Mertz Glacier. It may or may not have been connected to the mainland. Regardless, it was made of rock!

          It was an 8km journey from the ship, traversed by Argo, quad bike and skis. The surface was firm – a pleasant change from the previous few trips. Steve and Peter the skiers described it as being like skiing on an ice rink. The Argo journey was however still something to endure rather than enjoy.

          The enjoyment was being there. Rock in this part of the world equals penguin rookery. It was a fabulous privilege to clamber up the rock and stand amongst hundreds of Adelie Penguins on their nests made of stones, sitting on their eggs which are about to hatch. I saw one penguin surefootedly and sure-beakedly carry a rather large rock in its bill – some 5cm or so across, drop it on the edge of the nest being sat on by its partner, then proudly stand up tall as if to proclaim his or her superior skill in hunting and gathering for nest material. It was really lovely to be able to observe this part of penguins’ lives, given how much I have got to know their habits and characteristics over the last week.

          Weddell seals were also there in numbers. Tracey the seal ecologist managed to collect tissue samples from 6, by shooting them with a biopsy dart which penetrates just enough to collect a very small sample of hair skin and blubber.

          Seals also featured in one of the dramas of the day –whilst gaining a closer look at the seals Mary fell through an iced over tide crack and found herself on her back, in the freezing water, back pack drenched and only the narrowness of the tide crack stopping her from going much, much deeper! She was rescued pretty promptly, and didn’t get so wet that her life jacket deployed ( life jackets are standard attire whenever we are off the ship– they are small neat packages looking like an oversized pair of braces that will expand when they hit water. )

          The first drama of the day was the sinking – or almost! – of one of the Argos. The Argos are designed to be amphibious – just. They were launched today off the ship – and two of the three made it safely being towed by a zodiac the 50 metres or so to shore. The third was towed too fast it seems – and water came over the bonnet / bow, flooding both the engine and the vehicle itself. Ben tried in vain to bail out with a spade and luckily they made it to shore before the vehicle sunk entirely. Ben ended up rather wet too, but similarly to Mary, not submerged enough for the lifejacket to come into play. Sadly Argo engines don’t take too kindly to being submerged… the ships engineers are still working on it and not very optimistic about its prospects.

          The third drama of the day is the one which is still unfolding. Because of the Argo mishap we got off late, and had one less vehicle to ferry people to and fro. I’m told the Captain was becoming rather definite late in the afternoon that we needed to get everyone back on board ASAP because of the coming weather and the ice closing in. As I write we are continuing to make extremely slow progress through what looks like a winter alpine snow field – it’s yet another surreal part of this journey that we are in a ship trying to barge our way through here! I’m sure the Captain would have been much happier if we had got away a few hours earlier. Maybe we would have made it through the worst before it consolidated as much as it has with the very cold south- easterly winds blowing the ice away from the coast, around and behind us as well as ahead.

          We’ll see where we are in the morning – it may be a very white Christmas Eve!

          PS. 9.30am 24/12. We have moved less than a kilometre over night, and are now stationary in a sea of ice. The word is that we are not stuck, merely waiting for a weather change. It seems to me that we are having the quintessential Antarctic experience.J Stay tuned.

          [end quote]

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          • #
            PhilJourdan

            Thanks. I posted a link to a WUWT post basically saying the same thing on another article here. I should have read your post first!

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      • #
        Ursus Augustus

        PS I suggested at WUWT that there be an alarmist award for this sort of stunt and suggested “The Twerkey” or something along those lines. Science is being captured by the PR industry and being turned into someting analgous to fast food delivered to your device by a lazy, gormless MSM.

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      • #
        Steve Brown

        The jaunt ashore was a motorised trip by 2 Argo vehicles to Mawson’s Huts, a ‘jaunt’ of 120km. The journey out took longer than expected but was made in good weather. The return trip was a different matter. no-one had kept watch on the changing weather; the snow/ice surface had turned to slush. It was the return journey which caused the delay of the Shokalskiy which in turn triggered the cascade of events which has led to the vessel’s present predicament. I think that the Captain of the Shokalskiy is absolved of all blame. He was making for safer waters as fast as he could but was overtaken by faste natural events.
        More details of the ‘jaunt’ ashore at the link.
        http://www.spiritofmawson.com/trip-into-mawsons-hut/

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        • #
          Ursus Augustus

          Just read the post and the next one. What a pack of tossers! It read like they though they were going to the beach.

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        • #
          ROM

          Steve Brown
          January 2, 2014 at 8:51 am

          A quick apology Steve .
          I did not intend to supplant your reference to the Mawson site with my post above.
          I did a quick scan of all the posts but didn’t pick up your’s or any other references so went ahead and posted the Rice blog comments

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      • #
        J.H.

        So this may entirely be “Professor” Turney’s fault after all. The vessel master had better have put his objections down in the Log book that day…. God I hope he did.

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  • #
    Reed Coray

    Joanne, I like you and most people fervently hope everyone comes out of this fiasco healthy and happy. Well, almost everyone has that hope. Based on the “Mitch Miller Sing-Along” video the intrepid scientists/tourists/party-goers sent us from party headquarters, I can’t help but believe this particular set of bench warmers on “Team AGW” don’t care a whit if someone gets injured or dies trying to rescue them. If that happens, their epitaph might read: We Came To Party. People Died. We Partied On!

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    • #

      Reed, methinks they did party a bit too hard. The point really being partly/mostly to make light of the PR disaster unfolding. They really hoped no one would notice their predicament “no biggie, just some ice!”. It might have worked if they were only stuck for a day or two, but now that the situation is looking more serious, the tactic has backfired, even Revkin is pointing out it was inappropriate behaviour given the risks and costs involved in their rescue.

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      • #
        Reed Coray

        Joanne, You are undoubtedly correct. Their intent was to make their situation seem like “No big deal“. However, if that was their intent, it says worlds about their intelligence. Wasn’t there one adult onboard who could think far enough ahead to realize that should rescue efforts go south, broadcasting a “Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here” video just might not sit well with (a) the starters on “Team CAGW” and/or (b) the general public.

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        • #
          llew Jones

          If that is so it mocks the alarmists oft repeated claim about caring for the future of our children in their projected future overheated Earth.

          What motivates that sort of irresponsibility?

          Personality (fools- like those on the ice locked ship), consideration of their livelihood before any other consideration or simply that alarmist climate scientists don’t care or haven’t taken the time to evaluate the enormous economic damage their “decarbonising” objective has on present and future generations?

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            ianl8888

            What motivates that sort of irresponsibility?

            Moral vanity

            Such people are saving the planet, you know

            Self-styled leftoid intellectuals are not renowned for their practical awareness – they have a higher calling

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          • #
            ExWarmist

            the alarmists oft repeated claim about caring for the future of our children in their projected future overheated Earth

            … has always been a thin veil of vapour …

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        GAZ

        You have no heart, Reed and Jo. The Guardian’s Laurence Topham misses bananas and peanut butter milkshake. Talk about suffering!

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          AndyG55

          I hope they run out of coffee and milk really soon, and are forced to live on stale bread and frozen peas for 2 weeks.

          After what this CAGW farce has done to the world economies and the environment, I want to see a little bit of suffering before they are rescued.

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          • #
            Drianh

            A LOT of suffering , would be more appropriate.Except, of course, for the crew, who are neutral, and almost certainly have a lot more sense

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        • #
          Graeme No.3

          Perhaps they should stay there longer — Global Warming must soon allow bananas to grow in Antarctica.

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          • #
            AndyG55

            The fool-in-chief was going on about still having enough coffee..

            I want that to run out, see how they cope without their lattes for a week or 3.

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      • #
        Steve Brown

        Have a look at the report linked below. It’s the KUSI-TV report on the efforts of Anthony Watts, Joe D’Aleo, John Coleman and a number of other real weather forecasters. A.Watts reports a very telling fact when he states that the crew of the Shokalskiy are already carrying out repairs to the ice-strengthened parts of the vessel’s hull.
        That is very ominous. Once a steel plate has lost its original shape, it tends to deform a lot easier and that could be fatal to the Shokalskiy.
        http://www.kusi.com/video?clipId=9686594&autostart=true

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    • #
      Paul in Sweden

      Reed, I think we need to stop and reflect on the devastating effects of “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Policies”. How many people now need to think about choices of food or fuel? Take this time to think about the damaging impact these eco-nuts have already inflicted. When we take public funds alongside of freely donated well meaning funds and stop the building of reservoirs or flood controls and sanitation systems so that we can send year after year multiple times highly paid eco-nuts to high priced locations that most of us only read about. It boggles my mind that I can remember standing by my father’s side staring up at the moon so many years ago after watching in black & white TV our men making footsteps to see today that we are literally tilting at windmills. -Paul

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      bullocky

      They have internet access.

      Their perception of how ‘the world’ sees their predicament will be derived from ABC/BBC/Guardian/SMH offerings.

      Their behaviour should be interpreted in this light.

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      • #
        Brian Hother

        What, compared to climate experts like Bolt, Monkton and Nova. LOL
        Instead of just spruiking opinion, do yourself a favour and read some science
        http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12829.html

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          AndyG55

          You wouldn’t know science if it bit you on the posterior.

          What you have in that link is what we mathematicians call “statistical mast***ation”. ie its a W**K !!!

          Its an abortive attempt to rationalise what they know are massively irrelevant and incorrect models.

          They choose this path because they know that if they start dealing with reality, their funding stream dies a natural death. !!

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          • #
            Brian Hother

            Mate the game is up, the 50 people that still have their heads in the sand and post climate denial on this blog is about the size of the Oz audience. You bleat on about models while the temperature keeps going up and dont have an explanation. Tomorrow it will be announced that 2013 was the hottest year on record in OZ and you will just carry on with the same moronic conspiracy theories while this blog milks it for money. You really are stupid, (or on the gravy train as well)

            ————–
            Brian, sorry I missed your lapse into kindergarden mis-English. No wonder the thread disintegrated. You’ll need to explain what climate deniers deny, since this is a science blog, it will need to be a scientific observation. OTherwise you can apologise for abusing the English language. You must use proper English to comment here. – Jo

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            • #
              Heywood

              The [snip ***] returns with his squawking. Gonna whinge about ad homs again you loser hypocrite?

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              AndyG55

              You are so stupid you don’t realise what is going on in BOM.

              The massive manipulation of past data where negative trend become large positive trends.

              And yes the game nearly is up, and a lot of these frauds will be held to account for their.

              YOU will be counted among them, as one of those GULLIBLE MORONS that fell for this load of crap.

              The temperatures ARE NOT still climbing, they have not been climbing for nearly 17 years.

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                Brian Hother

                You are so stupid you don’t realise what is going on in BOM.

                The massive manipulation of past data where negative trend become large positive trends.

                Conspiracy nut jobs are the only ones that think like this. Bom in league with the Commie Greens for world domination. LMFHO

                The temperatures ARE NOT still climbing, they have not been climbing for nearly 17 years.

                You keep saying this but despite about 20 requests you are still to post some evidence that does not come from silly blogs, here is another chance to have a go.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                The analysis has been posted.

                Your incapability to even go to wood for trees and do it for yourself or to accept a basic linear trend analysis of ALL current data sets speaks volumes for your abject brain-washed ignorance.

                Also the fact that you refuse to accept statement made by many of the IPCC climate contributors that the 17 year pause is actual and real, confirms that you refuse to accept REALITY.

                You have proven that you are a monumental idiot with zero capability of learning anything.

                Why do you keep digging when the hole you are in is already way over your head !!

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                The analysis has been posted.

                YOUR analysis has been posted. I want one from someone with credibility.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Why do you keep up your rampant stupidity and ignorance.?

                Who is paying to make an abject fool of yourself ??

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                Brian Hother

                Also the fact that you refuse to accept statement made by many of the IPCC climate contributors that the 17 year pause is actual and real, confirms that you refuse to accept REALITY.

                More unsupported fantasy. Which “IPCC climate contributors”. What did they say, when and where. What was the context? You are making the assertions, you provide some evidence. You think that because you write it here that it is fact. What pause are you referring to? Come on, some backup. Its not in the IPCC report, so where is it?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “I want one from someone with credibility”

                Then accept what has been offered.

                or go and do the analysis yourself.

                Its just a very simple linear trend analysis, even a primary school kid could do it.

                The tools are even provided for you, and the REAL data.

                Go ahead.. be brave.. its NOT DIFFICULT !!!

                .

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                Brian Hother

                Its just a very simple linear trend analysis, even a primary school kid could do it.

                Any drongo can cherry pick data and draw the a graph.
                What about I do the graphs that start in 2001 or 2002 or 1993,1994,1995,1996 that show temperature rise faster than IPCC projection. What would that prove, except that your graph is nonsense, a fraudulent misrepresentation of the data or just plain old stupidity. I’m not sure which one to put my money on.

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                AndyG55

                “Any drongo can cherry pick data and draw the a graph”

                Oh dear.. you again point out your manifest ignorance.

                I have not cherry-picked anything. The data analysis sets the starting point.

                Is that concept too hard for you to understand ?????

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                I have not cherry-picked anything. The data analysis sets the starting point.

                What an absolute ignorant load if rubbish. Hope do you expect to convince anyone with this. You can chose any starting point you like and you have cherry picked the one that suits your argument.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                and another graph that you will not like
                http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png
                So is NOAA in on the world wide data conspiracy as well.

                024

              • #
                Brian Hother

                I know you think that the BOM is controlled by the aliens trying to insert their DNA into your testicles but here is another graph for you
                http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ%5Bgraph%5D=tmean&tQ%5Barea%5D=aus&tQ%5Bseason%5D=0112&tQ%5Bave_yr%5D=15
                So Ive seen your graph and raised you two. The difference is that I don’t cherry pick data and make up my own because I don’t have to hide reality.

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                Brian Hother

                And since you like woodforthetrees so much, here it proves that since 1999 the temperature has gone up
                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:12/from:1999/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1999/to:2013/trend

                and since 2011 it has just been screaming up
                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:12/from:2011/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2011/to:2013/trend

                Would you like a few more cherry picked graphs???

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                Backslider

                More unsupported fantasy. Which “IPCC climate contributors”. What did they say, when and where. What was the context? You are making the assertions, you provide some evidence. You think that because you write it here that it is fact. What pause are you referring to? Come on, some backup. Its not in the IPCC report, so where is it?

                Why don’t you start with Judith Curry?

                And do not start with the “It’s a blog!!!” crap. Judith Curry is a very highly respected climate scientist. Here she discusses the IPCC report.

                You can read her published papers at your own leisure.

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                Backslider

                Here is a graph for you sonny, from the Vostock ice cores.

                Now, you cannot accuse me of cherry picking 😛

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                AndyG55

                Again, every link you post proves that you have zero understanding of the concept.

                The statement is about the last 17 or so years.

                Everyone knows that we have warmed since the LIA, thankfully.

                Everyone knows that the 1950s was a slightly cooler period.

                Now take the last 17 years of the BOM chart.. trend is DOWNWARDS

                NOTHING you have posted contradicts the statement that there has been basically ZERO warming for 17 years.

                You are just TOO DUMB and IGNORANT to understand that.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Now take the last 17 years of the BOM chart.. trend is DOWNWARDS

                Dont you understand the therm “cherry picked”, it only shows an upward trend BECAUSE YOU PICKED 17 YEARS

                are (you)just TOO DUMB and IGNORANT to understand that.

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                AndyG55

                And I repeat, because you have so far refused to answer.

                And please, tell us your mathematical qualifications.

                Your posts say, “basic high school”

                tick, tick.. !!!

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Here is a graph for you sonny, from the Vostock ice cores.

                Another clincher from the blogosphere, how impressive,(NOT)

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                Brian Hother

                tell us your mathematical qualifications.

                I just need to demonstrate them, something you seem incapable of. Here is another graph for you, a steady upwards trend from 1985
                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/mean:12/from:1985/plot/uah/from:1985/to:2013/trend

                020

              • #
                Brian Hother

                Why don’t you start with Judith Curry?

                You could even find someone that agrees with you. From her blog

                The observed global-mean surface temperature (GMST) has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years

                Even she disagrees with you LOL

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              • #
                Backslider

                Another clincher from the blogosphere

                That’s fine Brian. Perhaps then you can show us some graphs for the Vostok ice cores which shows something different?

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                AndyG55

                “I just need to demonstrate them”

                Tell us when you have started. !

                Avoidance, avoidance. As expected.

                So far.. nothing except very basic linear farts !!

                What are your qualifications? … you seem to have NONE.

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                AndyG55

                “Here is another graph for you, a steady upwards trend from 1985”

                Oh.. is that 17 years ?????

                Seems even primary school maths is beyond you.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “BECAUSE YOU PICKED 17 YEARS”

                NO! you ignorant PUTZ.

                Working backwards from now.. the data shows 17 years. sorry you are totally unable to grasp the concept

                AGAIN with your lack of basic understanding, your manifest IGNORANCE, shine like a beacon !!

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                AndyG55

                And btw.. Jo should probably thank you.

                Your petulant ignorance has GREATLY INCREASED her blog hits.

                (you were the tweeb who said her advertisements were giving her funds, weren’t you ???)

                You must be really helping her pay the bills !!

                That is why we keep you ranting… it helps pay her hosting bills. Saves us having to donate as much.

                A BIG THANKS FROM EVERYONE ! 😉

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                Backslider

                You could even find someone that agrees with you.

                And you have the gall to accuse us of cherry picking?

                Perhaps you might read the whole thing, then come back and tell us that the IPCC does not talk about a “pause”, “hiatus” or whatever they wish to call it.

                Or, you can come back and say “Sorry guys, I got it WRONG”. 🙂

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              • #
                Carbon500

                Brian Hother gives this link:
                http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/gissmodel1.jpg?w=500&h=322
                He ignores the clear levelling of temperature anomalies seen on this graph from around 1997/1998 onwards. A closer look at this levelling is given by GISS at
                http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.C.gif
                Follow this link and several graphs are seen. The one entitled ‘Global Monthly Mean Surface Temperature Change’ is the one of interest, showing anomalies from the period 1951-1980.
                All that is seen is a pattern of oscillating anomalies within a range of a degree or so. This is the 17 year stalling of the trivial warming (about a degree centigrade) that has been going on for a century or so.
                A global climatic crisis? Mr. Hother obviously thinks so.

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                Bulldust

                Might interest Brian Hotter that the IPCC keeps lowering its projections to try and match the reality of the pause:

                http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/01/ipcc-silently-slashes-its-global-warming-predictions-in-the-ar5-final-draft/

                Yes, writtend by the CAGW antichrist himself… Lord Monckton. Cue the “he is not a Lord” ad hom… in 3…2…1…

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              • #
                Radical Rodent

                Mr Hother, can you explain the causes of the rises and falls of temperatures that have occurred almost continuously on this planet for the past… well, let’s make it easy for you – 100 million years?

                As many of the extremes were considerably more than the present situation, explain why that could be so, without the intervention of humans.

                Now explain how, with these events known to have occurred, a fact accepted by almost everybody, the present situation should be considered so remarkably different that the single cause be the activities of the dominant species of the planet, with no other factors considered.

                10

            • #
              AndyG55

              And here’s some news for you, you petulant fool.

              I have given seminars at ACCARNSI conferences,

              and yes, my last contract was paid for from NCCARF funds

              (look those 2 up, since you probably have no idea who they are)

              You know NOTHING and you are NOTHING.

              You want to say that climate scientists should be worshipped.. then BOW DOWN, peasant.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                I have given seminars at ACCARNSI conferences,

                and yes, my last contract was paid for from NCCARF funds

                So what was someone who proclaims that climate change is a Government conspiracy able to contribute to an organisation working to

                generate the information needed by decision-makers in government and in vulnerable sectors and communities to manage the risks of climate change impacts.

                You must have been very lonely there, its no wonder you spend so much time here.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Oh dear, you really are scraping the bottom of your self-created hole now..

                digging for coal or something ??

                The fact that they offered me the contract shows I have a whole lot more to offer than you ever will !!

                The contract included giving training sessions to members of some of the biggest government infrastructure groups in Australia.

                What have you ever done to help adapt to Australia’s highly variable climate… Anything ???

                Come on.. hess up… or are you empty on that count, too !!

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                The contract included giving training sessions to members of some of the biggest government infrastructure groups in Australia.

                As long as it was not in graph drawing or data interpretation.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “As long as it was not in graph drawing or data interpretation”

                That’s EXACTLY what it was. They say they learnt a GREAT DEAL of stuff they didn’t have any idea of before the tutorials.

                You should try learning something some day.. you might surprise yourself, and would certainly surprise us.

                Maybe try completing high school first…….. little steps for a small mind.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                And please, tell us your mathematical qualifications.

                You want to deride me, they better be pretty darn good !!!!!

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Ah, you have been at the magic mushrooms again.

                Get a life bozo

                YOU ARE A JOKE !!!!!!

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            • #
              Heywood

              “while this blog milks it for money”

              Interesting accusation. Please explain how Jo makes money through this blog due to her skepticism of the warmist mantra? …or maybe you could apologise for the slur?

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                What, you can post adds fee on this blog? Dont make me laugh

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              • #
                Heywood

                Under “advertising” there are three links. One to a non profit organisation, one to an actual business and one to Jo’s own gold business. She must me raking it in.

                “Dont make me laugh”

                Impossible. Leftard activist w@ankers such as yourself don’t have a sense of humour.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                She must me raking it in.

                You said it not me!!

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              • #
                Heywood

                Can’t recognise sarcasm either. You implied though.

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              • #

                Odd isn’t it?

                Here we have Brian Hother demanding incontrovertible proof that we supply absolute proof positive of the things we say here.

                Well then, here’s a simple task for you Brian Hother, as you have all the answers.

                How about YOU provide incontrovertible proof that Joanne is, and let me use your words here:

                …..while this blog milks it for money.

                That should be quite a simple one for you really.

                Go ahead.

                Proof.

                If not an apology, retraction, and then bugger off!

                Tony.

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            • #
              Graeme No.3

              Getting desperate aren’t you?

              Or does 50 people look like a giant audience when compared with your usual lair?

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                Brian Hother

                Some reading for you. You are in the 7.1% category with the other” it hasn’t warmed for 17 years” sheep.
                http://www.csiro.au/resources/~/media/CSIROau/Flagships/Climate%20Adaptation/CSIRO-Second-Annual-Survey-Australian-Attitudes-Climate-Change.pdf.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Darn you are an idiot. No clue at all !!

                Climate always changes.. That’s what it does.

                NATURALLY !!!!!!

                Look at Table 5, bozo. More people say this is the case, than those who think man influences the climate.

                Thanks for providing information that backs up our case. 🙂

                PS…

                It is actually quite unusually for the global temperature to have remained basically the same for 17 years.

                but that is what has happened !!!!!

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Darn you are an idiot. No clue at all !!

                Climate always changes.. That’s what it does.

                NATURALLY !!!!!!

                So let me get this right. You are saying that the temperature hasn’t gone up in 17 years bit if you get caught out and have to admit that it has, your fall-back position is that this change, that may or may not have happened, if it did happen, was natural.

                My reading of the table is that 90% of the population accepts that the temperatures are going up

                Make up your mind.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Most of the population don’t look at the data.

                The FACT that there has been basically NO WARMING for 17 years has been kept well hidden from the general population.

                Once it starts cooling over the next year or so, that will be much harder to hide from the public.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                The FACT that there has been basically NO WARMING for 17 years has been kept well hidden from the general population.

                Once it starts cooling over the next year or so, that will be much harder to hide from the public.

                Well this morning must have been a big kick in the head for that plan. 2013, Warmest year on record by a long shot in OZ. You are lving in a dream world.

                —————————
                You need to respond to the use of the term Climate Denier and show you speak proper English. No posts will be published until you do.
                Since when was “oz” a global temperature?
                UPDATE: Brian replied only briefly and offered to shift “climate denier” to “AGW denier” (which he would not substantiate either). He has not responded to personal emails, so we can assume he was not interested in an honest conversation only namecalling. I’m releasing his comments, but not inviting him to send more.

                Jo

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            • #
              Robert

              You bleat on about models while the temperature keeps going up and dont have an explanation.

              But we do have an explanation, the explanation is that the temperatures are not in fact going up. But we know you believe they are, just as those on the ship believed they wouldn’t get stuck in ice because, as your sort keep telling us, it is disappearing.

              Seems to me the only one bleating on here is you, as reality continues to show everything you claim is happening isn’t. Must suck to be you.

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                Heywood

                “But we do have an explanation”

                I wouldn’t bother Robert. This Richard Cranium made his intent clear from his first post. It doesn’t matter what is said, he will claim that it is wrong, not peer reviewed, not a credible source, debunked etc etc etc. and then demand answers to his questions which he posts in between masturbation sessions on his computer. He is just another activist tosser in the same mold as Michael and not worthy of any serious responses.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Oh dear, must be a bad morning for you

                2013 was hottest year on record in Australia, Bureau of Meteorology says

                Average temperatures were 1.20 degrees Celsius above the long-term average of 21.8C, breaking the previous record set in 2005 by 0.17C, the bureau said in its Annual Climate Statement.

                http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-03/2013-was-the-hottest-year-on-record-for-australia/5183040

                [So you calculate an average temperature, T, for an arbitrary year, Y, and compare that to a calculated “long-term-average”, T’, for an indeterminate time period (taking whatever records you want – there are several to choose from), P, and find that T > T’. Whoop-de-do. Since we have no idea what P is, because it is not defined, and since we cannot be sure that Y is a calendar year (and not a financial year, or some other arbitrary historic twelve month period), the statement from the BOM is shown to be political, precisely because it cannot be challenged, due to the fact that it is too vague to be scientifically supported.] -Fly

                01

            • #
              handjive

              Brian Hother,
              “In climate research and modelling we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system and therefore that long term prediction of future states is not possible.”
              UN-IPCC Third Assessment Report 2001. Section 14.2.2.2 page 774.
              Do yourself a favour and quote that science.
              Makes all your links crap.
              .
              Hot in Australia in summer you say?
              U.S. ushers in 2014 with record-low temps, snow
              Cold in America in Winter.
              That is NOT GLOBAL warming.
              .
              Now you quote the CSIRO, no longer a science organisation, it’s reputation trashed on the un-scientific rocks of Global Warming Taxes.
              No, Brian, that is NOT science.

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Hot in Australia in summer you say?

                Another straw-man joins the circus, where did I say that?
                Cold in America in Winter.
                That is NOT GLOBAL warming.

                That right its called weather. Don’t you know the difference between the two?
                No Mr jive thats not logic, its nonsense.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “That is NOT GLOBAL warming.’

                No, its NATURAL climate variation.

                Like everything else.

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              • #
                handjive

                Quote:”That right its called weather. Don’t you know the difference between the two?”

                Didn’t get the email Brian?
                Don’t be surprised as the settled science is changing quicker than you can say ‘global warming.’
                Do try and keep up.

                Don’t thank me, I provide this service for free with much satisfaction for the ignorant:

                Previously, ”weather is not climate” was the mantra, but now the additional boost from greenhouse gases was influencing every event.
                It might even be the case that the mantra chanted after every catastrophic weather event – that it can’t be said to be caused by climate change, but it shows what climate change will do – has become a thing of the past.

                A few years ago, talking about weather and climate change in the same breath was a cardinal sin for scientists.
                Now it has become impossible to have a conversation about the weather without discussing wider climate trends, according to Will Steffen, the report’s lead author and director of the Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute.(my italics)

                Did someone mention straw man?
                Thanks for playing. Got another?

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              • #
                handjive

                Were did Brian say Hot in Australia in Summer?

                Quote: “Tomorrow it will be announced that 2013 was the hottest year on record in OZ and you will just carry on with the same moronic conspiracy theories while this blog milks it for money. You really are stupid, (or on the gravy train as well)”
                What record would that be? Since the angry summer?

                Sounds like summer to me.

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              • #
                handjive

                And, if there is no 17 year ‘pause’, why would they need to say that the heat is going into the deep, cold oceans?

                At 4 Hiroshima Bombs a second, dontcha know?

                Either you are ignorant or in denial about the ‘pause’.

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              • #
                Drianh

                why bother? most of the posters on this site have primary or secondary degrees in engineering, maths, or science. some just have 30 or 40 years of practical experience. basically, they can assess scientific studies from first principles, and have pretty advanced BS detectors.. Do tell, Brian, just exactly what is you background and current employment? no fibs now..

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              • #
                bullocky

                Brian;

                Q. Ice Shokalskiy?

                A. No, but it’d shock Al Gore!

                21

            • #
              Backslider

              50 people that still have their heads in the sand and post climate denial

              Please show to us all where anybody here denies climate.

              Do that, or apologise.

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            • #
              Backslider

              Tomorrow it will be announced that 2013 was the hottest year on record in OZ

              Even if it is, that is regional and quite irrelevant to global climate.

              Why was it not announced with as much fanfare that Thredbo had heavy snow falls in the beginning of December or that vast tracts of canola, wheat and other crops were wiped out by frosts in NSW and Victoria in September and October?

              Why is there not as much fanfare when heavy snow has fallen across the Middle East and South East Asia?

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Why was it not announced with as much fanfare that Thredbo had heavy snow falls in the beginning of December or that vast tracts of canola, wheat and other crops were wiped out by frosts in NSW and Victoria in September and October?

                Why is there not as much fanfare when heavy snow has fallen across the Middle East and South East Asia?

                Because that is weather silly. there is a difference.

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              • #

                Yes, Brian, and the difference is it’s weather when it does not support the warmist position and climate is when it does. We get that.

                10

              • #
                Backslider

                Because that is weather silly. there is a difference.

                Oh, I quite agree that its weather, just as this is:

                Tomorrow it will be announced that 2013 was the hottest year on record in OZ

                The question still stands. Why is your weather any more significant than mine?

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        • #
          llew Jones

          You Hother are a consummate fool, out of your depth and in the same mould as the incompetent fools who are now touting a 4C increase in Earth’s Global Temperature by the end of this century.

          Uniformed persons, though unaware of it like you and most if not all of the fraternity of alarmist climate scientists are completely befuddled because they imagine their naively simplistic models give them an understanding of how Earth’s highly complex, chaotic, non-linear climate system works. No one but no one yet has a handle on it and that includes top Climate Scientists like Spencer and Christy. Such scientists are intelligent enough to know how little they and any other scientist, at present, knows about the interaction of the multiplicity of variables that constitute Earth’s climate system.

          Those hopeless drongos trapped in the Antarctic ice through their own stupidity may be good for a laugh but equally those fools in their image never learn the lessons being taught by all the predictive failures of the partially informed who constitute the alarmist climate science fraternity.

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            ExWarmist

            Great comment Llew.

            I suspect that Brian is not a uniformed person as putting his own life in danger to save others is probably beyond him.

            However he is definitely uninformed.

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        • #
          Backslider

          do yourself a favour and read some science
          http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12829.html

          Just because this is published in Nature does not make it science. Its about climate modelling…. only.

          Climate modelling is a tool used by scientists, however in an of itself it is not science. This paper is merely a scholarly dissertation on climate modelling. It does notr present anything which could in any way be construed as science.

          Because climate models are a tool used by scientists, its perfectly appropriate for this to be published in Nature. Not everything published in Nature is science.

          A bunsen burner is also a tool used by scientists. My burner manual however cannot be regarded as science. Likewise the above treatise.

          Get that sonny before you come here telling people to read “science”.

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          • #
            ExWarmist

            Any computer model is simply a restatement of theory – it is itself a theoretical construct.

            Confusing a model with an empirical test against instrumented data is akin to attempting to drive on the road sign instead of the road.

            A category error.

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            • #
              Philip Shehan

              Here ex warmist, is the empirical data on the warming of the antarctic. This image illustrates long-term changes in yearly surface temperature in and around Antarctica between 1981 and 2007.

              http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8239

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              • #
                bullocky

                Good work Phil!

                Now, is there any way you can get this info. down to the ice-bound Shokalsky and try to get that boat out of there?

                A bit out-dated and maybe a bit late, but it might help.

                p.s – Good news! Apparently they’ve been rescued.
                ninemsn describes them as ‘scientists, tourists and journalists’, so, quite a broad cross section of folk, then.
                Check it out!

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              • #
                Brian Hother

                Here ex warmist, is the empirical data on the warming of the antarctic.

                Good try, but wont be much good for the colour blind on this forum. They will only see gray

                16

              • #
                ExWarmist

                Hi Philip,

                Thanks for the link. From the link it is stated.

                Climate scientists who want to know how average temperatures on Antarctica might be changing must wrestle with the fact that ground-based weather stations are few and far between, especially in the continent’s high-altitude interior. Although automated weather stations are generally assumed to be the most accurate record-keepers, their sparseness makes it hard for scientists to be confident of what is happening across the entire continent. In addition, the harsh environment takes a toll on equipment, and long gaps of missing data interrupt the time series of some stations.

                I agree with this statement – the ground stations are inadequate to understand any temperature trend activity in Antarctica, which leaves the satellite record as the only potentially viable place to look.

                The authors then go on to say wrt the satellite sensors…

                Making a long-term record out of data from different sensors is challenging because each sensor has its own quirks and may measure temperatures a bit differently. None of the sensors were in orbit at the same time, so scientists could not compare simultaneous observations from different sensors to make sure each was recording temperatures exactly the same. Instead, the team checked the satellite records against ground-based weather station data to inter-calibrate them and make the 26-year satellite record. The scientists estimate the level of uncertainty in the measurements is between 2-3 degrees Celsius.

                Which leaves us with data gathered from sensors that are,

                [1] Not able to be compared with each other as they are operating at different times.

                [2] Calibrated against the ground stations that are too few, and next to human habitation (heat islands).

                [3] Possessed of an uncertainty of measurement of 2 to 3 degrees celcius that exceeds the measured warming.

                Further more, the authors also state that

                After the calving or collapse, the satellite saw open water where there had previously been ice, so the temperature increase was stark.

                Which leaves open sea polluting the temp picture.

                Which all leaves everyone knowing precisely nothing at all about what the actual temperature trends are in the Antarctic. Could be up, could be down, could be sideways.

                What we do know is

                [1] That Antarctic sea ice is more than 2 standard deviations above the 1981-2010 average. and that the ice has been increasing since 1979.

                [2] That the rate of sea level rise is static at approximately 3.2 mm per year.

                [3] That the hypothesis of man made global warming predicts that warming will occur first, and most strongly at both poles (Arctic & Antarctic) resulting in melting ice, and rising sea levels.

                So ice melting only in the Arctic – which can’t affect sea level as it is ocean ice, and ice increasing in the southern hemisphere, with sea level rise showing no acceleration…

                All predictive failures for the hypothesis of man made global warming.

                Cheers ExWarmist

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                ExWarmist

                Brian …

                Good try, but wont be much good for the colour blind on this forum. They will only see gray

                You spoke to soon – your prejudices which blind you are all too easy to see.

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                ExWarmist

                Hi Philip.

                Thumbs Up from me for a worthy effort to bring empirical data to the debating table.

                As Richard Feynman says …

                It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.

                Cheers ExWarmist

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              • #
                ExWarmist

                I – in all honesty – genuinely thank Philip for what he wrote.

                And I get a thumbs down.

                Somebody (not naming any names here, or pointing any fingers…) has a severe case of sour grapes.

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          Backslider

          Crickets……

          42

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          • #
            Brian Hother

            You seem to have missed

            I have read it and replied

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              ExWarmist

              Hi Brian,

              Trenberth says …

              Leading climate scientist Kevin Trenberth has told reportingclimatescience.com that he believes the pause in global warming may be caused by long term changes in the Pacific Ocean.

              Trenberth and colleague John Fasullo argue in a new scientific paper that the massive El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event that occurred in 1997 and 1998 triggered the pause.

              Clearly Trenberth and Fasullo mark the beginning of the pause from 1997/98.

              Hansens acknowledgement of the pause is on a shorter timescale to Trenberth and Fasullo – the point is that the awareness of the pause is mainstream climate science.

              Why are you not aware of that?

              What does your lack of awareness of the pause imply for the validity of your other claims – are they equally misconceived in a lack of awareness of the current debates in climate science?

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                Brian Hother

                Ah so finally you admit there is no pause, the heat is still accumulating but because of the strong El Nino, more of it has been going into the Pacific Ocean than in the past. There is 10X as much heat accumulating in the oceans because of climate change than the atmosphere, something you like to gloss over.


                Use my INDEX page, look for ocean heat content. Bask in those hideous uncertainties. Then try not to cry when you realize that your 95% certainty of continual warming in the oceans since 2003 is not remotely close to the size of the instrument error. You have nothing Brian. Tough when you realize it isn’t it? – Jo

                01

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              Backslider

              I have read it and replied

              Just like Michael the Idealist – claims to have replied to something (somewhere, who knows where?) when clearly he has not.

              10

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        Ross

        Brian “You keep saying this but despite about 20 requests you are still to post some evidence that does not come from silly blogs, here is another chance to have a go.”

        Look at the following link. Note is uses data from the 6 major temp. data sets
        (adjustments included) and uses a tool developed by the guys at Skeptical Science. This analysis by Werner Bozek has been put up on the Internet month by month for a long time now. No one from ‘your side’ of the debate has questioned it.

        Before you say it is on “silly blog” –this is official data analysed with a method produced by some of the strongest advocates of AGW.

        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/03/statistical-significances-how-long-is-the-pause-now-includes-september-data/

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          Brian Hother

          http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/03/statistical-significances-how-long-is-the-pause-now-includes-september-data/
          Cherry picked nonsense and you are too dumb to see it. Classic denier distraction. Start the graph in any other year and it will make you claim look foolish

          127

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            Ross

            Well if that is all you can say it must be right. If it was so much nonsense you would have factual, well reasoned rebuttal, but that seems to be beyond you.

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            Backslider

            Start the graph in any other year and it will make you claim look foolish

            You just don’t get it do you?

            The graph reads from right to left. From today backwards. The point is to see the clear lack of warming which all prominent climate scientists and the IPCC acknowledge.

            You are in denial sonny.

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            Backslider

            Crickets…..

            52

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              AndyG55

              tick, tock… tick tock..

              knock, knock ????

              nope.. nobody home. !!

              62

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                Heywood

                Do you really want the tosser to respond?? I don’t believe we have found someone more arrogant and obsessed than Michael.

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              • #
                Backslider

                I don’t believe we have found someone more arrogant and obsessed than Michael.

                And even stupider…..

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                AndyG55

                I’m suspecting a low level arts student. (ie very low level of maths/science comprehension, but can use google.. just)

                Works part time in a low end job that takes the period 24th Dec to 8th Jan off because they know they won’t have customers.

                Has so little in his life that he/she is now bored and thinks that acting like being a moronic troll is a the only thing worth doing with his/her pathetic life.

                I wonder if he/she realises just how much damage he/she does to the AGW meme by being here.. 😉

                Reinforcing the fact that all agw trolls are total morons.

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              ExWarmist

              Hi Backslider,

              Brian seems to keep missing the Trenberth, Fusullo and Hansen links to the mainstream science pause in global temps.

              If only he would bother to read the links then he would realise that the pause is mainstream.

              But alas – then he would have to admit that 90% of what he has recently posted was demonstrably wrong….

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              Bob Malloy

              Backslider says Crickets, I say Cicadas>

              21

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            bullocky

            The fraternity aboard the noble ship Akademik Shokalskiy shouldn’t be too concerned about the weather, Brian. The weather down there is mostly troughs!

            42

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        bullocky

        Reading the Bible can lead to religious mania.

        Reading ‘Nature’ can lead to getting wedged in global-warming-induced-ice in the Antarctic region.

        Just look at at the pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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    James

    A boatload of [snip]!

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      scaper...

      I agree 100%!

      43

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      Tim

      Brian ‘Hot under the collar’ has achieved his result.

      You have all been distracted from the main topic.

      Get a grip folks and ignore him. It’s a divergence tactic, pure and simple.

      52

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        Brian Hother

        You have all been distracted from the main topic.

        I thought climate change [d—-SNIP] was the main topic here

        [D word use is a no-no] ED

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          MemoryVault

          So, dyslexic as well.

          The title of the post is:

          Shokalskiy soap opera – rescue ship stuck too, climatologists asks skeptics Coleman & Watts for weather-info

          No mention of climate change denial there.

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      James

      To Brian Hother, from my very first science class back in 1969 the fundamental of controlled experiment, objective observation and accurate recording was drilled in deeply so that at the analysis the truth literally speaks for itself.

      As an intelligence officer with some 20 years experience in observation, accurate reporting and objective analysis I leave the task of fitting the evidence around hypothetical criteria to produce a desired outcome to you and yours who have the religious fervour and unshakeable belief in everything but reality.

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    Reed Coray

    Sorry, Jo. I don’t know how to embed a video in a comment. If you want to see the “Sing Along” video, see Bruce Cobb’s January 1, 2014 at 7:11 am comment on WUWT (URL: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/30/the-antarctic-research-fiasco-would-you-could-you-in-a-boat/#more-100077).

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  • #

    […] Who could’ve dreamed up the script for this one?  […]

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    john robertson

    If irony was sunshine, they would be ice free.
    The state funded media is becoming the story here.
    As with the CRU emails, a corner of the rug has been lifted and a glimpse of the foetid CAGW mess exposed once again.
    This tale of true believers frozen into the icepack is a gift for any journalist who writes to inform, entertain and recruit a readership.
    Imagine the interview a sharp, on site TV reporter could do… It writes itself.
    Few or none employed by the state funded mouthpieces have chosen to cover this farce, nothing to see here, just some unlucky tourists caught in an extreme weather event, caused by global warming.
    As more taxpayers have to seek reliable information via the web, as the omission of information at MSM sites peaks,the greater the loss of interest in MSM.
    Vicious circle, just like the failure to communicate “the science” from team IPCC.
    They do not understand the problem, information is still being communicated,not the words they use but the lies they chose.
    BS smells the same no matter where it is spread.

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      Bob Malloy

      Imagine the interview a sharp, on site TV reporter could do… It writes itself.

      It seems ideal for another chapter from the adventures of Clark & Dawe, courtesy of Speedy.

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    The stuck scientists “phoned a friend” who called a friend, and one thing led to another, and before you know it, Johnathon Coleman (skeptic and meteorologist) is calling Anthony Watts (major skeptic blogger and meteorologist)

    That’s what happens when the kis get in trouble. They call the Adults to get ’em out of the crap!

    “Save me, Save me”, “I’ll do what ever you want”, “Just save me”

    “OK, Well your gonna have to Vote for this psycho, and hand over control of your bank accounts, and while your there, let me take control of your life, and lets have a chat about all that Co2, shall we?”.

    “OK, OK OK, I’ll do it, just save me from the big meany world, cause I can’t friggin MAKE SURE I’VE GOT ACCESS TO A METEOROLOGIST WHEN I GO TO SOMEWHERE AS UNPREDICTABLE AND DANGEROUS AS THE ANTARCTIC”!

    You know who the suckers are? We are! Bail out/in for 2014 anyone?

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    Andrew McRae

    The webcam picture caption is incorrect.
    The caption says “Ship Heading: west-northwest”
    It should say “Ship Heading: nowhere fast”

    ~ ~ ~ ~

    Two days ago a company called PolarView tweeted the ships’s location and overview of ice situation to ProfChrisTunney. When I saw their map I read off the ship position as being about 144.25°E 66.8°S.

    Many hours later PolarView tweeted a link to another recent satellite picture viewer showing their surroundings which has a lot of ice detail, though the only vaguely ship-shaped object I can see is in the very bottom right and is probably the Xue Long. Good luck spotting the Shokalskiy.

    ProfChrisTurney later saw the first picture with their old position on it and retweeted it.
    Then he replies to the second high-res image very gratefully with a strange request:
     [ Chris Turney ‏@ProfChrisTurney
    Hi @polarview, awesome image. Thanks so much. Any chance of sending with position? 66˚50S 144˚16E? Having trouble orienting. @alokjha
    ]

    Yeah, mate, the mouse pointer map co-ordinates were in the bottom right of the application.
    Must be snow blindness, eh? Hey, there’s that #spiritofmawson !!

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    Starting right off, with caveats: 1. I am not a maritime expert, but I have on occasion worked with people who are; and 2. What little I do know, relates to the Arctic, and may not necessarily apply to the Antarctic. OK? Right.

    Firstly, a ship does not sail into pack ice, it only sails into an area of water where pack ice might form. When it does form, it forms all around the ship almost at the same time, and it happens very quickly (because the ship itself acts as a thermal conductor?).

    Secondly, the ice is constantly shifting, in response to wave pressure underneath the ice. So crevasses can open and close without warning, and you have no real idea on what the thickness at any point might be (the depth quoted will be an average). It has been known for the pressure of the ice to physically crush a ship, if it was not designed to work in ice conditions.

    Then we have the icebreakers: The most important direction for an icebreaker to travel, is backwards. They have to be able to move back, so they can move forward to ram the packed ice in front. They actually break the ice by having the ships ride up, at the bow, and then rely on the weight of the ship to crack the ice. If the weight is not sufficient, and there are problems moving backwards again (pulling itself off the ice), then the icebreaker itself can get stuck. This is why Arctic icebreakers work in pairs or packs. One does the work, while the others keep the channel behind it clear, and can pull it off at need. The icebreaker also needs room to manoeuvre, so that it can widen the channel it has cut. A single crack will refreeze quite quickly, but multiple cracks allow an ice sheet to be pushed under the rest of the ice, so leaving a wider channel, that takes longer to freeze over. Finally, some of the Russian nuclear ice breakers are purportedly able to heat their hulls, which obviously reduces the chance of them getting stuck quickly. But that is probably only of academic interest, because I understand that there might be various internationally binding conventions, regarding the use of nuclear energy in Antarctic waters (although again, I don’t know that for certain, nor any of the details).

    And, in regard to an airlift: It would be very dangerous to attempt to land a fixed wing aircraft on pack ice, because the surface is rarely flat (see my reference to wave pressure, above). So any air rescue must be via chopper. The helicopters in the Antarctic are there to keep the people working on the ice supplied with the necessities of life, and to ferry the equipment and resources needed, to do their science. Unless the season is exceptionally good, weather-wise, they are on a tight schedule to get the job done in the time available. So, while the integrity of the ship is retained, and while “the tourists” are all nice and safe and warm, and have sufficient food and water, their “rescue” will not be a high priority. If they run short of food or potable water, or medical supplies, then they might get an airdrop from a chopper that is en-route elsewhere, doing its real job.

    So, perhaps their best option is to gather together, and devoutly pray for some Global Warming.

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      Ian Hill

      As I said in a previous thread and putting aside the point Rereke makes about a possible convention or treaty forbidding nuclear powered icebreakers in Antarctic waters, I understand it is not possible for a nuclear powered ice breaker to sail in warm waters as they need cold water for engine cooling purposes, meaning of course the big Russian icebreakers simply cannot sail to Antarctica on their own. They could possibly be towed there I suppose, adding more to the rapidly mounting cost. Then they would need to be towed back.

      The one I was on in July 2008, the “50 Years of Victory” (English version of its name) is the biggest icebreaker in the world and can break through ice three metres thick, as it had to do back then even though such ice wasn’t supposed to be there according to the alarmists. It also has a helicopter which can carry about 20 people at a time.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if the US navy ends up sending an aircraft carrier there with enough helicopters to evacuate everyone. Sooner or later some of the people stuck are going to “lose the plot” and become very distressed. Surely there is a doctor or two with them.

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        jorgekafkazar

        I wouldn’t be surprised if the US navy ends up sending an aircraft carrier there with enough helicopters to evacuate everyone…

        Never happen. (1) Aircraft carriers cost as much as 1,450,000 Yank Dollars per day to operate. (2) The stranded ship is not a US vessel. (3) Most of the passengers are Australians. (4) I don’t believe there are any US carriers close enough to the Wakademik Shokolskiy. (5) The Wakademik is not in US territorial waters.

        Only a narcissistic lunatic would send a US carrier to rescue this expedition.

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        • #

          The US has a narcissistic lunatic in the White House. Actually all that would be needed is Helo landing ship.

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          Rereke Whakaaro

          I don’t believe there are any US carriers close enough to the Wakademik Shokolskiy.

          None in the Southern Hemisphere, according to the latest report that I have available.

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        gnome

        Please stop using the term “sail” for transit by these ships. Sailing ships sail, steamships steam, and motor vessels motor.

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      • #

        Ummm…. the nuclear powered icebreakers do OK in summer when the surface water is just as warm as in the tropics. Well, near enough, depending on the time of year and weather conditions.

        The cooling capacity may reduced by a bit, so the steam turbine efficiency goes down, but the reactor would be doing just fine as long as the ship is able to scoop/suck up water.

        Besides, using satellite remote sensing, they can pick the cool currents going their way (if there are any). This is the 1980’s, isn’t it?

        30

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        Tim

        Wikipedia says the US icebreaker Polar Star – now en route, is able to break through ice up to 21 feet (6 m) thick and steam continuously through 6 feet (1.8 m) of ice at 3 knots (6 km/h).

        00

    • #
      Mike Borgelt

      They’d better hope the Chinese helo doesn’t have a bad maintenance problem with no way to fix it. I wouldn’t be too happy relying on ONE helicopter. The damn things are a collection of spare parts flying in loose formation at the best of times. An Army helo pilot friend of mine had to do a formation practice last year. Couldn’t go a scheduled as they could only get one out of seven helos flying.

      10

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      mullumhillbilly

      Poor unfortunate boat people, send them a solar-powered icebreaker immediately, to hell with the cost !
      /sarc

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    Bruce

    The politically correct thing to say about these clowns is that we hope they are retrieved safe and well, soon.

    The other view is that they are a bunch of self-centered adolescent rent-seekers who have tried, and partly succeeded, in imposing misery on the rest of us.

    Consequently their problem is their problem, we owe them nothing.

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    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      That’s as may be Bruce, but sceptics are nothing if not magnanimous in victory.

      Don’t you think Anthony Watts should now fly down & personally supervise operations, welcoming them onto the craft that eventually extricates them from their ill-judged folly ?

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      Peter Hume

      Yes let’s not forget that if these people had the anti-industrial policies they advocate, they would cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, and none the less so for the fact their economic illiteracy is based on deliberate ignorance. They are nasty, lying, dangerous, deluded totalitarians meaning they dream of government power without limit; the least consequence they should face is being signed up for all they own to pay the costs of their rescue and the original trip before being taken off.

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      Dan

      Most sensible comment I’ve read on this thread.
      Do unto others as they would do unto you, only do it first.

      10

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    Kevin Hearle

    The actions of these so called band of intelligent scientists and media hangers on boggles the mind. Their seeming ignorance of the danger they are in even in a world of instant communications and with helicopter and ship help close by is astounding. To portray yourself to the world as partying up in the situation they are in is a disgrace. They should be ashamed. The captain should have them locked into their cabins to contemplate their position with some of the stories of past explores accounts of life on the ice outside of the comforts of the lounge bar on their ship.

    Their behaviour gives us all some indication of the weight we should place on the “tourist science” that will inevitably be heralded as evidence of Global warming,

    Perhaps a hike from the ship to the edge of the ice in full survival gear might bring these party goers to their senses.

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      aussiebear

      “The actions of these so called band of intelligent scientists and media hangers on boggles the mind.”

      => Agreed.

      When you have intellectuals who live in their academic ivory towers all their lives; it comes to no surprise that they end up being “the smartest dumb people” you’ll ever meet. You’ll note they lack any form common sense and initiative. That’s the most striking thing about them!

      If they have a satellite link, you’d think they won’t waste that data bandwidth on Skype, uploading videos onto Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. (Satellite links are NOT cheap to run. Isn’t this on the taxpayer dime?)

      If they were taking the scenario with all seriousness, they would focus on downloading weather data and talking to various experienced people; to form up a serious plan to get themselves out of trouble! You know, taking responsibility for a situation they were thrown into!

      Instead, I see them dance on the ice and act completely disconnected to the problem they’re in! They don’t even realise multiple ships have failed to reach them! There is something really mentally wrong about their reaction to the situation they are in. Something is not registering in their minds.

      As for the media hangers? When was the last time we saw modern journalism from the mainstream media actually dug into a serious story and explained the whole picture to the public? They seem more like a mouthpiece and PR distribution centres for political parties and groups.

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        Keep that thought.

        It says more about their motivations than any conversation about the science could do.

        We need to constantly remind people about how these rent-seekers “reacted”, and then ask why are we trusting these individuals with the future of civilisation.

        30

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      Tim

      Their behavior gives us all some indication of the weight we should place on the “tourist science” that will inevitably be heralded as evidence of Global warming,

      The evidence is there. We just haven’t actually found it yet.

      Here’s the face-saving Media Release from Prof Turney about an untested ‘idea’. (Read: ‘thought – bubble’.)

      “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.”

      20

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        Robert

        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.

        Wouldn’t it mix? There are currents, it’s not being released into stationary water. Sounds like b.s. intended to sound good to the masses.

        40

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    AndyG55

    If anyone dies as a result of this fiasco, I hope the people who organised this little jaunt are held fully accountable.

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      AndyG55

      I further hope that the organisers are held FULLY accountable for all costs of the rescue.

      391

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Andy,

        I suspect it’ll be you and me who get stuck with the bill in the end.

        I could hope that the instant they finally have everyone off that ship of fools it sinks with every last bit of their equipment on board.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          I wonder what worthwhile medical equipment could have been bought with that money, and all the other money wasted by the CAGW farce.

          How much has world progress been held back, how much poorer the world is because of this nonsense.

          It is quite sad to think of benefits foregone based on a random now-debunked hypothesis. 🙁

          260

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            The Christmas cheer has worn off, I see.

            I quite understand. Me too.

            70

            • #
              AndyG55

              On the contrary..

              With Maurice Newman getting the press he did, I now see a glimmer of HOPE that this farce can be bought crashing down.

              The MSM is one of the main gates that needs to be unlocked, and Mr Newman may just be the key.

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                Sean McHugh

                The MSM is one of the main gates that needs to be unlocked, and Mr Newman may just be the key.

                Let’s hope so because Termite Turnbull certainly won’t be that key.

                130

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            Roy Hogue

            Not only medical equipment but vaccines and medicine of all sorts, all of it down the drain because of the billions spent on this damned global warming BS.

            I’d love to send the bill to more than a few whose names I won’t need to mention because we all know who they are.

            10

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          And I now see a headline announcing the rescue of those aboard the stranded ship. Any bets as to whether it’ll sink or not?

          No, too much to ask for I expect. But any self respecting ship would go down about now. What an utter embarrassment to even be associated with.

          Tomorrow, of course, all will be silent about this as though it never happened. 👿

          00

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    Robert

    So for those still caught in the rapture of their belief in the whole CAGW/AGW/CACC/whatever it is called these days:

    We have for years been told we should listen to the experts, the appeals to authority, the claims of consensus.

    Now we have your experts, along with a media entourage, on a ship stuck in ice they’ve been telling us for years is vanishing. Yet these same experts that some of you cling to, hanging on their every word as they give you your opinion of our climate, were too damn stupid/full of themselves to bring a meteorologist along on a ship heading into what anyone familiar with the oceans knows to be hazardous waters?

    With experts such as this demonstrating their complete lack of common sense feel free to listen to them if you so desire, just don’t ask the rest of us to do so. If you can’t see them for the idiots they are by now you never will.

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    • #
      ianl8888

      … knows to be hazardous waters?

      Or in this case, hazardous solids 🙂

      110

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      Allen Ford

      Hilarious! Quelle irony! So, not only are warmists lousy historians, lousy data managers, lousy statisticians, lousy metrolologists, but lousy meteorologists as well. Fancy not equipping themselves with the basic ability to keep up with weather forecasts!!

      And these people expect us to take them seriously.

      I am still laughing, uproariously!

      110

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  • #
    Joe Lalonde

    Jo,

    This reminds me of a song from “Gilligan Island”…

    Mind you, I bet they wish they were on that Island right now instead of the sticky situation they find themselves in….hmmmm. 🙂

    40

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Who could’ve dreamed up the script for this one?

    I wonder if even the comedy greats like Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Laurel & Hardy, Carol Burnett and too many more to list (sorry if I left out your favorite) could have written comedy this good. And yet they seem incapable of being embarrassed by any of it. But if they’re going to hand me a good laugh at their expense I’ll certainly take it.

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    Manfred

    University of New South Wales, Professor of Climate Science, Christopher Turney

    …Working with climate models……explores past climates and their relevance to future change.

    It’s all in the models……(pregnant pause)……..isn’t it?
    I mean, who needs a meteorologist or an icebreaker for that matter?

    What they haven’t owned up to is why they were delayed returning to the ship (#2.2)?

    Having headed out in their bermuda shorts with a sun umbrellas for a photo op it took them awhile to get their cold weather gear back on.

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    handjive

    Tim Blair, of “quite so” fame, has a great photoshop.

    Thank you, Secret Santa.

    50

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    PeterS

    I still think the Copenhagen meeting being snowed in was a bigger joke on the AGW scam artists. Still, it’s nice to see such disasters as the current one, provided no one is hurt. In fact, if more events like this one keep occurring then perhaps the deniers of the AGW scam might wake up and see the light to see they have been scammed.

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    Peter

    The ‘passengers’ as the msm refer to them must have many thoughts on their minds but uppermost will be I believe fear. Fear of the unknown. The ship will be groaning from the pressures on it and their guts will turn over. After being rescued they will strengthen their beliefs in the ‘Clamour of the Times’ due to cognitive dissonance and public humiliation.
    Harold McMillan was asked why De Gaulle the French leader kept Britain from joining the Common Market twice in the 60’s. His reply was ‘Well you know, you can commit an intransigence against a neighbour but they never forgive a favour’.
    WUWT & Co beware.

    Peter

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    AndyG55

    Coleman and Watts need to be very careful how they approach this.

    If they get it even slightly wrong , they will be hoisted.

    Be very wary when trying to help a cornered hyena !!

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    George Kominiak

    George Kominiak
    Corrales, NM, USA

    I wonder how long it will take this obviously embarrassing story to fade from the MSM’s field of view??

    20

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    MadJak

    I find it so amusing that they couldn’t even predict the environment and weather conditions with enough accuracy to get to the very start of their expedition. I am sure they’ll preach about what the weather will be like in a hundred years or so as well.

    Hey, if they get sick of the dried foods I understand they’re eating, maybe they could get the greens representative to go out and club some seal or something. Please take a photo.

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      Peter Miller

      Mad jack

      Few people have read the Spirit of Mawston blog, as in amongst all the crassness there is something very odd.

      There is a reference to the large number of seal blubber samples taken whilst on land.

      I don’t claim to be expert on this, but if you want to take seal blubber samples, surely you first have to kill/club the seals. I always thought killing/clubbing seals was considered a heinous crime amongst card carrying greenies.

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      handjive

      Prediction credibility is another highlight of this fiasco, MadJak.

      The official film of Mawson 100 years ago to the day shows an ice free Commonwealth Bay.
      An official photo of the rescue ship Aurora 1 year later shows an ice free Commonwealth Bay.

      From 100 years ago until today, the climate scientists couldn’t get the predictions correct for now.

      What chance they are correct in 100 years?
      Would you bet ‘the house’ on them being right?

      40

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    Dave

    .

    News Release.

    Rescue starts today:

    Rescue operations likely to commence shortly in Antarctica

    The passengers will be rescued by helicopter in groups of 12 and will be initially transported to the Xue Long. The rescue is expected to be undertaken in a total of seven flights. The first five flights will rescue passengers and the remaining two flights will transfer luggage and equipment.

    Each return flight is expected to take about 45 minutes. The journey will cover a distance of about 12 nautical miles between the MV Akademik Shokalskiy and the Xue Long. The helicopter component of the rescue operation is expected to take at least five hours dependent on weather conditions.

    The Aurora Australis will then use its barge to transfer all 52 passengers on board their vessel. The barge can take up to 22 people at a time. The journey between the Xue Long and the Aurora Australis is a distance of about two nautical miles.

    Amazing, helicopter from one icebound ship to another, then barge to 3rd vessel.

    This is going to be cheap as chips for the taxpayer. Then they have to get the MV Akademik Shokalskiy and the Xue Long out of the ice.

    Big dollars over next few weeks.

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      MadJak

      STOP IT NOW. They should not be evacuated unless they’re sick.

      We’ve already paid far too much for this debacle.

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      George

      “The first five flights will rescue passengers and the remaining two flights will transfer luggage and equipment.”

      WTF

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        AndyG55

        “The first five flights will rescue passengers and the remaining two flights will transfer luggage and equipment.”

        One hopes that the weather closes in after 5 flights and they are forced to leave all their expensive gear behind, THEN they have to pay through the nose to ship it back from Russia once the ship is released.

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          A C

          I expect the term “luggage and equipment” covers all the doco footage and the important climate data that they have been collecting.

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    MadJak

    So these Guys are academics right?

    If that’s the case, why are they using the made up word of “Meld” on their website?

    This whole expedition is nothing more than a sensationalist media stunt to allow some academics to go on an adventure at someone elses’ expense.

    I see no academic merit in what they were trying to do whatsoever. This is purely a propaganda exercise funded by you and me. There is no argument to the contrary.

    As such, the only rescue attempts for the “passengers” on this vessel should be if they are sick. The rest of them should bloody well stay there.

    Stop the $1Billion/year to the ABC NOW

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      Neville

      Hi Madjak,
      love your insightful comments from time to time! Nice work!
      Anyway, sorry, but ‘meld’ is a real word.
      Cheers!

      10

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    Safetyguy66

    Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to all…

    I have been giggling at the news reports this morning for weather in north SA and Western NSW. Its a “heat wave” after as many as 2 days in a row of temperatures over 40 in places that are normally so cool in summer like Coober Pedy, Burke and Oodnadatta. At the same time its like 4.6 seconds of talk on the soap opera on ice. If you ever wanted to see a classic example of “headlines sell news” then the attempt to get a story out of 40c+ at Innamincka January would have to be it.

    Just incidentally I worked on rigs in a 300km radius around Innamincka for about 2 years in 2008/9. Normal practice this time of year is a 0400 start with a long break between 1000 and 1400 and then working on till around 2200 because temperatures at drilling locations like Jackson, Eromanga and the like are regularly approaching 50c….. As the Safety Manager my main focus was heat stress provisions and vehicle/trip management, as getting stuck out there can be deadly.

    http://kjmcontractors.com.au/

    When the ordinary magically becomes the extraordinary, enter the MSM.

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      MemoryVault

      Safetyguy,

      I worked for an exploration company in the same area back in 1969 (my first FIFO job).
      We worked the same hours for the same reasons.

      We lived in tents . . . .
      No air conditioning . . . .
      Not even fans . . . .

      It was hot.

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    You say 74 passengers. Other reports have 22 crew plus 52 passengers (including journalists, scientists, PhD students and paying passengers, plus team leader Chris Turney’s wife and two young children).

    A commenter at the Guardian called lmxly1 has said:
    “… I have heard from friends on board that the captain saw the weather coming and wanted to get out ASAP while the ship was only 2 miles from open water. But the scientists fumbled their gear on return and took much longer, hence this fiasco!”
    and:
    “…it will cost a packet, not just in money but time wasted, science programs etc disrupted. I understand the captain wanted to leave 3 hours earlier, which would have been time for the ship to reach the ice edge which was only 2km away at that time. But the EL [?] wanted to complete some science program…”

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      Louis Hissink

      Rings true knowing other academics I had to put up with during field operations on land. They are, as a class, rather naive and inexperienced in the ways of Nature red in tooth and claw.

      F—Ups like this one can invariably be traced to a folly, but the ultimate cause can be traced to the commercialisation of science in the universities, where production of data and reports overtakes all else.

      And of course a mindless belief in the rhetoric enveloping the climate change litany.

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    Mark D.

    Is that a little snow angel to the right of the word “green” in the photo? Maybe those green weenies are getting a little worried?

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    Sweet Old Bob

    Re “green”
    Someone posted that it referred to the helicopter landing area and that the symbol is a snow angel or flagman symbol.
    Sounds reasonable to me.
    Oh,BTW, HNY all!

    30

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    Grant (NZ)

    Oh you foolish, foolish people. When will you ever learn.

    The difference between Mawson and this current day expedition is that huge amounts of CO2 have been pumped into the atmosphere in the meantime. Everyone knows that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps heat and warms the atmosphere causing catastrophic global warming leading to climate change. The fact that unlike Mawson, this boat got stuck in ice proves that climate change has occurred, proving that CO2 has cause global warming. You are a bunch of idiots living in denial of the very evidence right before your eyes (coming through your tv screen).

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    Sean McHugh

    Jo Wrote:

    BTW: Note the mystery message on the deck of the Aurora Australis (Seen in the SMH article). What could it mean?

    We can only see the word “Green”. By itself it to conveys little, but we can’t see what might be underneath it (“idiots”, “fools”, “folly”?). Whatever, it’s unlikely the message is promotional. This is not a good time to be plugging the Green Antarctic agenda and I suspect that the passengers on aboard the Russian ship would not be too popular with those on the Aurora Australis, given the disruption they have caused. Those that are to be evacuated to the AA should expect a long cold journey and to be unceremoniously shuffled away when they get home.

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    Bob Malloy

    O/T sorry about the length.

    An overnight radio host on a commercial network broadcasting to Queensland and New South Wales has 3 times in last week brought up Climate Change, On Saturday morning prior to the news leading into the last hour of his show he gave warning he would introduce the subject the following hour, stating he had done his homework and would introduce information from The Climate Institute, and the IPCC.

    True to his word after the news he read the summery of 10 Myths of Climate Change, he then read a summary of the IPPC’s 2007 report, Done his homework? he said, apparently not aware despite saying the are now more certain we are the cause the IPCC have backed off on the rate of warming and Sea level rises. He closed his little session by quoting Cooks consensus paper.

    Tuesday morning he re-quoted some of the the same information, when two women phoned in to cast doubt on CAGW he while trying to stay pleasant became patronising, always coming back to the fictional 2500 scientist said, we free thinkers are all aware of Hulme-Mahony,.

    Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous. That particular consensus judgement, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies;

    after dismissing these two women, he took a call from a women who fully agreed with his poition, during this conversation he stated it was not for him to question the sanity of those that disagree, all the time trying to hold back a giggle, which belies his constant cries of “don’t shoot the messenger, I’m only trying to keep the discussion balanced”.

    This morning he brought more news of doom and gloom with a précis of a new Steven Sherwood paper,

    The mixing inferred from observations appears to be sufficiently strong to imply a climate sensitivity of more than 3 degrees for a doubling of carbon dioxide. This is significantly higher than the currently accepted lower bound of 1.5 degrees, thereby constraining model projections towards relatively severe future warming

    , would I be right in assuming this is the same Steven Sherwood of the infamous red crayon.

    In the past I have had several discussions on the subject of climate change with this presenter, he used to quote Kevin Rudd’s 4000 scientist in white coats, when informed be myself and others of the 31,000 scientist that reject the consensus, who signed onto the partition project, he moves onto new callers rather than let listeners become aware the science is not as one sided as he implies. I must admit I have given up discussing climate change with him over the last 12 months, after he introduced the terms denier and ignorant to those not of his mindset, “IGNORANT” this from a man that told one caller that the carbon pollution being put into the atmosphere was carbon monoxide and if the caller didn’t believe it was a pollutant they should lock themselves in a garage with the car engine running, rally I ask you who’s ignorant?

    This morning was the last straw for me and I am going to take myself out of my self imposed exile and take him to task, I have started to gather my notes, any links that might help is appreciated.

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    Yonniestone

    This debacle could be a very big nail in the CAGW coffin.
    Has anyone noticed the accelerated panic stories on record high temperatures in the MSM and even the (poorly executed) troll attack in the previous thread.
    Certain people are very worried about this “greens on ice” performance and unlike the inept pirates stuck fast, it’s got legs.

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      DT

      How strange that parts of Australia are experiencing high summer temperatures at this time of year.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Yeah what a shock, I thought summer in central Australia was a beautiful oasis filled with rainbows and F%$#^&g UNICORNS!!!

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    ROM

    As any wordsmith knows particularly those in the media, the way words are used, the phraseology used can impact heavily on the way folks look at a situation and thereby quite significantly influence public attitudes towards the subject under discussion .

    So I find it quite interesting that this morning’s editorial in The Australian has picked up on the skeptic’s meme which is now right across the web and uses the heading Stuck on a ship of [ cold ] fools

    It also seems that the good ship Akademik Shokalskiy has been renamed in the blogsphere as the “MS неудобная правда

    неудобная правда ie; [ Inconvenient Truth” ]

    The ironies continue; One of the so called scientists / tourists or those of mongrel status employment is called “Grant Hose” which seems somewhat apt for a warmist trougher.

    There are quite a number of other quite disturbing outcomes to this stupidity as stupidity is redefined by Turney who from reports seems to be very much a publicity seeking self promoting media whxre.

    It seems that despite calling himself a climatologist he has never published any thing to do with climate science but uses and relies on models to reconstruct past environmental history

    But much worse is the effects on the Australian, Chinese and French Antarctic research programs and the real scientists who will now not be able to complete their research programs which in antarctic conditions they often only get one chance at and will likely never get another chance to complete their programs.

    From Ric Werme, a scientist in his own rights and commenting on WUWT.

    Ric Werme says:
    December 31, 2013 at 10:39 am
    Revkin’s Dot earth blog at http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/rescue-effort-for-trapped-antarctic-voyage-disrupts-serious-science/?_r=0 has a good column with Email notes from someone directly impacted by the Aurora Australis’ interrupted unload to go rescue the Spirit of Mawson exhibition. The ship was only 1/3 unloaded when the call came in.

    The short- and long-term impacts on the Australian science program are pronounced as you can imagine and I understand it is the same for both the Chinese and French programs since their icebreakers were diverted, too. I’ll be sitting down to New Year’s Eve dinner in a few minutes with a number of Australian researchers including the director of the Australian Antarctic Division Tony Fleming – many of these guys can’t complete the research they’ve been planning for years because some or all of their science gear still is on the Aurora.

    The window of access in the Antarctic is small, I’m sure this fiasco will have major impact for the rest of the summer.
    [ end]

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      ROM

      This is an extract from Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth blog in the NYT’s.
      Revkin is a warmist believer although not a off the planet one.
      The extract is relevant to Ric Werme’s comments from WUWT above
      _______________________________________
      Quoted from Dot Earth ;Rescue Efforts for Trapped Antarctic Voyage Disrupt Serious Science

      The leaders of the current expedition – Chris Turney, Chris Fogwill and Greg Mortimer — are seasoned field scientists. But the bungled trip now threatens to tarnish the wider field of Antarctic science. Particularly vexing is what seems to be a devil-may-care attitude expressed by some of those on the trapped ship.

      This was on display in a New Year’s Eve singalong posted on YouTube, but more so in a Christmas Day comment by the expedition’s marine ecologist Tracy Rogers, quoted by the BBC:

      “It’s fantastic – I love it when the ice wins and we don’t,” said expedition marine ecologist Tracy Rogers. “It reminds you that as humans, we don’t control everything and that the natural world – it’s the winner here. We’ve got several penguins watching us, thinking ‘what the hell are you doing stuck in our ice?’. The sky is a beautiful grey – it looks like it wants to have a bit of a snow. It’s the perfect Christmas, really.”

      Consider that attitude in the context of the note from Joe McConnell (with some tiny edits of email shorthand and contextual links):

      Greetings from Casey Station on the East Antarctic coast. I’ve just returned from the deep field site at Aurora Basin where the Australians are drilling a new 400-meter ice core which we will analyze in my lab in Reno.

      I’m writing with regards to the rescue effort for that tourist ship stuck in the ice near Commonwealth Bay and the enormous impact of the rescue effort on Antarctic science programs. The Australian ice breaker Aurora Australis was here at Casey in the process of unloading the coming year’s supplies for the station, as well as a number of researchers and their science gear for this summer’s activities, when the emergency response request was issued. The Australians shut down the unloading very quickly and left within a few hours after the request arrived but only about a third of the resupply was completed and a lot of that science gear was still on board. Before they left they at least were able to get the passengers including six Aurora Basin researchers off the ship. Otherwise I’d still be at Aurora Basin and would have had to stay to the end of January since my field replacement was in that group.

      The short- and long-term impacts on the Australian science program are pronounced as you can imagine and I understand it is the same for both the Chinese and French programs since their icebreakers were diverted, too. I’ll be sitting down to New Year’s Eve dinner in a few minutes with a number of Australian researchers including the director of the Australian Antarctic Division Tony Fleming – many of these guys can’t complete the research they’ve been planning for years because some or all of their science gear still is on the Aurora.’
      [end]
      ___________________________
      My personal attitude is one of increasing anger at the outright stupidity of these warmist zealots for the way they have gone about such a badly planned jaunt to a very dangerous Antarctica .
      But most particularly how they in their stupidity and ignorance and in their hubris laden beliefs that as so called scientists they can both casually jaunt off to Antarctica without any real preparations or back up and then casually rely on everybody else to get them out of trouble while they continue to seemingly display a remarkable amount of ignorance and hubris about their real and very dangerous situation.

      But most of all my contempt is for the way they have in their stupidity and hubris exemplified by their lack of care and preparation, have destroyed much of the programs of genuine Antarctic scientists who have only a few short weeks to complete research that may have taken years of their lives to prepare for, to round up the funding for and to set up prior to arriving in Antarctica, Only to have their programmed research wiped out by their supply ship having to respond to this emergency before all the equipment and research material needs can be unloaded in Antarctica

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    jorgekafkazar

    For those of you who have any empathy for Chris Turney, a comment via WUWT:

    Monique says:
    January 1, 2014 at 8:39 am

    It appears from this tweet that there is still quite an education curve facing the expedition’s leader.

    “@wendy_harmer Told Prof Chris Turney on radio this a.m. his trapped ship being touted as evidence of no global warming.Oh how he laughed at the “loonies”!
    4:58 PM – 30 Dec 13″

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    • #
      Peter Miller

      I don’t think it was very nice of Professor Turney to laugh at his own people.

      It is now beginning to emerge that this guy’s incompetence in organisation resulted in the Inconvenient Truth leaving thee hours later than the ship’s captain wanted, which in turn resulted in the ship becoming stuck in the ice. Equally as bad, other Antarctic projects are now in jeopardy as a result of ice breakers being diverted from their original missions.

      Still I am sure Turney believes he is an alarmist hero and the myth of his ‘heroism’ is certain to be supported by the ABC, the BBC and the Guardian in the days ahead, who can also be relied upon to overlook his crass incompetence.

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      DT

      He also remarked that it is unusually warm where the ship is stuck in expanding sea ice and snow falling.

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    MadJak

    These guys have been stranded for what, a whole Eight Days? It must be terrible.

    The members of the Mawson expedition wanted an extreme adventure, so give it to them. They should stay onboard that vessel for the same amount of time it took for Mawsons expedition. It is what they signed up for.

    And seriously, I don’t recall Mawson bringing his wife and kids along. Or Shackleton, or Scott, or Amundsen. WTF?

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    mmxx

    I am keenly interested in the evacuation plans for the major heli-lift operations required to evacuate the passengers.

    Bear in mind, with just one helicopter and highly unstable weather conditions, just one or two loads might be possible before operations are postponed in bad weather or cancelled if the aircraft becomes unserviceable.

    Who of the people on board will be rescued first?

    Will it be those now being called “tourists” who reportedly paid $8000 or more for their passage? Will it be the scientists who must bring their observations and samples to unlock more CAGW secrets of the Antarctic? Will it be the media people whose stories are obviously being “kept on ice” until the right moment?

    I think those who paid their own money for the voyage should have priority after any medically designated evacuees.

    It should be the captain’s call but he has been virtually blanked out of existence by the media hub set up by the expedition leadership.

    I agree with others that the brave face of joviality being presented by the on board media hub is dangerously misplaced in this extremely serious life-threatening situation

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    Colin Henderson

    This lends a whole new meaning to the phrase “Ship of Fools” 😉

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    Merv Sinclair

    “Aurora Australis on way to help rescue cruise ship in Antarctica”. That’s a SMH headline from 28 Dec. The earliest rebadging from climate change research to tourism. note also the SMH stories by science correspondent Nicky have now migrated to the travel page.

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    Peter

    Pantomime Season started bang on time in the Antarctic this year. Tim Rice & Lloyd Webber could make a half decent West End Musical with this plot.
    ‘We loaded all the ships up and unloaded them again’
    ‘The helicopters whizzed back and forth again’
    ‘The passengers all fell down and got up again’
    Sung to the tune of ‘The Prats of Penzance’

    Peter

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    Eddie Sharpe

    No seriously, the expansion in sea ice is caused by warming.
    Melt may explain Sea Ice expansion

    (I don’t know if the date has any significance :).

    40

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      Franny by Coal light

      The warmer water is denser apparently, so it sinks.
      There’s little hope for any of those climate scientists on board then, if they go overboard.

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    mmxx

    Those anti-skeptic and pro-CAGW biassed media organisations surely seem to be doing all they can to de-emphasise their pre-voyage excitement and build up about the climate change research theme of this escapade.

    In recent hours BBC radio’s World Service has given some brief update coverage of the stricken vessel and those on board. Science was mentioned as an important reason for the expedition. However, the study of the impact of the major ice-berg and its impact on ice flows was given by the BBC as the example of what was the main topic of on board scientific interest. Any mention of and indirect reference to linkage to global warming or climate change were studiously avoided.

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    MervS

    “Aurora Australis on way to help rescue cruise ship in Antarctica”. That’s a SMH headline from 28 Dec. The earliest rebadging from climate change research to tourism. note also the SMH stories by science correspondent Nicky have now migrated to the travel page.

    30

  • #

    […] blaming each other for the lack of warming). Naturally, prominent sceptical websites are making merry. The height of irony was reached the other day when, in desperation, a plea from the stricken […]

    00

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    pat

    ABC’s Tony Eastley searching for the hotspot near Oodnadatta where the talk is of 80 degrees centigrade in the sun:

    3 mins+: 2 Jan: ABC AM: Australia braces for scorching 49 degrees
    http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3919569.htm

    ABC is packing more HEAT than sky news & sky weather channels combined, and here we are in SEQ enjoying the mildest of xmas/ny weather, apart from one day. a delightful 26 degrees at the moment.

    post this at WUWT re the hopefully successful rescue plan:

    hope it all goes well.

    children plus fee-paying passengers first, i hope.
    then the AAE women.
    then the AAE men
    then, finally, the MSM, who have controlled the narrative on board.
    best of luck to the crew

    20

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      J Martin

      I don’t agree with your order of rescue;

      first, children
      second, women
      third, fare paying fools
      fourth, crew
      fifth, so called scientists, except C Turney
      sixth, crew
      seventh, captain
      eighth, C Turney

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        Keith L

        How about –
        first, children
        second, women
        third, fare paying fools
        fourth, crew
        fifth, so called scientists, except C Turney
        sixth, crew
        seventh, captain AND SHIP
        then maybe a week later…
        eighth, C Turney

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    DT

    GREED – Green Research Expedition Experiment Disaster ?

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    DT

    Odd topic, DFAT monitoring ABC Asia Contract broadcasting following complaints and Minister for Foreigh Affairs Julie Bishop is investigating: http://www.skynews.com.au/politics/article.aspx?id=938693

    10

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    Franny by Coal light

    The crew will be made of sterner stuff and concerned for their vessel. They’ll probably be much safer without their present cargo of self obsessed academics and their entourage.

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    pat

    Caitlyn’s “42 degree” solution to the mystery beats the “experts”?

    2 Jan: ABC AM: Kimberley mango farmers endure mysteriously bad season
    TONY EASTLEY: From Kununurra, Caitlyn Gribbin reports.
    CAITLYN GRIBBIN: It’s a 42 degree day and Quentin Parker is inspecting fruit at his mango packing shed…
    CAITLYN GRIBBIN: Local mango farmer Bevan Spackman doesn’t know what’s happened…
    CAITLYN GRIBBIN: Three mangoes out of 25 mango trees?
    BEVAN SPACKMAN: That’s right. I wish I knew. Even the experts can’t tell us; we just don’t know…
    CAITLYN GRIBBIN: So do you think this mystery can be solved?
    QUENTIN PARKER: Well, we’re all praying for a great big wet, and the way it’s shaping up at the moment, and the amount of humidity – if you could only see what we look like right now (laughs).
    http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3919533.htm

    is this the same Bevan Spackman, Caitlyn? did u do the Mango interview back then, or at least some days ago. after all, u mentioned “IT’S A 42 DEGREE DAY” right after Tony Eastley’s ” Australia braces for scorching 49 degrees” item. listeners were certainly given the impression your story was part of today’s heatwave scary stories. however, i haven’t found any 42 degree temp for Kununurra since last Saturday!

    23 Dec: ABC PM: Documentary special: Kununurra’s midnight prowlers
    Bevan Spackman owns a tavern and bottle shop in town.
    BEVAN SPACKMAN: There’s been some rather draconian restrictions put on the outlets. Problem is we’ve got three outlets and anyone who’s alcoholic, it doesn’t take much to work out the fact that there are three outlets here in town and it’s quite legal to go to each one of them and buy the limit each day.
    We can only regulate the people that come into here. I doubt very much that they are going to tell us that they’ve already been somewhere else and got some…
    CAITLYN GRIBBIN: When you see the social issues around town that are linked to alcohol, does that make you reconsider if you should be selling alcohol to them?
    BEVAN SPACKMAN: (Sighs) Look, we’re in the business of, of, of selling alcohol. It’s a legal business. It’s a business that costs us a lot of money to get into. We’re here to make a profit and we make no apology for that and we rigidly enforce behaviour and we will not tolerate drunkenness in our establishment in any way whatsoever.
    We believe that we run the business legally and ethically…
    http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2013/s3916605.htm?site=indigenous&topic=latest

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    Turney and his compliant media will spin this for all its worth. However, one thing he will not have control of is ….. the truth.

    When this is all over, he will return, triumphantly lauded by his media entourage.

    However, what happens next, he will have zero control over.

    The Russian ship owners will quite obviously hold some sort of inquest into what happened, when (if) the ship is safe enough to return to home base. That inquest will root out the unvarnished and unspun truth.

    That is what we will be looking for. Not Turney’s view, but what comes out of this inquest.

    The same for the Chinese, who will also hold an investigation.

    The same for others involved in this rescue.

    The same for the real truth from the Australian Icebreaker owners and crew.

    The same for the Australian Antarctic Division, who will also want their views placed on why their real work was jeapordised by this folly, and rescue.

    Everyone will also want to be paid as well, the Russians, the Chinese, and all the people and ships involved in this rescue attempt.

    Turney will have his spin, his five minutes of fame, his day in the limelight.

    The truth is what we will all be looking for here, and Turney will have no control over any of that.

    The word fail here is an understatement. More like EPIC fail!

    Tony.

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      DT

      Yes Tony, but the willingness of the MSM to cover up the facts is a matter for concern, why the lack of professionalism? Could part of the answer relate to bribery? For example the $250 Million a year reduction in media licence fees provided by former PM Rudd during his first term in office, to date the media companies have saved over $1 Billion not having to pay the fee amount that they should have been liable to pay.

      What else has Union Labor arranged with MSM to spread left political propaganda and to cover up for them?

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    Brendan

    Bravo ABC! Their ability to spin the party line is reaching Olympic levels

    An entire story on the 7.30 report (http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3919468.htm)

    and they managed to not mention the word ‘climate’, ‘global warming’ anywhere. They’ve even managed to white wash who is actually on the ship

    “TRACY BOWDEN, PRESENTER: Since Christmas Eve, 74 people, including 26 tourists, have been stuck in the Antarctic ice on board a scientific expedition ship.”

    yet in November, their story on the expedition (http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3898858.htm) gushed
    “Professor Chris Turney from the University of NSW is mounting the largest Australian science expeditions to the Antarctic with an 85-person team to try to answer questions about how climate change in the frozen continent might be already shifting weather patterns in Australia. ”

    spin baby spin.

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      DT

      With due consideration for the latest news regarding DFAT and Minister Bishop monitoring ALPBC Asia Contract programing, and that Minister Turnbull is considering the options regarding ABC Charter rules and how broadcasting and employees relate to it, I feel confident that there will soon be an announcement that action will be taken to get ABC back on course and operating to Charter.

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    James (Aus.)

    To add to what I wrote in 2.2.1.1 :

    The amateurish attempt to create a predictable Warmist media event from a junior high school standard “expedition” is beyond appalling. (My god, they even have the two major Warmist media outlets aboard.)

    The whole organisation reeks of bludging and relying on good fortune; any on-shore based activity in this part of Antarctica relies on two things: land quarters with accommodation for all persons, equipment and supplies to last a year in case things go pear-shaped, and a ship ready to move the very instant the weather even looks as if entrapment is imminent.

    The scientists and explorers, all adults, from years ago understood and survived because they took account of these matters. (Shackleton’s superb leadership saved his party before he even reached land in 1914.)

    Clearly, these two requirements were not planned by Turney, who has the sheer gall to associate his “expedition” with Sir Douglas Mawson.

    And like any irresponsible and immature party, the fallout adversely affects others; here, the non-provisioning of other genuine expeditions which relied on the three ice-breakers not being delayed by Turney’s antics.

    Turney will be judged; on his cavalier planning, his leadership and his attitude to the philosophy of science.

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    • #
      DT

      And hopefully his good friend and comrade Professor Tom Foolery too, and all involved in this squandering of taxpayer’s monies and resources.

      40

    • #
      Boadicea

      You would think that with all navigation, radars, satellite and surveillance gear that they have at their disposal, compared with what Mawson had, they would have known what was ahead.

      But then if they had set out to show that the Antarctic was already melted they wouldn’t have had need for all the flash gear.

      These people couldn’t organise a piss up in brewery.

      91

      • #
        Yonniestone

        “These people couldn’t organise a piss up in brewery.”
        I would like to add that in recent times of humanity our misguided need to protect such people has interfered with the process of Natural Selection and thus has caused a snowball effect in saving idiocy within the gene pool.
        In earlier days people of this ilk would have met their demise by,

        – Walking up and petting that cute Lion or little snake.

        – Strolling off a cliff whilst admiring pretty clouds above.

        – Checking the gasoline level with a lit match.

        – Going on a jaunt in the desert with no food or water.

        and now we can add,

        – Sailing into some of the most dangerous waters known with insufficient preparation and arrogance for a guide.

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        • #
          john robertson

          I fully agree and have the solution.
          Hug a Polar Bear TV.
          Attention environmentalists, a.k.a treehugger,leaf licker and delusional nitwit..
          For a large fee, we will allow you to hug a genuine wild polar bear, as we document this event for our live reality show.
          Included in the package is the near certainty you will become one with nature and most of your self loathing and hatred of humanity will be dissipated out over the arctic ice.

          Yes sarc, however ever since these scammers invoked the bears as ikons of the cause, I have been hard pressed to think of a more fitting end.
          So cheap to film, simply release the greeny onto the flow, next to any bear , leave camera drone circling.When bears done fly drone home.
          The possibilities..And what a use for the surplus military drones.

          60

  • #
    pat

    AAP/News Ltd add a degree, & ignore the fact UNSW “climate scientists” have been in the news for more than a week:

    1 Jan: News Ltd: AAP: University of NSW study predicts 5C global warming before 2100
    Lead scientist Professor Steven Sherwood, from the University of New South Wales, said…
    http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/university-of-nsw-study-predicts-5c-global-warming-before-2100/story-fn5fsgyc-1226792866392

    UNSW Climate Change Research Centre
    Professor Steve Sherwood
    Director, Climate Change Research Centre
    Professor Chris Turney
    Adjunct, Climate Change Research Centre
    Dr Erik van Sebille
    ARC DECRA fellow and lecturer
    http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/staff/academic.html

    all MSM quote Sherwood, yet never report any connections to Turney/Sebille on the Shokalskiy.

    30

  • #
    pat

    2 Jan: ABC Breakfast: Central Australia headed for temperature record
    Temperatures today will be in the high 40s- and possibly beyond the existing temperature record of 50.7 degrees celsius…
    Guest:
    Adriana Jacob
    Owner, Pink Roadhouse, Oodnadatta
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/central-australia-headed-for-temperature-record/5181660

    2 Jan: Adelaide Advertiser: Katrina Stokes: South Australia sizzles and drizzles into the New Year with rain in Adelaide and searing heat in Outback
    The heat stayed on in the north, though. At the Pink Roadhouse in Oodnadatta, owner Adriana Jacob said her personal weather gauge showed temperatures had soared to as high as 54C as a front associated with ex-tropical cyclone Christine sweeps across Central Australia.
    Official updates from the Bureau of Meteorology show the town reached 47.7C, not far short of its own record for the highest recorded Australian maximum of 50.7C set on January 2, 1960…
    In Adelaide, the mercury will dip to just 23C through to Sunday, with a few showers…
    http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/south-australia-sizzles-and-drizzles-into-the-new-year-with-rain-in-adelaide-and-searing-heat-in-outback/story-fni6uo1m-1226792975000

    20

    • #
      John Of Cloverdale WA

      Just love it when they say it was hotter in 1960, when CO2 levels were lower. But that logic is lost on the Greens.

      50

  • #
    pat

    2 Jan: Sky News: Health warnings as high temps hit
    People are being urged to be safe on the water and smart about the heat, as temperatures are set to hit more than 40C across NSW.
    This time last year paramedics say they responded to a spike in triple-0 calls at beaches and pools, with people having jet ski accidents, getting caught in rips, and drowning…
    ‘In the west of the state where temperatures of over 40 degrees are expected, dehydration and heat stroke are a real threat. In these areas and across the state, if you need relief from the heat stay inside in an air-conditioned environment, keep up your water intake and minimise the consumption of alcohol in the hottest parts of the day,’ NSW Ambulance said in a statement.
    It also reminded people never to leave a child or pet shut in the car, to keep up the sunscreen and drink lots of water…
    http://www.skynews.com.au/national/article.aspx?id=938730

    10

  • #
    Byron

    I`m not surprised They contacted Coleman and Watts for assistance , Their own team is so afflicted with cognitive dissonance that this is the cartoon of the week at Skeptical Science

    80

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      Wow. Divine intervention in the Antarctic, or wilful warmist denialism at SkS?
      Never attribute to divinity that which is more easily attributable to ignorance.

      /pics/2013Toon52.jpg
      Date modified: Mon 30 Dec 2013 00:33:39 EST

      Yep, the ship had been stuck for 5 days before that cartoon was uploaded to SkS.

      As the world continues into a cooling phase lasting (at least) 15 more years there is going to be an outbreak of “snow blindness” on a hitherto unseen scale amongst the warmists.

      30

  • #
    Brett_McS

    From Tim Blair’s blog:

    00

  • #
    • #
      Ross

      Brett_McS

      Love the comment about their spelling. All those Phds and they don’t know the difference between “hear” and “here” ( NB I’m assuming this not a Photoshop spoof !!)

      30

      • #
        Brett_McS

        It’s a photo-shopped spoof modelled on the US Marines’ non-photo-shopped sign in response to a patronising remark by a US Senator.

        20

  • #
    pat

    nothing whatsoever worth reading in the article, but the comments are fun because it’s mostly only CAGW sceptics who know the ins & outs & are following this story:

    2 Jan: Guardian: Josh Halliday & Alok Jha: Antarctica ship rescue plan foiled by weather
    Passengers prepare to spend another night on icebound Shokalskiy as attempt to airlift them by helicopter is postponed
    COMMENT BY Hooopla: In reality, the Chinese ship has moved quite a distance today, though it seems to have stopped moving at around 5pm.
    I’m amazed how little worthwhile reporting there is from this: the ship appears to be stocked with journalists who have satellite phones.
    But no worthwhile information about the situation, no articles about the people on board and what they are up to, no real evidence that they have a clue about the situation they are in.
    Surely the Guardian could have chosen more effective journalists, couldn’t they?
    NEXT COMMENT by expecten: Sat phones don’t always work. I’ve been with someone when their satellite phone could not get a connection.
    Technology is wonderful stuff – when it works.
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/01/antarctica-ship-rescue-plan-foiled-shokalskiy

    u can always expect an “expecten” to jump in with a defense. what is shocking is how the media on board have pretty much muzzled the paying passengers.

    40

  • #
    en passant

    I posted the following at WUWT, but have now added Points 9 & 10 to this post:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/31/wuwt-and-weatherbell-help-kusi-tv-with-a-weather-forecasting-request-from-ice-trapped-ship-in-antarctica-akademik-shokalskiy/#comment-1519974

    Let me see if I have got this right:
    1. 54 useless tourists charter a Ship for Fools call it a scientific exhibition and use my taxes to have a 5-week boondoggle in Antarctica.
    2. They have no idea what they are doing today as they are living a century in the future (where they know EXACTLY what is happening to the climate to 1/10th of a degree).
    3. They get stuck by that inconvenient truth called icepack reality (which they did not foresee 24-hours ahead).
    4. They are in a precarious situation and their foolishness is plain for the world to see.
    5. A massively expensive rescue operation that has disrupted every other scientific and resupply operation in the Antarctic is mounted, that then traps a second ship and puts it in danger. More lives are now at risk.
    6. The less than heroic Topham whines that his bed is uncomfortable, he misses milkshakes and he is beginning to ‘lose it’ (post-traumatic stress disorder claim coming soon?). His back hurts and he banged his leg on a door. Boohoo, poor me. Douglas Mawson would weep that this is the sort of person chosen to follow in his footsteps.
    7. ‘Professor’ Chris Turney (can anyone find his thesis?) the PR guru needs a distraction, so he reiterates than the ice is melting, its raining not snowing (but fails to use ‘unprecedented’ and ‘its worse than we thought’ – maybe he is saving those for later when he can spin this into ‘it’s the result of CO2 and mankind’s emissions). Best he wait post-rescue lest those wasting time on this decide to cook the Chrissie Turkey on his own petard?
    8. And the piece de resistance? As people spend time, resources and money striving to rescue the fools, they produce a Party Song & Video showing what a good time they are having, totally oblivious to reality. Let’s hope the video is played in the Court Case by the prosecution as there is a charge in Australia called “negligent behaviour and actions endangering life and property”
    9. The leader of a scientific expedition whose ship remains stranded in Antarctic ice says the team, which set out to prove climate change, is “stuck in our own experiment.” But Chris Turney, a professor of climate change at Australia’s University of New South Wales, said it was “silly” to suggest he and 73 others aboard the MV Akademic Shokalskiy were trapped in ice they’d sought to prove had melted. He remained adamant that sea ice is melting, even as the boat remained trapped in frozen seas. –Paul Tilsley, Fox News, 30 December 2013
    10. I found out moments after my post that Turney’s wife and two children are among the 54 tourists – paid for by the taxpayer. He justifies his wife as she does the filing and the children advise him on how best to blog to young people. The original cost of this ‘exhibition’ was expected to be $1,500,000, so each passenger costs $27,750, so if nothing else Turney should be invoiced for $83,250 for the personal baggage. M=After all my airline charges me if I am a few kg over.

    I would like to think that this is the last straw, but it will have no effect at all on the cult and its request for more of my/our money.

    And from a letter written on behalf of Greg Hunt, passed to me via Warren Truss that he unequivocally still believes in CAGW. Yes HE STILL BELIEVES in the IPCC!

    I think it is jus amazing that Turney et al can ignore the reality for the cult Omm, Omm, Omm. Surely just one of them has a few drinks and says one evening at the bar. “I am beginning to doubt …” or are they intellectually too far gone?

    Defund this Ship of Fools and stop wasting the little money we have left.

    Maurice Newman for Governor!

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    • #
      James (Aus.)

      Some sort of official government inquiry into Turney and his family’s ticketing arrangements, not to mention the rest of the debacle, will be needed.

      As for Greg Hunt, I’ve long grown tired of recommending to PM Abbott the removal of this fellow from any portfolio to do with energy, climate, environment or the like.

      Hunt is a continuing disaster who keeps on giving to the ALP/Greens. (With Macfarlane close behind.)

      20

  • #
    JLC

    On the other hand Perth has been enjoying an unusually mnild spell for the time of year. Temps have been in the upper 20s with an occasional lower 30s day. We are expecting 25 today and 27 tomorrow. Very pleasant.

    50

    • #
      clipe

      On the other, other hand…

      Statements
      Manitoulin Island
      3:49 PM EST Wednesday 01 January 2014
      Special weather statement for
      Manitoulin Island continued

      Extremely cold Arctic air expected through Thursday.

      Northern Ontario will continue to experience bitterly cold temperatures tonight and Thursday as a strong ridge of high pressure remains over Northern Ontario. The extreme cold Arctic air will bring light winds and overnight lows of minus 30 to minus 40 degrees Celsius with daytime highs of minus 20 to minus 30 degrees Celsius.

      Relief from the cold is in sight for Friday as an Alberta clipper moves in from the west resulting in a rebound of temperatures for Thunder Bay Friday afternoon and then for areas east of Lake Superior for Saturday.

      It is advised to stay indoors or cover any exposed skin as much as possible when heading outdoors.

      The public is advised to monitor future forecasts and warnings as warnings may be required or extended.

      Please monitor the latest forecasts and warnings from Environment Canada at http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca

      10

  • #

    Why am I reminded of this song.

    Sunday Music – Six Months In A Leaky Boat

    This is the long version.

    Tony.

    10

  • #
    Chris in Hervey Bay.

    It is not what the ABC says, it is what they leave out changes the story.

    11:30 news on ABC24 would have the casual observer believe this.

    A Chinese helicopter is going to lift Russian tourists off a Russian cruise ship stuck in Antarctic ice and transfer them, along with their luggage, to a Chinese ice breaker nearby.

    ABC spin ? What more could one say ?

    80

    • #
      Boadicea

      Its not only what they leave out, but the order in which they do it.

      They have just had that mealy mouthed creep Chris Bowen on ABC 24 making a statement about the Libs plan to generate 1m jobs.

      But guess which way the played it back. It was Mathias on first and then Bowen so it didn’t make much sense until one realises what the scumbags had done

      Any thing goes at their ABC

      90

    • #
      DT

      Liar, liar, liar, ALPBC?

      50

  • #
    ROM

    From China.org.cn

    Passengers trapped in Antarctica to be rescued

    Weather conditions in the area had improved and rescue operations were likely to start “shortly” by helicopter for the passengers who have been trapped on a ship off Antarctica for more than a week, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said at 7.30am (local time) on Thursday in a statement.

    The operation was announced on Tuesday, but the weather conditions hamper the rescue effort until yesterday. This morning, the AMSA confirmed that wind in the area is down to 10 knots and visibility has improved. And it also said weather conditions are expected to remain favourable over the next 36 hours.

    According to arrangements of the AMSA’s Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC Australia), a helicopter on board the nearby Chinese icebreaker Xue Long will be used to evacuate 52 of the 74 people who have been trapped on the Akademik Shokalskiy since Christmas Eve when it became stuck in deep pack ice.

    And the ship’s 22 crew will remain on the vessel in the hope changing weather conditions will allow it get out of the ice field.

    Under this operation, passengers will be collected from a makeshift landing pad they stomped into the ice near the ship. They will be flown out in groups of 12 to the Xue Long before being transferred via a barge to the Aurora Australis rescue icebreaker.

    The Aurora Australis will then use its barge to transfer all 52 passengers on board their vessel. The barge can take up to 22 people at a time. The journey between the Xue Long and the Aurora Australis is a distance of about two nautical miles.

    The Russian ship, the Akademik Shokalskiy, built in Finland in 1982, is carrying a team of Australian scientists and other passengers to conduct scientific experiments. It is scheduled to return to New Zealand in January 2014. And it sent a distress call on Christmas Day after becoming trapped in heavy sea ice in Antarctic sea.

    The decision was made to resort to a helicopter rescue after the Aurora Australis was forced to retreat in the face of freezing winds and snow showers. The Aurora Australis is the last ship in the area that will be able to help. For the past days, two icebreakers, Chinese icebreaker Xue Long and French icebreaker Astrolabe, have already given up on efforts to push through the thick and dangerous ice floes to free the trapped ship.

    The Russian “Ria Novosti” has a similar article

    Passenger Rescue at Stranded Russian Ship to Start Soon

    10

    • #

      ROM thanks, but the AMSA has now announced conditions have changed. It’s off again. I’ve added notes in the post. Cheers! Jo

      Rescue operations delayed by ice conditions

      The Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s (AMSA) Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC Australia) has been advised this morning that sea ice conditions in the area are likely to delay today’s planned rescue of passengers from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy.
      It is now likely the rescue will not go ahead today.
      AMSA understands that current sea ice conditions prevent the barge from Aurora Australis from reaching the Chinese vessel Xue Long (Snow Dragon) and a rescue may not be possible today.
      The Xue Long’s helicopter is unable to land on the Aurora Australis due to load rating restrictions. It is not safe to land the helicopter next to Aurora Australis at this time.
      The preferred and safest option at this stage is to ultimately transfer the passengers onto Aurora Australis.
      All passengers on board the MV Akademik Shokalskiy are currently safe and well. The preferred option is to wait for conditions that will allow the rescue to be completed in a single operation to reduce unnecessary risk.
      Alternative measures to complete the rescue operation are now being investigated by AMSA and the ships involved.
      This rescue is a complex operation involving a number of steps. Operations in Antarctica are all weather and ice dependent and conditions can change rapidly. The priority is to ensure the safety of all involved.
      RCC Australia continues to be in regular contact with all vessels involved and continues to monitor the situation. The vessels involved are also in close contact with each other via VHF radio.
      The search and rescue operation commenced on Christmas morning AEDT after the Falmouth Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in the United Kingdom received a distress message via satellite from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy. The distress message and subsequent coordination of the incident was passed to RCC Australia, who is the responsible search and rescue authority for this area.
      Media Note: Media are advised to keep an eye on AMSA’s Twitter feed @AMSA_News for the latest information relating to this rescue.

      71

  • #

    You want heroism, then read this.

    Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition

    It’s quite long, but what an absolutely amazing story. 15 Months from being stuck in the ice to the rescue of the remaining crew on Elephant Island.

    A full re-creation, Shackelton: Death Or Glory, was mounted last year by Tim Jarvis, just the open boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia and then the treacherous trek across the unexplored mountains in the dark to the Whaling station at Stomness. That re-creation nearly failed, a number of times, only saved by resorting to modern technology. Documented by The Discovery Channel, and shown here on SBS, it was an amazing multi part series.

    The current situation is a comedy compared to this.

    Tony.

    50

    • #
      A C

      Just found your post
      I’ve just suggested these clowns could save face by spending a year on Elephant Island and an open boat trip to South Georgia.

      By the way : The Shackleton trip was incredible, but people should not forget the even more incredible events that were unfolding on the other side of Antartica – the other half of his expedition was accidentally dropped off with no food or equipment, had to scrounge what had been left by previous expeditions, make their own harnesses and sleds etc. then set out food dumps from what they could find, just in case Shackleton made it past the half way point, and then over winter on what ever was left.

      Brilliant stuff

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    • #
      DavidH

      This frozen fiasco has at least provided the opportunity for people to make mention of stories of the “heroic age” of Antarctic exploration – Scott, Shackleton, Mawson amongst many others – and refer blog readers to books and documentaries.

      One book in my Antarctic collection that I haven’t seen mentioned (and which I recommend) is “Shackleton’s Boat Journey” by Frank Worsley, the captain of H.M.S Endurance. The book starts with Endurance already having been crushed and sunk and the expedition camped on the sea ice. Worsley describes the time spent drifting slowly northwards, the exact course plotted carefully by his daily (when possible) sextant sightings; the attempts to march to land from the ice floes; the eventual break-up of the ice and the subsequent boarding of the boats in which they arrived at Elephant Island; and from there, the 14 day voyage in the James Caird, an open boat which Worsley was able to navigate successfully across 800 nautical miles of sea with less than a handful of sun sightings; the trek across South Georgia in winter to arrive at the whaling station to enable the eventual rescue of all expedition members.

      00

  • #
    • #
      Brett_McS

      A most concise illustration of the real nature of these people, and not really off topic. The green tinge is just a ruse to get tax-payer money – they don’t really care about the environment.

      30

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    mmxx

    From SMH at 1.02pm AEDT on 2 January

    http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/helicopter-rescue-delayed-as-second-ship-trapped-in-ice-20140102-306yj.html

    MV Xue Long now confirmed stuck in ice. Rescue delayed yet again, perhaps for a long time.

    One hopes this is not another reason for Turney’s media hub to spin a party atmosphere on the stricken Russian ship the all over again.

    20

    • #
      Dave

      mmxx,

      AMSA has confirmed rescue is NOT today.

      It is now likely the rescue will not go ahead today.

      AMSA understands that current sea ice conditions prevent the barge from Aurora Australis from reaching the Chinese vessel Xue Long (Snow Dragon) and a rescue may not be possible today.

      The Xue Long’s helicopter is unable to land on the Aurora Australis due to load rating restrictions. It is not safe to land the helicopter next to Aurora Australis at this time.

      This must be delaying all the other Antarctic research from continuing, and possibly even delay until next year.

      Prof Turney is responsible for so much wasted resources and money. His name will be mud in maritime circles.

      40

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    george

    The Aurora Australis doesn`t have a single heliflopter on board currently?

    00

    • #
      LevelGaze

      George,

      P&O Maritime, AA’s owners, describe her thus:

      “Helideck permits operation of 2 x Sikorsky S76 or Bell Long Range helicopters”

      which doesn’t seem to imply carrying a helicopter as routine.

      00

      • #
        george

        Ta LG
        I just find it a little intriguing that with a 2xS76 capability, 120 cubic metre aviation refuelling facility, shipborne DME and NDB navaids…and the remote area of operation…they would leave for such a deployment without at least one chopper.
        Cargo/resupply considerations for Antarctic bases notwithstanding – a helo on board, I would have thought, would be a safety blankie asset.
        In that part of the world particularly…

        00

        • #
          LevelGaze

          Fair point George.

          As I understand it, AA started out on a routine supply trip and then was diverted mid-mission by this fiasco.

          Pity its helipad isn’t rated for this heavy Chinese chopper. But then again, it’s been stated here that since it doesn’t have floats, the chopper’s unsuitable for flying over sea anyway. If that’s true, what the hell is it doing aboard a ship? Maybe the Chinese don’t worry so much about these petty conventions…

          00

          • #
            george

            The routine supply trip was my understanding too, probably hangar full of gear then…

            Floats should be irrelevant though, the S76 is used for oil platform FIFO and SAR work around the world. Emergency inflatable flotation devices and all.
            The Chinese Kamov chopper possibly likewise (yes, you made me google for the Kamov!) – variants are apparently used a lot in maritime roles.

            Anyway, getting a little OT here perhaps.
            Hope the (mis)adventurers enjoy their “free” flight in the Kamov…wonder who will ultimately pick up the tab for all of this.

            00

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    mmxx

    Dave

    Thanks.

    SMH article is by the journalist who is on the Aurora Australia who is on the spot. She may have gone further than where AMSA wanted to go regarding the reasons for the delay.

    Both Xue Long and Aurora Australia need to be in clear sea conditions for the two step rescue operation (helicopter from Akademik Shokalskiy to Xue Long followed by barge transfer from Xue Long to Aurora Australia) to be carried out with best situation for safety.

    20

  • #
    Janet Thompson

    Reality bites. ?

    When clowns devoid of any link to reality play their “perception is reality” game in the real world, dire consequences are assured. Unfortunately, their intentional dishonesty will cause innocent people to starve and freeze. I wouldn’t mind them getting a little taste of their own medicine.

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  • #
    pat

    mmx –

    again, Fairfax is putting these articles in the “travel” section, while designating Phillips as “Science Editor”.

    am wondering is Aurora is also trapped, tho not stuck! not sure what this means:

    The Aurora is now drifting to the north-west with the surrounding pack ice, which moves with the wind and, to some extent, the current.
    Since 7am, it has moved more than half a nautical mile to the north-west, thwarting ice-breaking attempts in the opposite direction….
    http://www.smh.com.au/national/antarctic-rescue-mission-goes-awry-20131230-30337.html

    40

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    Magnus

    What if Akademik Shokalskiy turns over on its side? No more party (more uncomfortable = moral improve; some may prefer sleeping in tents, or suggest walking?), but thick ice keeps the ship above surface. It may sink if ice breaks up? Don’t affect the rescue operation…

    Btw, words by Turney several day before they got stuck, on the possibility of rapid increase of sea ice:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/30/the-antarctic-research-fiasco-would-you-could-you-in-a-boat/#comment-1520715

    Turney:
    “The Shokalskiy suddenly found it was in a mass breakout of ice. In just half an hour, an extensive area of ice (some of which we had been using for the Hangout on Air earlier that day) had broken up and was moving away from Commonwealth Bay with haste. Large pieces of ice, in the shape of shattered glass fragments – albeit large pieces – surrounded our vessel. There was no danger to the ship but it was a timely reminder how quickly things can change in this environment. You can never take anything for granted in the Antarctic!”

    Comment by “Alpha”:
    “After experiencing the ship being surrounded by breakout ice on the 18th or 18th of December in just HALF AN HOUR, they stayed in that area, moved slightly up the coast and with an incoming blizzard and MORE ice on the way, they went onshore and forced the boat to wait for their return. THEN they got stuck.”

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    pat

    jo,

    please ask John Spooner (Taxing Air) to do a variation of his page 189 cartoon with Turnbull naked on the ice, using:

    Chris Turney: It’s so warm, it’s actually raining!
    https://twitter.com/ProfChrisTurney/status/417533136520478720

    10

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    John Of Cloverdale WA

    On the SMH link (above in Pat’s comment).
    “Follow Fairfax Media’s Antarctic expedition here”
    Now we know who to send the bill to, a bankrupt news organisation.

    30

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    Sean McHugh

    It’s funny that the first climate refugees we see are seeing are not coming from the South Pacific but from the South Pole. And rather than fleeing rising seas, they are fleeing rising ice.

    120

  • #
    Sean McHugh

    These Antarctic boat people should only be given temporary visas until global warming makes it safe for them to return.

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    gbees

    you know it (the trip) was an AGW PR stunt because a smart scientist would have determined that the best way to measure the temperature in the Antarctic was by using satellite data rather than by travelling there by boat.

    60

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    MemoryVault

    .
    This Ship of Fools saga and subsequent ABC cover-up is now into its eighth day.
    An entire season’s real scientific research has been disrupted.
    Not just for Australia but for China and France too.
    There will almost certainly be international ramifications given our already tenuous claims to a large chunk of the continent.
    The costs of this fiasco must already total millions, and it’s not over yet.
    All for a taxpayer funded media publicity stunt posing as university-backed “scientific research”.

    And STILL not a peep from a single member of our duly elected grubbermint.
    Somebody remind me again how voting for Abbott and the LNP was going to mean an end to all this nonsense.

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    • #
      Raven

      Yep …where are you Abbott ? Time to speak up you disappointment !!

      51

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      J.H.

      Huge point Mem Vault……..These bloody idiots have caused repercussions for the whole Antarctic summer season of work, study and supply, internationally and nationally.

      Now these people are either scientists who stuffed up and were organized and authorized by our government who is responsible for the spending of taxpayer funds….. or they are private tourists who should have to foot the entire bill for this fiasco and rescue.

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      • #
        MemoryVault

        or they are private tourists who should have to foot the entire bill for this fiasco and rescue.

        Unfortunately no chance of that, JH.
        The whole sham was organised and financed under the umbrella of the Climate Research Centre of the University of NSW, of which Chris Turkey is the Director and Head of Department. The UNSW provided the major financing – $1.5 million.

        Even if Turkey was sued personally, his employer, UNSW which sanctioned and financed the operation, would ultimately be held responsible, since he is their employee, and was operating with their approval. And since the UNSW is a public university, it’s going to be us taxpayers who foot the bill, including the rescue operation, and probably compensation for the ruined research for the French and Chinese as well.

        Now for the salt in the wound. All the PhD students and science teachers who paid their own fares to be unpaid “research assistants” will almost certainly be able to successfully claim a refund of their fares. And it will be us taxpayers who pick up the bill for that, too.

        .
        Meantime, queue crickets chirping in place of any kind of statement by any member of the LNP grubbermint.

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        • #
          DavidH

          UNSW will do the right thing and close down the Climate Research Centre to free up funds from their budget to pay back the costs incurred.

          Yes – I am from another planet.

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    Raven

    I would just like to add my sincere thanks for the entertainment these fruit loops are providing .
    I would also like to wish the rescue ships and crews a safe and successful outcome .

    40

  • #
    Popeye

    Brian,

    I posted this over at another of Jo’s blogs earlier – but just in case you missed (too busy trolling here) here it is again.

    I’m still interested in your response though – hehe!!

    “Boy – go away for a couple of days and miss all the fun with Brian.

    But, seriously, the guy DOESN’T HAVE A CLUE.

    I note how he repeats part of each comment that he responds to – easy to do that (control C) but what is harder is to provide links to peer reviewed papers that PROVE AGW which he hasn’t yet been able to do. (Basically because NONE EXIST Brian!!).

    Not meaning to feed the troll BUT Brian, please follow this link (not a peer reviewed paper) BUT a statement to the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee by Professor Pierre Darriulat on the current problems with IPCC etc etc etc.

    IF you read it and understand it he is basically saying EVERYTHING that Maurice Newman has said PLUS more. AGW IS A SCAM.

    I would also conjecture that the good Professor IS A WHOLE LOT SMARTER THAN YOU (and many of us blogging here as well).

    LOVE to hear your comments about what he has to say and why we would listen to you or bother with any of your links to MSM statements in preference to Professor Darriulat?

    Waiting/waiting/waiting.

    Compliments of the season to Jo (and thanks) and to all the other questioning skeptics here as well – where would we be without questioning authoritarianism?

    Cheers”

    Cheers (again),

    90

  • #
    pat

    this wasn’t in the Nicky Phillips’ SMH piece, which i accidentally used the wrong url for earlier – i should have pasted:

    http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/helicopter-rescue-delayed-as-second-ship-trapped-in-ice-20140102-306yj.html

    anyway, looks like helicopter evacuation has been ruled out indefinitely! plus what does “this time because of sea ice” mean? what was it the other times?

    2 Jan: NZ City: Sea ice delays Antarctica rescue bid
    The rescue of scientists and tourists who have spent 10 days stranded on a ship trapped by ice off Antarctica has again been delayed, this time because of sea ice…
    It is unlikely the helicopter rescue of 52 passengers aboard the Akademik Shokalskiy will go ahead on Thursday and instead plans are being made for a safer transfer directly from ship to ship, Australian maritime officials say…
    AMSA says the preferred option is to wait for conditions that will allow the rescue to be completed in a single operation, transferring the passengers directly to the Aurora Australis, to reduce unnecessary risk…
    AMSA is also investigating alternative rescue ideas…
    Six New Zealanders are aboard the ship…
    http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=179754&fm=newsmain%2Cnrhl

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  • #

    Luboš Motl isn’t quite so magnanamous:

    Someone might think that my wishes are cruel. However, death is the only factor that may impose an upper bound on these bastards’ otherwise unlimited dishonesty. It’s apparently the only factor that can stop their lies. Without this factor, they are bound to return to the civilization, regain their chutzpath, preach about global warming, and destroy and steal hundreds of billions of additional dollars from the mankind, something that will indirectly causes thousands of additional deaths.

    From my reading on the subject 35 years ago, stuff written by reseachers who lived in Antarctica and described their research as well as the conditions; I think that it’s a mistake to have the rescue coordination back in Australia. Weather and sea conditions change so rapidly in the region, that one doesn’t have hours to take advantage of less-bad weather if one is to attempt a rescue.

    (Sir) Humphrey Appleby:

    Attempting a rescue when there are not sufficient contingent resources and contingency plans would be quite heroic, Minister.

    Indeed, waiting it out until Polar Star arrives may be the best option unless the Akademik Shokalskiy is in plausible danger of being crushed by the pack ice. It seems to me that it would be safer to fly in provisions to the ice-locked ship for another couple of weeks than to attempt a large-scale evacuation. Maybe provide some harpoons so that the tourists can learn to fend for themselves.

    The biggest risk, if they wait until the pack breaks, is that the tourists might be out on a floe, with hungry killer whales thinking the tourists to be delicious seal or penguin morsels.

    BTW: I doubt that one helicopter pilot can sanely fly multiple missions for more than 5 hours under those conditions; especially as the helicopter probably doesn’t have the latest avionics and controls to offload the hundreds of minor adjustments that must be made every minute to keep the older beasts airborne. It would be foolish to think that a Chinese pilot would not simply do as he was told.

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  • #
    A C

    Am I the only one who thinks that a year on Elephant Island, followed by an open boat trip to South Georgia would have rescued some credibility for this media disaster?

    Seems like an opportunity wasted to me.

    70

  • #
    pat

    berniel on WUWT comments after my NZ City piece about helicopter evacuation seemingly called off:

    And Chris Turney tweets:
    The Chinese helicopter has arrived @ the Shokalskiy. It’s 100% we’re off! A huge thanks to all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_13rQBXKa0A

    but then:

    Mario Lento commented:

    “I don’t get it. The helicopter dropped off 6 people and left. I thought it was supposed to pick up 12 people?”

    20

    • #

      Saw the video. Spotted the wheels on the helicopter. Watched as they sank into the surface on the first attempt to put down with the belly eventually resting on the ice.

      Pilot lifted off again and put down gingerly in a slightly different spot. Wheels didn’t sink far. One of the first to deplane takes a closer look at the undercarriage. … Tell me that they’re not concerned.

      Helipad was probably constructed like a climate model.

      60

      • #
        MemoryVault

        .
        That was my take on it too, Bernd.

        There’s 52 of them, and they’ve known for three days now that it was most likely going to be a chopper evac.
        The video clearly shows access to a patch of liquid water.
        A couple of bucket brigades and a little ingenuity, and they could have had a foot or more thick blue ice helipad, with no snow.

        Instead some of them tramped the snow down with their little footsies, and then were probably surprised when the chopper sank.

        60

  • #
    Dave

    Well,

    Prof Turkey says they’re 100% off this time. Tweet here.

    Even posted a YouTube video of the helicopter checking out the pad, dropping off some seven odd crew members. Then it took off again into the distance. Now 79 on board the MV Frozen Turkey.

    100% off, he’s been off for ages.

    This is better than Gilligans Island.

    20

  • #
    pat

    the berniel & Mario Lento comments are on this thread:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/01/amsa-helicopter-rescue-of-akademik-shokalskiy-likely-to-commence-shortly/#comment-1520988

    plus Lord Monckton now has:

    WUWT: IPCC silently slashes its global warming predictions in the AR5 final draft
    Unnoticed, the IPCC has slashed its global-warming predictions, implicitly rejecting the models on which it once so heavily and imprudently relied. In the second draft of the Fifth Assessment Report it had broadly agreed with the models that the world will warm by 0.4 to 1.0 Cº from 2016-2035 against 1986-2005. But in the final draft it quietly cut the 30-year projection to 0.3-0.7 Cº, saying the warming is more likely to be at the lower end of the range [equivalent to about 0.4 Cº over 30 years]. If that rate continued till 2100, global warming this century could be as little as 1.3 Cº.
    Official projections of global warming have plummeted since Dr. James Hansen of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies told the U.S. Congress in June 1988 the world would warm by 1 Cº every 20 years till 2050 (Fig. 1), implying 6 Cº to 2100…
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/01/ipcc-silently-slashes-its-global-warming-predictions-in-the-ar5-final-draft/

    CAGW “science” is more unsettled by the hour!

    30

    • #
      Bob Malloy

      Somebody tell Steven Sherwood and Co at Uni of NSW, Their new paper does not fit IPPC report. Better get the MSM to take notice. Yes I am kidding.

      10

  • #
    mmxx

    From SMH at 5.35pm AEDT on 2 January:

    http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/antarctica-rescue-of-passengers-on-akademik-shokalskiy-begins-20140102-307mv.html

    Despite her previous advice a few hours ago the journalist on Aurora Australis reports the evacuation is commencing by helicopter.

    Good luck to the rescuers (and rescuees). Let’s hope it will conclude soon and that the people on the various national Antarctic bases will be re-supplied and replaced without further delay due to media driven scientific adventurism.

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  • #
    Susan Fraser

    Could the rescue be on?

    tweet from Turney
    The Chinese helicopter has arrived @ the Shokalskiy. It’s 100% we’re off! A huge thanks to all.
    https://twitter.com/ProfChrisTurney

    and BBB says
    2 January 2014 Last updated at 06:43 GMT
    Antarctic rescue: Helicopter starts operation

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25573096

    00

  • #
    mmxx

    Pat/

    In response to your earlier post, I have no connection with journalism or the SMH or any media organisation.

    I mention the SMH in referencing my posts that arise from the many sources I scan, when time permits, as a scientifically qualified independent observer.

    I agree it is curious that the reports on this “CAGW is the bunny in the headlights big time” saga has been diverted to the travel section by Fairfax.

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  • #

    With no apologies at all:

    Six Weeks On An Icy Boat

    When I was a young boy, I wanted to run the world
    That’s the life for me. Best where all can see
    Spirit of a sailor. Party in every port
    The lust of a pioneer. Pass another beer.

    I promised you’ll fry, thunderclap in the sky
    Cameras flash, people stare. Board the boat, if you dare
    I just spent six weeks on an icy boat
    Lucky just to keep afloat

    Antarctica, threatened residual
    Ice glistens like a pearl, heating up the world
    The chilling truth, doesn’t stop the IPCC
    So why should it stop me? When I can speak for a fee?

    Ah c’mon all you lads, pass the drinks and forget
    There are memes to explore, tales to tell back on shore
    I just spent six weeks on an icy boat
    Lucky just to keep afloat

    Climate science can be cruel; easily fooled by her kind
    There’s a grant in my sails. Will protect and prevail
    I just spent six weeks on an icy boat
    Six weeks on an icy boat

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  • #
    sophocles

    it’s perihelion on January 4th. For those who don’t know, it’s when the Earth is at
    closest approach to the Sun.

    Will the ice or the ship do a Comet ISON? Stay tuned … !

    I’m a little amazed they didn’t research the conditions they were likely to encounter
    any more deeply than they appear to have. I heard a reporter on the local radio news
    announcing the stranding several days ago (when it first hit the media) say this particular
    coast is prone to icing up quickly. I haven’t verified it but my thought at the moment
    is that if an MSM reporter could find that out, why couldn’t those on the boat? Being
    forewarned, they could have been more careful.

    Or were they so taken with the Arctic’s ice loss, that they were sure the Antarctic was
    in a similar state? I’m not a climatologist nor an expert on the ice mass to the South,
    but having lived in the Southern Hemisphere all my life, I have heard many times from
    those with first hand experience, Antarctica is a place to be reckoned with at all times
    of the year.

    40

  • #
    pat

    Guardian has updated this piece, now saying:

    2 Dec: Guardian: Bridie Jabour: Antarctic rescue under way as helicopter lands next to trapped ship
    A helicopter sent from the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long landed next to the trapped Akademik Shokalskiy on Thursday afternoon and the first group of passengers was due to be evacuated shortly after 8pm local time (7am GMT). The passengers were due to be taken off in five groups, with two further flights to pick up their baggage.
    In a change of plan, the passengers would be taken not the Xue Long, but to an ice floe near the icebreaker Aurora Australis, which tried but failed to break through to the trapped ship earlier this week…
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/02/antarctic-rescue-under-way-akademik

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  • #
    pat

    alok jha tweets:

    First passengers from Shoklakiy have taken off, now on their way to Aurora Australis pic.twitter.com/PS4uOndHX4

    also:

    Antarctic rescue from Akademik Shokalskiy gets under way – first pictures http://gu.com/p/3yh2d/tw v

    https://twitter.com/alokjha

    00

    • #
      Winston

      Hooray,

      The castaways from the SS Akademic Charlatanski look to have been saved by the advent of multiple rescue vessels at multiple millions of taxpayers dollars, frittered away on Professor Turkey’s vanity project. In our relief, let us first give thanks to our good Lord. Praise be to Gore, Amen.

      Now, having dispensed with the pleasantries, we can get down to the tin tacks of the mass sackings, selective climate department defunding, of course followed by the show trial circus in the full glare of a relentless and ever-curious and impartial investigative mainstream media, followed in good order by the good Professor being pilloried in Martin Place for the punters to vent their collective displeasure with sundry vegetables and/or fruit of the season.

      Whaaa the……….Yawn…………Oh, wait- Sigh……..nice dream though.

      41

  • #
    pat

    2 Jan: SMH: Nicky Phillips: Antarctica rescue of passengers on Akademik Shokalskiy begins
    The passengers will be evacuated from the ship by the Xue Long’s helicopter and taken to a thick ice floe next to Australian icebreaker the Aurora Australis.
    At 4pm Sydney time, four Australian Antarctic Division staff were lowered to the ice in a small boat to prepare a helicopter landing area and a safe walking passage to the Aurora for the Shokalskiy passengers…
    The Xue Long also sent a helicopter crew with engineers to test the landing area before it left to collect the Shokalskiy passengers, who are expected to arrive on the Aurora in the next few hours…
    Deck areas on the Aurora have been closed as the operation begins.
    Plans to rescue the Shokalskiy passengers changed this morning when it became apparent the Xue Long was itself unable to move out of the pack ice…
    http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/antarctica-rescue-of-passengers-on-akademik-shokalskiy-begins-20140102-307mv.html

    00

  • #
    Dave

    I just completed 27 minutes of a comment, all gone. DRAT.

    Never mind, only words & ideas.

    But I basically outlined a 72 member tour of the MV Jonnenova in a trip of skeptics to the Antartic. No MV, that’s not you. But it included many here today.

    The crew started with Jo and David as the Expedition leaders.
    It ended safely back in port at the correct time without being stuck. Here’s a sample of what I had left:
    1. Tony from Oz worked out peak, base and individual Kwh plus fuel costs compared to windmills compared to the MV Jonnenova.
    2. Pat above was on the computer 24/7 provided updated news reports for everyone via bluetooth, better than ABC24 HAHA.
    3. Rereke… Hmmmmm, has files on all on board, and some did disappear ..Shhhhhh….. see 5.
    4. I’m not sure which one, but one of members was burning penguins for cooking fuel in an ice pit. He really wanted a whale.
    5. MV was organising the evacuation of paying customers Gee Aye, MattyB, Brooksie & Catamon into a NZ Harbour. With help from the other 72.
    6. Andy & Safety Guy used GeeAyes ration of red wine. See 5.

    etc…..

    Sorry, seems pretty poor after so much work lost.

    10

    • #

      Have you called the NSA? They should have a copy of what you lost. 😉

      50

      • #
        Dave

        I phoned but a Kiwi guy handed me to a Sandgroper, who then demanded $50 for retrieval?

        So I said book it to Climate Council via Tim Flannery. Credit check returned as insufficient funds.

        So hence the slack effort above. 🙁

        40

  • #
    pat

    shameless as ever. Guardian/Milman & the CAGW crowd back commenting:

    2 Jan: Guardian: Oliver Milman: Five basic Antarctic facts for climate change sceptics
    Commentators say plight of MV Akademik Shokalskiy shows global warming is exaggerated – the truth is not that simple
    To most people the prolonged stranding of the MV Akademik Shokalskiy in thick pack ice off the coast of Antarctica is an unfortunate incident that provided passengers with rather static scenery for their Christmas and New Year celebrations.
    But to some climate change contrarians, repeated attempts to free the vessel from the ice are proof that the theory of climate change is flawed or, at best, exaggerated. After all, a warming planet has no ice at all, right?…
    ABC science broadcaster Adam Spencer took to Twitter – another of the The Australian’s bugbears – to lament that “you’d fail a year 8 science test if you presented the misunderstandings” contained in The Australian’s editorial. To help clear up the confusion, here are some basic Antarctic facts…
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/02/antarctic-ship-stranding-delights-climate-change-sceptics

    10

  • #
    J.H.

    That’s an ABC logo done in footsteps above the Green+peace sign = Greenpeace. So there is a Greenpeace shill and ABC propagandist aboard the Aurora Australis. Little buggers are everywhere.

    30

  • #
    pat

    this was repeated on Foxtel-funded A-PAC today:

    11 pages: pdf: Address by Sharan Burrow, General Secretary International Trade Union
    Confederation to the Lowy Institute for International Policy
    A precarious world in need of an effective G20
    Sydney, 1 August 2013
    And the ITUC Global Poll 2013 tells us the worlds’ people support a five point plan…
    88 percent of respondents support investments in clean energy and environment related industries…

    ****The G20 should adopt “High Level Principles of Long-Term Investment Financing by Institutional Investors” when it meets in September 2013. This new agenda on long term investment is much needed – it will help institutional and workers’ pension fund move away from short-term investment and increasing exposure to long term projects financing infrastructure, job creation and helping meeting climate change challenges…
    http://www.lowyinstitute.org/files/documents/events/sharan_burrow_lowy_lecture_0108134.pdf

    Burrow talks of climate justice too &, in the Q&A, (not in the above) she praises Merkel for replacing nuclear with renewables, with no mention of Germany’s increasing appetite for coal.

    remember this:

    29 Oct: DemocracyNow: Former Irish President, Climate Justice Advocate Mary Robinson Urges Divestment of Fossil Fuel Firms
    She now heads the Mary Robinson Foundation–Climate Justice, where her efforts include campaigning for the divestment from fossil fuels…
    ***Sharan Burrow is on our climate leadership group. And they’re looking to pension funds to invest in futures that are good for everybody, the renewable energies and others…
    http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/29/former_irish_president_climate_justice_advocate

    at the Lowy Institute, she’s introduced by Mike Callaghan, who also takes charge of the Q&A, & heaps praise on Burrow:

    Lowy Inst: Mike Callaghan
    Mike has extensive experience on international economic issues, both in the Australian Treasury and the International Monetary Fund…
    http://lowyinstitute.org/people/mike-callaghan

    00

  • #
    pat

    remembering Oodnadatta is in South Australia, & bearing in mind Adriana Jacob’s 54 degrees for Oodnadatta in Adelaide Advertiser piece posted earlier, not to mention ABC’s obsessive search for the hotspot!

    (one hour ago) 2 Jan: SBS: Near record temperatures in inland Australia
    Bureau of Meteorology climatologist Blair Trewin: “The highest temperature we’ve seen so far in this event is 49.3 at Moomba in the far north east of South Australia on Thursday – that’s just short of their record. They had a 49.6 last year – and the overall picture’s been a lot of places have just missed records by one tenth of a degree – Alice Springs is another one where that’s happened.”
    He says South Australia appears to have passed the worst of its hot weather…
    http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/01/02/near-record-temperatures-inland-australia

    00

  • #
    Lazlo

    The sheer gall, arrogance and hypocrisy of the ABC on this is gobsmacking.

    Down here in Tassie (on holiday, and it’s bloody cold) the 7.00 ABC News reported at length on the ‘passengers’ being rescued without once mentioning climate change. Then there was a report on king tides and this, of course, was a ‘hint’ of what is in store due to climate change.

    ABC News needs to be privatised.

    50

    • #
      MemoryVault

      ABC News needs to be privatised.

      You can’t “privatise” an entity which produces utterly zilch income, and requires an injection of $1.2 billion of taxpayer’s funds each year to operate.

      The ABC should simply be handed over to the ABC employees as a co-operative that they then own and run, WITHOUT taxpayer funding.

      60

      • #
        Lazlo

        True. More accurately I should have said ABC News needs to be outsourced. The staff collective can bid for it.

        00

      • #
        Peter Hume

        Why should it be handed over to the employees as a gift, continuing their privileged status at the expense of everyone else? It should be sold, taxes reduced by that much, and the proceeds given back to the taxpayers in proportion to their payment of taxes. That’s the only way to do justice of this dreadful relic of the age of fascism.

        10

        • #
          MemoryVault

          Peter,

          My apologies if this is curt, but my account for dealing with stupid is well overdrawn from 2013.

          How on earth do you “sell” something which has no real worth, generates no income, and costs $1.2 billion a year to run?
          And who the hell would be stupid enough to buy it? And why?

          The ABC no longer even owns any meaningful tangible assets – they were all flogged off long ago, including even its broadcasting equipment (to a Singaporean company if memory serves). Now it pays for third parties to broadcast its programs. Ditto for most of its buildings, now sold off and leased back.

          Even its television and radio bandwidth allocation is worthless and unsaleable in a country where the commercial stations have more bandwidth than they know what to do with, and are filling up air time with repeats of repeats of repeats, while quietly going bust.

          Give it to the ABC employees in lieu of any redundancy payments. Let them come up with the half a billion dollars a year to pay themselves, and the half a billion dollars plus a year to run the place, and let the taxpayers save $1.2 billion a year.

          .
          Truth be told, it wouldn’t last a week.

          80

          • #
            Truthseeker

            MV,

            they were all flogged off long ago, including even its broadcasting equipment (to a Singaporean company if memory serves)

            Your memory does not serve at all. From the relevant website

            After more than 70 years as a government owned and managed transmission network, Macquarie Bank Ltd acquired NTN in 2002 and re-branded it as Broadcast Australia, becoming the seed asset in the publicly listed Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group fund. MCIG, including Broadcast Australia, was subsequently acquired by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) in 2009.

            No Singaporean company was involved. Broadcast Australia is managed in Australia by Australians and has subsidiary companies in New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, US and now Canada. It broadcasts over 2000 national and commercial radio and TV services from over 600 sites across the country. It is now called the BAI Group (Broadcast Australia Infrastructure Group) and has recently successfully implemented a wi-fi transmission system for the New York subway (Transit Wireless) and is doing the same in Toronto in Canada. The group also includes Hostworks which is a digital media hosting company, Airwave which is a private and emergency services transmission services provider and implementer and is currently the project controller and major implementation partner for the digital spectrum restack project which is currently underway.

            Sometimes selling taxpayer assets can give a better outcome. Not often, but sometimes.

            00

            • #
              MemoryVault

              .
              Thank you for the correction, TS, but regardless of who now owns the equipment, the ABC certainly doesn’t, so it is no longer a salable asset, which was my whole point. Ditto for the wisdom or otherwise of selling off taxpayer assets.

              I was tempted to write that the ABC can’t sell off assets twice as that would be fraud, and they wouldn’t do that.
              But after the shenanigans of the past week I’m no longer so sure.

              It’s not as if the current grubbermint would say or do anything to stop them.

              20

  • #
    pat

    didn’t look into the so-called UNSW 4 degree story til now, but want to post some bits on it. for a start, all MSM i saw credited UNSW, but UNSW don’t have a ***Centre of this name. it is the govt’s Australian Research Council’s Centre, which includes UNSW as part of a consortium. so many personnel connections to UNSW/Chris Turney’s Climate Change Research Centre, though:

    1 Jan: ABC: Climate study paints even uglier picture of the future
    The team from the (UNSW) University’s ***Centre for Excellence for Climate System Science focussed on how increased levels of carbon dioxide affect storm clouds and how, in return, those changes are affecting global warming…
    STEVEN SHERWOOD: A lot of people take the view that we don’t know the answer, therefore we shouldn’t worry about the problem; our models aren’t very good, therefore we shouldn’t believe their predictions. And at least in this instance what we’ve discovered is that the models that are closer to reality are predicting a more severe problem.
    So I think my answer to them would be: this ought to show that that whole attitude doesn’t really make any sense. We know the problem’s real. You know, I’m not going to claim that this one study resolves everything or absolutely has to be correct, but it does show that we shouldn’t be complacent in the fact of uncertainty.
    CAMPBELL COONEY: The findings from the University of New South Wales Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science is being made public just days before Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology releases its annual climate statement this Friday.
    http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3919223.htm

    ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science: The Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science is a major initiative funded by the Australian Research Council. The Centre is an international research consortium of five Australian universities and a suite of outstanding national and international Partner Organizations…
    The Centre was established in 2011 with extensive investment from the Australian Research Council, the University of New South Wales, the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, New South Wales Government, Monash University, the Australian National University, The University of Melbourne, and the University of Tasmania. It has strong links with the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) initiative and works in partnership with the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) Facility.
    The Centre’s focus, Climate System Science, is the quantitative study of the climate system designed to enable modeling of the future of the climate system…
    The scale of research enabled by the Centre will provide for the enhancement of climate modeling and future climate projections particularly at regional scales, minimizing Australia’s economic, social and environmental vulnerability to climate change.
    http://www.climatescience.org.au/

    Chief Investigators
    includes
    David Karoly, Will Steffen, Andy Pitman etc
    http://www.climatescience.org.au/staff/chiefinvestigators

    Partner Investigators
    http://www.climatescience.org.au/content/197-partner-investigators

    Chris Turney in the team, with lots of names from the ARC Centre above:

    UNSW Climate Change Research Centre Team
    http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/staff/academic.html

    maybe u all know this, but i didn’t, so prefer to document it.

    10

  • #

    They have all been rescued now. Can’t have them out there any longer–it’s just embarassing, you know.

    10

  • #
    richard

    so what happens to the crew of the ship,

    lets keep updated on these poor guys as the champagne swilling, tax paid , dancing, singing climate idiots are taken back to hotels.

    50

  • #

    Wow. We have a whole new level of “love those graphs” here with Brian H. I always knew that pictures were handy for spreading propaganda–those “poor drowning polar bears”, those extinct Darwin frogs (natural selection, but let’s blame habitat loss too), hurricanes, tornadoes. All designed to appeal to people who cannot think. One thing remains true: The graphs and pictures still can sell any idea you want them too. Even mutually exclusive ones. But they’re great for propaganda and appeal to those who can’t understand statistics. I stand in awe at the simple deceptive power of lines on a paper. Who’d have thunk it….

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    pat

    a little more. the press release for the 4 degree/cloud story came from the Australasian Antarctic Expedition spokesman, Alvin Stone:

    PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 31-Dec-2013
    Contact: Alvin Stone
    University of New South Wales
    Cloud mystery solved: Global temperatures to rise at least 4°C by 2100
    “Our research has shown climate models indicating a low temperature response to a doubling of carbon dioxide from preindustrial times are not reproducing the correct processes that lead to cloud formation,” said lead author from the University of New South Wales’ Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science Prof Steven Sherwood…
    http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/uons-ncs121913.php

    Nature Mag actually showed Steven Sherwood’s affiliations as including CCRC/UNSW, where Chris Turney is on the Team with him, & included ARC before Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, but MSM only mentioned Sherwood’s affiliation to the “UNSW Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science”, which is deceptive.

    Nature: Spread in model climate sensitivity traced to atmospheric convective mixing
    Received 16 May 2013; Accepted 05 November 2013; Published online 01 January 2014
    Affiliations: Steven C. Sherwood: Climate Change Research Centre and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia
    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12829.html

    it’s been bugging me that the MSM haven’t been at least referencing Sherwood’s connections to Turney. of course, they could claim Alvin Stone started it off in the press release, but i hold the MSM responsible for checking out such connections & not merely publishing press releases. certainly ABC must be aware of the connections…and the suspicious timing of the 4 degree study, and the HEATWAVE MANIA of abc and murdoch media this week.

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    pat

    2 Jan: ABC: Helicopter rescues passengers onboard stranded Antarctic ship Akademik Shokalskiy
    All of the scientists and tourists who have been stranded on a research ship in Antarctica since Christmas Eve have been rescued…
    A total of 52 people were flown to the Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis in an operation that took more than four hours…
    Sydney-based expedition spokesman, Alvin Stone, says the group is relieved.
    “Aside from the packing madness, I think there’s quite a bit of joy through the ship at the fact that it’s finally coming,” he said.
    “I think it was at that point where people were getting frustrated with what was going on.
    “Now at last feel they can move on and the expedition can continue what it was supposed to do, or actually just get home to be perfectly honest.”…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-02/rescue-helicopter-arrives-at-stranded-antarctic-ship/5182632

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    Perhaps the Australian Government should insist that any future expeditions take out adequate insurance to cover the costs of their rescue. That should stop them if it is based on what a health insurer wanted to charge us for a trip to Australia!

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  • #
    john robertson

    Notice the news reports keep insisting the russian ship and crew are in NO danger?
    So if no danger, why was the wealth of 3 countries taxpayers diverted and kept on stand by, simply to save some govt employees from inconvenience ?
    Will the sponsors foot the bill?

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    • #

      “Who pays for the rescue of the Akademik Shokalskiy? According to the Age: The operators of a ship stricken in the southern ocean are facing a multimillion-dollar expense bill, as a third vessel began a rescue attempt five days after the tourist ship became trapped in sea ice. Under the Treaty of the Safety of Life at Sea, vessels are required to respond to a distress message, with the costs incurred a matter for the ship owners after the event, the AMSA said. These can include fuel costs, crew costs and loss of revenue.”—Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 30 December 2013

      Not sure if he is correct. It seems likley the boat owner would have insurance for this, though since it’s Russian, who knows?

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      • #
        MemoryVault

        The operators of a ship stricken in the southern ocean are facing a multimillion-dollar expense bill,

        No. The Australian Taxpayer is facing a multi-million dollar expense bill. To absolve himself and his employers from responsibility, the Russian captain only has to show that what happened was entirely out of his control. Greens Senator-elect, Janet Rice, has been kind enough to very publicly blog that it was the late return of the landing party to the ship, against the very express orders of the captain, that led to them all getting trapped in the ice.

        Insurance doesn’t come into it. Even if the operators are fully insured, and the insurance company initially pays out, they will then go looking to recoup that money from the guilty parties. That leads to Professor Turkey, which, in turn leads to the University of NSW, which in turn leads to the Federal grubbermint, which ultimately leads to our wallets.

        Make no mistake Sheri, the Australian taxpayer is going to end paying for the whole damn lot. The initial publicity scam posing as “scientific research” so the BBC could make a “climate change” propaganda film documentary. The rescue. Compensation to the French and Chinese for disrupted research. Even the full refund of all the little luvvies fares. Everything.

        And STILL not a single peep from a single one of our 90-strong elected “conservative” government.

        I’m predicting another change of government in 2016, or, at the very least, another hung parliament. That’s assuming spineless Abbott and his harem of useless eunuchs even manage to blunder their way through a full term, which seems increasingly unlikely.

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          AndyG55

          It would be truly KARMA if the full cost was slated onto ACCARNSI, and the climate unit at UNSW.

          That would effectively close the unit. 🙂

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            Boadicea

            That would be a dam good outcome if it, ACCARNSI.. was closed down as well

            I cannot believe that we are spending $40m on this self indulgent talk fest and piece of synchronised wanking… with Conference for September 2014,….all of which has bugger all actual science being done

            It main charter is to provide advice to governments and business on the best way to adapt to climate change.. undefined ..at the same time the latest IPCC AR5 is backing away from its alarmist predictions ..as it should.

            These people should stick to doing their current jobs properly before wandering into realms they would be even more hopeless at

            They should use the $40m to pay for these rescue costs

            Full stop

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              AndyG55

              An ACCARNSI Conference I gave two seminars at a few years ago was almost certainly when I realise what a totalitarian load of arrogant worms these guys were, and when I realised that the whole thing was about far-left-wing CONTROL !!

              You see the same arrogant, egotistical attitude from Hother, Mick the *rick, BA4, Sheldon……. etc

              I just listened in disgust during the wrap-up as they talked about FORCING people and councils to implement THEIR ideas.

              Did have a word to one guy as I walked out early. Don’t think he liked what I said 😉

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        • #
          PeterS

          Yes, unfortunately us taxpayers will foot the bill. This is another reason why Abbott is too weak on all this. If he had the guts he should come out of the closet and not only state categorically that the global warming saga is a scam but also send the bill back to the University and let them take care of it. If that means the University goes bankrupt then so be it. It’s time to make a stand, otherwise the scam will continue unabated. Certain people must take responsibility for their actions, not blame it on someone else. I thought we got rid of a socialist regime.

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            MemoryVault

            It’s time to make a stand, otherwise the scam will continue unabated.

            No Peter. The time to have made a stand was about four days ago when it became patently clear that this whole sham was little more than a taxpayer-funded PR exercise so the BBC could make a mockumentary about climate change, and that the ABC, rather than honestly “reporting” on it, were running interference to prevent the truth from coming out.

            It’s now way too late to “make a stand” on this sorry episode without appearing even more foolish and disconnected.
            So the scam will continue unabated, nobody will be held responsible, and you and I will go on paying for it.

            The socialist regime will continue in power for as long as the Australian sheeple go on voting for candidates from the major political parties, and expecting anything to change.

            One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to eventually get a different outcome.

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      PeterS

      Clearly the reason they were “rescued” is because they were bored and it’s drying them nuts. You can tell from one of the videos. They have no stamina, unlike the real explorers of the past. Goes to show these crackpots are gutless wonders who have no common sense and logic. They went there in the first place to study climate change but because they didn’t see warming but instead cooling they felt they no longer had a need to stay there to finalise their research. To me at least they have lost all credibility. Perhaps if they went to an active volcano they might be happier, but of course that would also prove they have no credibility.

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    william

    Back in 2011 Hilary Clinton asked the Swedish government if the US could borrow ice breakers for the Antarctic, the Swedish Gov said no we need them ourselves.

    So straight away clues about the Antarctic and Arctic areas, luckily for our amusement the alarmists never live and learn.

    We wish “Bon Voyage” to those left on board the Akademik Shokalskiy. I am sure those airlifted off don’t actually care for those they left behind.

    Bet they are more concerned about how to spin their story.

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      James (Aus.)

      “Bet they are more concerned about how to spin their story”.

      ABC radio news this morning reported all “passengers” (probably pensioners on a Women’s Weekly Round the World Cruise) were lifted off the “Russian research ship”.

      The selfish Warmsters won’t have to work hard on spinning; the ABC is their voluntary sub-contractor already busy on the job.

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      PeterS

      No problem for the warmists spinning their story. I could think of various ways. Abbott is silent on all this and so the scam will continue unabated, perhaps even increase in strength if they play their cards right. Yes, that’s how gullible much of the public are. Too bad Abbott and his government are so quiet and spineless on all this. Here we have an excellent opportunity to put a decent hole in the AGW scam, although not necessarily sink it. Yet the government is totally oblivious to all this. Same goes for much of the media. So what hope is there for the truth to come out to sink the AGW scam once and for all when so many in powers of influence don’t really want to? Not much I suspect. Of course a mini-ice age would help but even that might not sink the scam due to a lot of thickheaded fools in positions of influence (eg, Universities, media, business, etc.) unless it lasted for a generation or two.

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    Mat

    Disingenuous Jo, again. In your opening line:

    “Who could’ve dreamed up the script for this one? If you are following the saga of the climate scientists stuck in sea ice they think is shrinking,”

    and yet the second point in the expedition science case page, from which other parts you quote, they say they’re going south to:

    “2. explore changes in ocean circulation caused by the growth of extensive fast ice and its impact on life in Commonwealth Bay”

    Yes, a three minute reading of the situation looks ironic, but it’s up to commentators like you with in-depth knowledge to explain why the earth system is a complicated, non-linear beast. Not jump on the dumb wagon.

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      john robertson

      Benoit Mandelbrot .
      Edward Lorenz.
      James Gleick does a fine introduction in Chaos, making a new science.

      However the earth system makes the case, without our help.

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      AndyG55

      oh.. so they ARE climate scientists,,, not just passengers.

      Thanks for the confirmation.. bozo. ! 🙂

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      bullocky

      Mat,

      The ice that Jo refers to is the Antarctic ice extent.

      ‘Fast Ice’ is that stuff you get from the servo. and put in your esky.

      Hope this helps!

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      Andrew McRae

      I take it from the number of downvotes Mat has received that there are 18 people who can instantly provide me with a sourced quote or hyperlink to documentary evidence that proves that any of the 65 scientists on board this ship ever said they were expecting to find less sea ice in Antarctica due to man-made global warming, or words to that effect.
      I won’t hold my breath waiting, because all indications are that Mat is correct.

      The IPCC AR4 said nothing about sea ice trends and on the Antarctic generally said only:
      “It is likely that the Antarctic will be warmer and that precipitation will increase over the continent.”

      In the ABC interview in November the intrepid Prof explicitly said:
      CHRIS TURNEY, CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH CENTRE, UNSW: So we’ve got to cross this sea ice of 60 kilometres to try to get into the windiest place in the world.
      i.e. the expedition leader expected to have to cross sea ice.

      Nikki Philips at Fairfax tied the trip to global warming, but she is a journalist not a scientist.

      Prof Turkey mentioned key alarmist phrases such as “tipping points”, “massive disruption to climate” that “could have global consequences”, and “melting large sections of the Antarctic ice sheet”, but these were all allegedly due to the westerly wind band shifting south, not attributed to man-made global warming.

      Some of the team allege there are “parts of the East Antarctic which are highly susceptible to melting and collapse from ocean warming”, but a direct link to AGW is not stated and ice that calves off the mainland is not sea ice.

      The number of times the Antarctic-versus-Arctic ice loss bullet point has been debated around here is ample sign that every warmist in the world is aware of the Antarctic gaining sea ice. Not to mention they still tie it to global warming by the fact that precipitation of all kinds, including snow, increases in a warmer world, since precipitation has to be evaporated before it can fall. One Dr Mike Williams, a Physical Oceanographer from New Zealand, said of the Antarctic: “model predictions suggest that their won’t be significant changes in sea ice until 2080.”

      At the risk of being embroiled in Morissette-esque semantic arguments…
      Warmists going to the Arctic and getting trapped in sea ice… ironic.
      Warmists going to the Antarctic and getting trapped in sea ice… NOT ironic.

      ~ ~ ~ ~

      Now for the fun part.
      Let’s practice applying the concept of “irony” to a song.

      It’s like being trapped in Arctic ice after your warming research is approved.
      It’s like mourning Himalayan glaciers when Indians know half hardly moved.
      It’s like being lectured on ethics by the Pacific Institute’s Peter Gleick.
      It’s like being hired for reproducible results then telling Warwick to take a hike.
      It’s like a public inquiry which refuses to ask an awkward question.
      It’s like trying to hide the decline when that gets you lots of attention.
      It’s like a paleoclimatologist trying to make the MWP go away.
      It’s like asking for a free rescue when the public already paid.
      And isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?

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    Sean McHugh

    Next time the ABC is grilling a Coalition guest on Climate Change, the guest could bring up this debacle and the ABC’s dishonest reporting of it. The ABC could be made to fear their NLP guests, rather than the other way around. Will this happen though? No, it won’t, because the NLP is so astonishingly weak.

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      James (Aus.)

      Sean, the ABC will make sure they go straight to Minister Greg Hunt from whom they’ll receive the full blown Greens/ALP AGW/Climate Change mantra.

      Unfortunately, PM Abbott has allowed this ignorant Warmist to remain and spread the ALP/Greens message.
      No grilling is needed, Hunt is always ready to give the ABC everything they want to hear.

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    • #
      Sean McHugh

      There is one exception, Julie Bishop. She seems to have some . . . . better not say it. Actually Malcolm Turnbull has them too, but his are in the enemy’s camp.

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    Merv Sinclair

    Did you notice the dog amongst the evacuees?

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    Yonniestone

    Amazing Mat, you just managed to cherry pick a story in an attempt to discredit it’s author whilst displaying the very cherry picking behavior the story is explaining, talk about irony being lost on the ironic.

    I also believe you were born on the dumb wagon and only recently fell off when it tipped trying to navigate a huge clanger you dropped.

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    Ross

    Pat has linked it above but it is worth repeating. Lord Monckton has a piece on WUWT that shows that even the IPCC is backing away from the hard lined positions held by Brian Holther and co.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/01/ipcc-silently-slashes-its-global-warming-predictions-in-the-ar5-final-draft/#comments

    At the rate the IPCC is backtracking we may have seen one of their last great talkfests in 2013.(I know that’s wishful thinking)

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      AndyG55

      A classic comment from the thread you mention..

      “Half the AGW orchestra have left the hall and those wild-eyed few still sitting in the pit are playing a laughably muddled cacophony of JUNK;
      all they have left to trumpet are disharmonious speculation and bold-faced lies……

      The audience, after laughing at them, has gotten up and left.

      There are two remaining: that guy who has been sound asleep from the opening movement,
      and the guy who gave them the loan for the hall rental, and he is looking at his watch…”

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    stu

    Sparing a thought for the complete embarrassment some would be feeling in the ‘Spirit Of Frank Spencer’ excursion.

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    Bulldust

    Expect the MSM to go into full-blown apoplexy with the release of teh HOTTEST YEAR EVAH!!1!!one!* from BoM:

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/national/a/20585426/2013-is-australias-hottest-year-on-record/

    At the leet^ BoM site:

    http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/

    No doubt our newfound troll with over 30 posts on one thread (here) will dance with joy. One quick question… why has BoM not moved their base reference forward a decade. This is standard statistical practive, but they are still using 1961-90 as their refernce base. I wouldn’t suggest for a second that they use this period religiously because it happened to be cooler than 1971-2000. Surely they wouldn’t be selectively removing the 1998 El Nino spike from their reference base, I mean that would be statistically disingenuous… to say the least.

    * on record of course – they can’t see past the geological blick of 100 or so years…
    ^ Shoot me already, so I am a gamer…

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    Dave

    .

    ABC has video of the true numbers associated with the ship of fools.

    “including 60 scientists from marine biologists to meteorologists to ice core specialists.”

    Watch it while you can, they’ll probably delete it very soon.

    Compared to the coverage since, the ABC fact check unit should be closed down now.

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    pat

    every program on Sky Weather Channel since early morning has been titled “RECORD HEATWAVE” & from 9pm as “Tomorrow’s Weather” & later still “Weather Nightwatch” the latter two described as “stay informed this severe weather season with the latest forecasts & detailed analysis of severe weather” etc:

    meanwhile:

    PHOTOS: US News: India Suffers Through Deadly Freezing Temperatures
    1 of 12
    A stray dog sleeps with laborers under blankets on a sidewalk in New Delhi, India. At least 230 people have died from record freezing temperatures in India, marking the coldest winter in 44 years.
    5 of 12
    Homeless people sleep wrapped in quilts that are rented by the night on a footpath in New Delhi, India.
    11 of 12
    A young Indian child looks out from a blanket in a slum area as thousands of homeless people seek places in temporary shelters to escape from unusually cold temperatures throughout the country.
    12 of 12
    Indian pilgrims fight icy winds while drying clothes at a temporary camp in Kolkata. The extreme temperatures are attributed to dense fog which has obscured the sun and icy winds from the snowy Himalayas to the north.
    http://www.usnews.com/photos/india-suffers-through-deadly-freezing-temperatures

    Vientiane Times, Laos: People shivering in the freezing northern temperatures
    Large numbers of people in the northern provinces are spending their nights huddled around fires to keep warm, due to a lack of warm clothing in this incredibly cold weather which has caught many people by surprise
    “Students could not write in the morning because their hands were frozen, therefore teaching hours began later when it became warm during the day,” said the union’s President Ms Longkham Phonmixay…
    According to Ms Longkham, in communities where electricity is available the situation is much less serious as a lot of people have cheap electric heaters…
    http://www.vientianetimes.org.la/FreeContent/FreeConten_People.htm

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    pat

    check the pics!!! this does not surprise me.

    WUWT: Rescue ship Aurora Australis slowed to a crawl – fighting heavy sea ice to reach open water
    Ship with 52 rescued Akademik Shokalskiy climate scientists and tourists is only able to make 1/4 knot (0.29 mph) in heavy ice towards open water. Latest webcam views show all ice all around the ship and no open water ahead…
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/02/rescue-ship-aurora-australis-slowed-to-a-crawl-fighting-heavy-sea-ice-to-reach-open-water/

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    PeterS

    I just this excellent title from anther forum that hits the nail right on its head when it comes to the current situation we are facing; “politicians can’t argue warming is not real”. That’s the problem I’ve been trying to highlight. The change in government, although welcome one from the decrepit socialist ALP one, has not really helped a lot wrt exposing the AGW scam. I understand some here are hoping and waiting for Abbott to carry our baton so to speak and expose the AGW scam, but I seriously doubt he ever will. I do hope I’m wrong of course. Time will tell.

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      MemoryVault

      “politicians can’t argue warming is not real”

      Therein lies the problem, Peter. Politicians thinking from squarely within the square confines of their political square box. The whole exercise could have been a major PR coup for Abbott and the Coalition, WITHOUT ever mentioning global warming or climate change.

      Abott is already being referred to as “Fraser Lite”, and that’s from the “conservative” side of the commentary.
      He could have reversed all that, and exposed the truth of the situation and the ABC’s lies. Here’s how it should have gone down:

      A serious-faced Abbott calls a press conference and announces that he is summonsing back to active duty all the Ministers whose departments are involved in this “emergency” rescue. Ignoring the deceptive language of the ABC Abbott repeatedly refers to the need to rescue these 60 mostly young Australian climate scientists who are in peril, along with the documentary crew from the BBC.

      In answer to a Dorothy Dix question about whether the 60 climate scientists were, in fact, responsible for their own dilemma, Abbott replies that apportioning blame can wait until these 60 young Australians, plus the BBC documentary crew, are back home safe and sound.

      Cut to Warren Truss, Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, over at the Australian Maritime Services Authority (AMSA). Truss is in the Operations Room, looking serious. Seriously he announces that, as the Minister responsible for AMSA, he is taking the matter of rescuing these 60 apparently poorly prepared young climate scientists, plus the BBC documentary crew, very seriously, and will be remaining on hand 24/7 to oversee the operation. In the background two men can be seen positioning a cot and mattress over in one corner of the Ops Room.

      Back to Canberra and a very serious-looking Greg Hunt is at the head of a large conference table, flanked down each side with very serious-looking boffin types. Hunt very seriously announces that he has assembled the best and brightest minds from the BoM and the CSIRO, so they can provide input on weather and sea-ice conditions and such, to the people working overtime to rescue these 60 somewhat naive climate scientists and BBC documentary crew.

      In answer to a Dorothy Dix as to whether the BoM and the CSIRO had officially advised the organisers against the trip in the first place, Hunt repeats Abbott’s line of saving the blame game until these 60 rash young climate scientists and BBC documentary crew are safe. In answer to another question as to whether the Australian Antarctic Division were even consulted, Hunt replies that is a matter that can wait until everybody is safe.

      At the far end of the table is Christopher Pyne, Minister for Education, with a copy of the Gonski Report in front of him. When asked, Pyne replies (while absently tapping the Report), that he was in town anyway, with a working group looking Education expenditure. When asked what he thinks of the $1.5 million spent on the expedition that led to the current situation, Pyne replies that once the current emergency is dealt with, there may be a case for re-examining existing Education budget allocations, before throwing even more money into what seems to be a sometimes very wasteful pit.

      As a PR exercise, Tim Hacker and Sir Humphrey would have had a field day with this.
      And what did we get?
      Nada, zip, zilch.
      Actually we got worse, because the ABC has now been allowed to get away with absolute BS propaganda, and it’s now too late to remedy the situation.

      .
      The trouble with the Krudd/Gillard Labor government was that it was always going off half-cocked.
      The trouble with the Abbott Coalition is that it doesn’t have one.

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        Andrew McRae

        Never let a good crisis go to waste!

        But why oh why, MV, do I get the impression that it is in fact you who has a corner of their house permanently set up as a Situation Room? I can imagine it now.
        A giant cork board with pictures of all the people in cabinet and the key members of government and Opposition and their names and portfolios. A maze of red string connected the mates and the accomplices. The cigarette smoke was wafting around a big green banker’s lampshade and the sound of jazz was wafting in just as slowly. It was a big case. Maybe my biggest. If the case got legs, I kept my eye on the prize, and the client coughed up the reward it would keep the collectors off my back, as long as I didn’t lose my head in the process. I smelled another bodily metaphor approaching, but when it never happened I breathed easy again. Who were these people. And what did they have in common? The faces on the board swirled and mixed in my mind like funfair mirrors until it all seemed too confusing. I had to get out. Walk the streets. Shake down my contacts and find out everything there was to know about Abbott the Saint, Chris “Hugga” Pyne, Greg “The Cleaner” Hunt, and Warren “Trusty” Truss. Something was rotten in Canberra and I’m not talking Fyshwick. Every one of the suspects was clean. Too clean. Nobody gets to that level without stepping on a few heads along the way and it was time to go headhunting.

        TO BE CONTINUED

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          MemoryVault

          Actually Andrew,

          It all came to me as a bit of a whimsy while having a cup of tea after lunch, out on the front verandah, admiring the boats anchored in the mouth of Pumicestone passage. Once the thought was firmly planted in my mind, it only took maybe ten minutes to bash out and post. It’s what I do.

          To be honest, these days I don’t really spend very much time mulling over the shenanigans of the Fiberals, or any of the politicians for that matter. One the one hand I consider them beyond redemption – as very clearly demonstrated these last few days – while on the other accepting the Australian sheeple are not going to change their voting habits in what short time is left of my life.

          However, you are surprisingly right about my “situation room”. An entire corner of what used to be the lounge room back when Thumper and I cared about such formalities, is now something along the lines of what you describe. it has its own desk, chair, laptop, bookcase, and even lampshade, though this is more of the Mary Poppins variety rather than a banker’s. Thumper decides such things.

          There is even the “wafting cigarette smoke”, although this applies equally to the entire downstairs living area as Thumper and are lifelong chain smokers.

          It is here that I daily do battle with the Forces of Darkness on behalf of the weak, the helpless, and the oppressed. Usually young people who didn’t know what hit them until they were robbed of their rental bond, and old ladies whose husbands have recently died, who had no idea Centrelink would happily see them starve to death in the street while mulling over their pension entitlement.

          Requests for reviews, demands for hearings, briefs for Tribunals, evidence statements for court, and endless FOI requests, flow ceaselessly as I lock horns with the multi-headed hydra of incompetent state and federal bureaucracies, wedded in unholy alliance with crooked real estate agents, stupid government departments, incompetent courts, and assorted other quango hangers-on.

          Still, it’s a hobby, and as Thumper says, it keeps me off the streets.
          Mind you, that could change once I finish my F1-level, chopped, lowered, ATV mobility scooter.

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    john robertson

    Hey Australia, recruit your media clowns for the winter olympics, the way they are spinning this story they are naturals for the figure skating.
    I forsee a gold medal opportunity here.

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    Realist

    Now that Professor Turney, his wife and kids and his left Wing media pals are safely on board the Aurora Australis he can take the time to answer some questions from we the tax payers who funded his farce.
    He can be emailed at. [email protected]

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      Keith L

      Be sure you preface all questions with – “This is not a death threat, we just want some simple answers”
      You know sensitive these people are.

      00

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    pat

    3 Jan: ABC: Your say: BOM says 2013 was Australia’s hottest year on record
    COMMENT BY Craig-Lee Smith: But you wouldn’t have known it in Victoria and Tasmania, we had the coldest Spring on record, and judging by the temperatures we are going to get this week, it will be the coldest and dreariest January on record.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-03/your-say3a-weather-bureau-says-2013-was-australia27s-hottest-/5183536

    2013 in South-East Queensland was mild…we were still wearing sweaters in early Summer & it’s 35 degrees today at midday, not the 40 degrees predicted, tho perhaps it will go up further.

    (i posted the above on WUWT saying it’s 35 today where i live, but that was for Brisbane when i checked online. it’s 33 degrees at my place, but online it is saying it’s 37 at my place, so maybe the online temp for Brisbane is wrong, too, & that’s setting aside the higher temps forecast & pushed via the MSM. meanwhile, sky weather channel, which has a vivid red map of Australia on the screen most of the time, says it’s presently 35.5 at my place.)

    enough of the madness.

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      Angry

      Yet more BS from the abc (Australian B***S*** Commission).

      Privatize them now!

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      Mark

      Hey pat:

      Penny Wong was quick off the line once the BOM report was announced. Anything to help get that damned boat out of the news. Whatever you do, “don’t mention the boat!”

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    Speedy

    Morning all.

    This really needs someone to do a “Gilligan’s Island” clip.

    Just sit right down and you’ll hear a tale,
    A tale of a fateful trip,
    That started from this tropic port…

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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  • #
    william

    Andrew Bolt reports that 98% of US media reports on this Antarctic farce fail to mention that the bunch of idiots stranded on the ice went there to basically prove that the ice was diminishing due to global warming.With the coverup by the international MSM of these and other inconvenient truths, I think it is fair to assume that something very sinister is going on in a so far quite successful attempt to subjugate the worlds population with economically crippling taxes and restrictions on our freedoms. Unfortunately the vast majority of people have never heard of Jonova, Anthony Watts, Bishop Hill, James Delingpole, Chris Monkton etc etc, and voicing our opinion and concerns doesn’t appear to be getting us anywhere fast. I fear that like the large banking institutions during the global financial crisis, the MMGW industry has grown too large to be allowed to fail.

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    • #
      PeterS

      That’s been one of main worries for some time, namely that the AGW industry has already grown too large to be stopped now. Evidence of this is everywhere. Similar to an old saying, if you tell a lie long and loud enough, most people will eventually find it very hard to disbelieve it. With the current ship saga being what should have become a super egg in the face for global warming alarmists, it’s already becoming a non-event, and in a couple of weeks will all be forgotten. Sad really.

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      • #
        PeterS

        PS: Excuse my bad English; it’s not one of my strong points.

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        • #
          Peter C

          PeterS,

          You are right that just debating the issue here will not change the public or political views. That is not to downplay the importance of this blog, which I regard as crutial, but we have to do more.

          Suggestions:
          1. Spread the message to your friends. You are probably already doing that. I have noticed that my friends who hold left wing views generally are not very receptive.
          2. Change your vote. The Liberal Democrats have a very clear anti CO2/greenhouse platform and they got one senator elected at the last election. Green House Skeptics by comparison did not do as well (possibly because they are a single issue party).
          3. Write to your local MP. One letter probably won’t do much to change his/her mind, but yours may become one of many.
          4. Join the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA).

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      Robert

      Andrew Bolt reports that 98% of US media reports on this Antarctic farce fail to mention that the bunch of idiots stranded on the ice went there to basically prove that the ice was diminishing due to global warming.

      I think, and this is just speculation on my part, that were the media to cover this properly it would be akin to them saying “And we are just as stupid as they are since we believed them for so long.” This entire mess has become something in which the supporting cast painted themselves into a corner leaving them with no option but to continue to bang the drums loudly as to do otherwise is to admit they were either complicit in it or not bright enough to get it.

      Peter your English is fine, it isn’t one of the easiest of languages to master as many of my fellow American’s have demonstrated by their being unable to master it even though it is the ONLY language they know. 🙂

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      • #
        PeterS

        Thanks Robert. I agree with what you said too. Also, I believe there are a a number of factors helping to keep the AGW scam alive so well for so long. Apart from the ones mentioned, there’s also the belief by so many in the public that CO2 is a pollutant so anyone not supporting the Green agenda is considered to be evil. I love a clean environment as much as the next guy but not at the expense of the economy closing down businesses leading to massive losses of jobs, not to mention the lies about renewable energy creating new jobs to more than make up for those losses. Another factor is the academic elite in their ivory towers. I used to be one of them a long time ago. It was nice, but unreal, blinkered and stifling environment to work under. I left to join the real world, and I never regretted it as it has opened my eyes to the truth in a number of areas. I’m afraid modern science these days has gone down hill in a big way and it has lost a lot credibility in some cases. That’s not to say there are not a lot of good scientists doing good research. Of course there are. The problem I see is the attitude the established academia and the false religions they follow that fly in the face of scientific facts. The AGW scam is just one of them. I won’t go into the others as it would be way off topic.

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    • #
      StefanL

      Cracks are starting to appear in the media cover-up.

      Two hours ago the (Australian) ABC radio had a brief item that:
      (a) described the passengers as “scientists, tourists and journalists”
      (b) raised the issue of who would be paying the costs of the rescue.

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      Yonniestone

      William I responded to my local newspaper’s editorial with similar concerns as yours only yesterday and not expecting it to pass moderation to my shock it was posted.
      http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/2000915/the-carping-of-a-few-diminishes-legitimate-forums/?cs=64
      The usual Modus Operandi of this paper is that after I’ve insulted or hurt someone’s feelings there I get banned from posting until they forgive or forget or I message them stating my case.
      Yes we’re pushing a lot uphill with a very pointy stick.

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      • #

        I love the comment a little below yours: “Rude Crude and demoralizing comments are not free speech and have been allowed on the site.” Translation: If we don’t like what you write, it’s not going to be in here. And don’t you date call it limiting free speech because that falls under “demoralizing”. Ha! We lied about free speech and you can’t stop us.

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        • #
          Yonniestone

          Well Sheri I don’t claim to be some great thinker or writer but I’ll die happy in knowing I wasn’t as dumb as a lot of people that comment in that paper or indeed the stenographers that fill it.

          What really irks me is the left wing element in this town have seen fit to hijack the “Eureka rebellion” story as some sort of pre cursor to their socialist viewpoint of the world.
          Nothing could be further from the truth as having grown up here and actually researching the events of Eureka the terrible truth is it was simply another case of the 1% that will stand being slaughtered while the 99% wait to see the outcome.
          The older I get the more I despise wanton liars.

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          • #

            Probably a good thing you don’t live in the US since the nose on the President here grows longer each day. Amazing he can walk in public. More amazing, all the lies are on tape and can be proven, or in print and can be proven. Yet there are idiots who go right on saying “He didn’t say that” even when he clearly did. We are fast approaching “Words have no meanings”, which is then followed by very bad outcomes. I certainly agree with you–I hate being lied to. I can tolerate much, but lying isn’t a part I can take.

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              Yonniestone

              As you live in the USA one thing has bothered me about the fact Obama actually got the top job, growing up here in AUS we were all pretty much taught that the US had fought for independence, wrote a constitution that they cherished above all and always remained “Vigilant” in their protection of it.
              I Myself over the years have become a great admirer of Thomas Jefferson and his writings including the other founding fathers and as they all maintain the people should be vigilant of tyranny etc… I would like to ask in your opinion what happened? and how could a situation like Obama happen?

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                PhilJourdan

                Those who fought for independence and created the system of checks and balances foresaw many things. But they failed to see the way that man would bastardize the system. When you have 47% of the population with no skin in the game, they do not care about the principals of the founders, only what is in it for themselves. IN other words, they were bought off by the welfare state.

                http://youtu.be/tpAOwJvTOio

                Those people elected him. And some idiots who do not think past their next meal.

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                Yonniestone

                Thanks for replying Phil, that’s the impression I got as well but not having travelled to the USA I can only go by my “Google expert” research, my question of Obama was more directed at the American political system, senate, Republicans etc.. and how they viewed the sudden emergence of this man and is he a legitimate American?
                If hard questions were asked on Obama was it just the usual case of a biased media and the usual cover up?.

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                PhilJourdan

                Ah, the old Birther meme. Some are still pursuing that. The irony of the meme is that it was started by his ex-SOS during the campaign. And is irrelevant. It does not matter if he was bornn in Honolulu or katmandu. Since his mother was a full US citizen at the time. It only takes one parent to be a full legal citizen, and you can be born anywhere. I have argued this with many people on BOTH sides of the aisle, but some just have their minds made up. The rules governing “Natural Born” (since there is no legislation, court decisions or law defining what natural born is) is the US Code, Title 8, Section 1401. If Hillary Clinton had not started the meme, it would not be an issue today.

                As for the rest of your questions, he is totally a media creation, and his bumbling and incompetence proves it. His VP (whose only role is that of a life insurance policy for the Pres) was the one that said “He is a well spoken black man”, and that is his sole qualification for running and winning (white guilt). He has broken every promise he made, and lied about every promise (even his signature legislation is a violation of a promise he made).

                He is an embarrassment, that makes Gilliard look almost palatable to us colonialists (she just broke one promise, but of course it was a big one).

                When hard questions are asked of Obama, and he is without TOTUS, he comes across as a babbling fool. He sees dead people, he calls Corpsmen, Corpsemen, he cannot count to 50, and there are wave files out there that have him doing a solid 10 minutes of “ums, ahs, ers, uhs, huhs” that are not repeated and are from a 30 minute interview!

                His legacy will be that he could read a speech well. That is his only asset.

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                Yonniestone

                Interesting insight and information Phil, I don’t jump to conclusions easily either but during Obamas rise to power he just seemed to be propped up and goaded from the sidelines a lot more than the usual politician, I would go as far to say he’s a good actor but not a shadow of the other actor that made president.
                BTW I wouldn’t wish Gillard on anyone, there were more lies but the freak show circus that was created around her was and still is appalling, that was the final straw for me as giving someone the benefit of the doubt or even having a yin yang/left right balance in politics as with the left there is no balance, just their way or no way.

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    Speedy

    The Christmas Turney.

    Chris Turney and his film crews, they sailed off earnestly,
    To the Southern Polar regions, so all the world would see,
    How the climate’s taken a belting,
    And all the ice has been melting;
    So they could splash it ‘cross the headlines on our beloved ABC.

    The noble expedition sallied south, intending piously,
    To document our climate crimes this recent century;
    With scientific evidence of the havoc we have wrought,
    They expected to expect – “It’s worse than what we thought”.
    It must be so, it has to be – you’ll see it on “our” ABC.

    Draft version – more wine required. Or maybe less… 🙂

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    • #
      Angry

      I think that the “Christmas Turney” is well and truly STUFFED !

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      Speedy

      Morning all.

      Nah – more wine – or less – didn’t improve it.

      Better to take on a genre from Hillaire Belloc – the Cautionary Tales, so appropriate in this case.

      Chris.

      Who believed in stupid theories and was made to look FOOLISH.

      Proud ‘midst academic ravers, are self-proclaiming planet savers;
      One Professor Turney, (known as Chris), preferred he should be known as this.
      And so he planned his own crusade, somewhat pricey, mostly paid
      By largesse of the public purse – not the last time, nor the first.

      The purpose of this noble goal – to sail towards the Southern Pole,
      To collect, collate and then report, all data of the climate sort.
      Thus confirming somthing we all “knew” – the evil role of CO2;
      Such changes he would clearly show, compared to Mawson, years ago.

      Now, that doesn’t seem like much a plan, but Chris is not your “detail” man.
      Apart from that, not much to do, just hire a boat with Russian crew.
      And, to document the climate ruin, invite some cronies and camera crew in.
      (These climate types, I don’t know why, seem very rarely camera shy.)

      The ship sailed southward, out to sea and all was going, swimmingly,
      But as the Polar region beckoned, a fact arose, no-one had reckoned:
      For, despite what they had oft been told, the South Pole still was BLOODY COLD!
      The sea itself froze up at last; the ship was firmly stuck and fast!

      And cold it was and stuck they stayed – a few were getting quite dismayed:
      “Oh won’t you come and save us please – we’d much prefer not stay and freeze –
      And, if you needs burn fossil fuel, it’s quite OK, we’re really cool.”
      The shipwrecked victims were at wit’s ends, and sent some “selfies” to their friends.

      To be continued…..

      Cheers,

      Speedy

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    Thumbnail

    A mad professor named Turney
    Decided to take a wee journey
    There was lots of ice
    It wasn’t that nice
    Now the Russians have rung their attorney.

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  • #
    Thumbnail

    Here is another take on The Cremation of Sam McGee. It needs more work.

    There are strange things done in the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for fame;
    The Climate Change has bedfellows strange
    That would make your brain go lame;
    The Southern Lights have seen queer sights,
    But the queerest they ever did bear
    Was the climate geeks on the Akademik
    Who got stuck in the ice-not-there.

    Now Chris Turney was from New South Wee, where the gum tree stands and grows
    Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows.
    He was always hot, (no matter what), and often channelled Mao;
    And he’d often say in his arrogant way “The Ice has Melted now.”

    On Christmas Eve with Argo’s leave they were slow to find the trail
    Talk of your cold! Through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
    If eyes they’d close, then their lashes froze till sometimes they couldn’t see;
    It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to tweet was Chris Turney.

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    • #
      Thumbnail

      And that very night, they got a fright – their ship was in sea ice;
      And the blogs were read, and the wind they said was blowing up a vice;
      Chris Turney claimed it was “Climate Change” – the Ice had Up and Went;
      The rest had napped and they were trapped in their own experiment.

      “Sea ice has waned due to climate change, but here it’s building up!
      We have found this has changed the they all explained, there’s fresh water all about!
      And don’t you know, the seawater below, well, we can almost drink it.
      This ice which packs will have impacts so fast – you wouldn’t think it.”

      The Snow Dragon and had also come, and got stuck in the same sea ice;
      The Astrolabe tried and Turney cried so they hailed the Australis.
      The sea ice grew and tempers brewed, and those onboard got sick;
      The wind was blamed on Climate Change; that’s why the ice was thick!

      The days went by and my oh my; the media had dissed
      The simple fact the ship was packed with climate scientists!
      They tried to show the melting snow would strike our hearts with fear
      And we would back the carbon tax – if truth was far, not near.

      Now a promise made is a debt unpaid and the sea has its own stern code.
      In the days to come – though the papers were stum, we learned to love that load
      Of childish geeks and climate freaks who danced and sang and stuff.
      They howled their woes to ice and snow, and proved their warming bluff.

      The choppers came and came again – the rescue on and off;
      The Australis and the Chinese ship were struggling in a trough
      Of water cold near the South Pole so they could pluck them out
      Of their own vice in the snow and ice – not supposed to be about.

      These scientists were more like kids when they begged for help from Watts;
      To give the fools some weather tools, to extract them from a spot
      Of danger here and trouble there – to save them from themselves!
      The choppers came in just in time to pluck from icy shelves.

      There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for fame;
      The Climate Change has bedfellows strange
      That would make your brain go lame;
      The Southern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did bear
      Was the climate geeks on the Akademik
      Who got stuck in the ice-not-there.

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      • #
        Andrew McRae

        Gobsmacked.
        (insert multiple superlatives here.)

        And it had its world premiere right here on lil’ Jo’s blog BEFORE going on to WUWT stardom.

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      • #
        Speedy

        Thumbnail

        To quote Henry Lawson in reference to CJ Dennis (no other allusions withstanding): “I dips me lid.”

        Cheers,

        Speedy

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    DT

    Maybe we can gift ALPBC to a needy third world country where a dictator is badly in need of a propaganda unit?

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    James (Aus.)

    It will grate with most Australians should this shipload of Billy Butlin holiday campers arrive back with their irritating chief redcoat expecting to be welcomed – having wrecked programs of genuine researchers in other parts of Antarctica with their bog-ignorance and arrogance.

    They have written the only chapter in Australian Antarctic history which is beyond shameful and worthy of great condemnation. A pox on them.

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    • #
      StefanL

      @James
      Absolutely spot on.
      Your comment deserves to be picked up, replicated and preserved.

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      Angry

      In fact, I believe that they have written their own epitaph….

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    • #
      ExWarmist

      which is beyond shameful and worthy of great condemnation. A pox on them

      … or downright hilarious.

      Depending on the POV.

      My thinking is that a general outbreak of hilarious lampooning of these loons will be more grating for them than taking them seriously. Although I also hope that there are real and serious repercussions on their careers for the damage that they have done to current Antarctic Science programs.

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    Ross

    I’ve just read this in news report

    ” Under international maritime conventions, the cost of the rescue will be borne by the ships involved.”

    Given there was no threat to life before the rescue would this convention still apply? It would seem abit unfair that these “scientific tourists” get away with no accountability.

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    Dave

    News Update – The joke continues.

    Aurora Australis on standby as a precautionary measure

    Xue Long notified AMSA at 1pm AEDT this afternoon it has concerns about their ability to move through heavy ice in the area.
    The Aurora Australis has been placed on standby by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s (AMSA) Rescue Coordination Centre Australia (RCC Australia) to remain in open water in the area as a precautionary measure.
    The Xue Long has advised RCC Australia that it will attempt to manoeuvre through the ice when tidal conditions are most suitable during the early hours of 4 January 2014.
    There is no immediate danger to personnel on board the Xue Long.
    Please keep an eye on AMSA’s Twitter feed @AMSA_News for updates.

    This will end up costing a fortune.
    Blooody idiots this Prof Turkey & his gang of fools.

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    william2

    Sorry,i am William from post#128. I just realised there is another ‘William’ that posts here. If I post again It will be as William 2.

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    Greebo

    OT, I know, but topical in it’s way.

    MV, the Gubberment may have some cojones after all, even if it’s La Bishop that sports them.

    00