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Consequences of Turney’s Antarctic junket are not yet over

January 5, 2014

The Xuelong is thought to have 111 crew on board while the Akademik Shokalskiy has 22. They are both currently trapped in the ice and the US icebreaker Polar Star is on its way from Sydney to render assistance if necessary. It will take the Polar Star about 7 days to reach the vicinity of the trapped vessels.

Cnut commanding the waves

Cnut commanding the waves

The consequences of Chris Turney’s narcissistic self-image of himself as an explorer in the Mawson mould and his irresponsible, publicity-seeking, junket into the Antarctic are not yet over. His proclamation that the ice should have melted away is reminiscent of King Cnut. Or perhaps like Cnut trying to demonstrate his limitations he was trying to demonstrate the fallibility of climate models which predict the loss of polar ice (and models such as that by his colleague Sherwood). It would be a travesty if the cost of diverting the 4 icebreakers (Chinese, French, Australian and now US) from their normal missions is not charged to Turney, the Climate Change Research Centre of the University of New South Wales and his media sponsors.

Xinhua reports:

BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) — China has set up a leading team to rescue its icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, which has been trapped by heavy floes since it rescued passengers on a Russian vessel stranded in Antarctica on Thursday.

The State Oceanic Administration (SOA) announced on Saturday the team will map out rescue plans and make “all-out efforts” to coordinate rescue operations, despite there is no immediate danger to personnel aboard Xuelong, which has abundant fuel and food supplies. …. 

Xueying 12, a helicopter on board Xuelong, on Thursday successfully evacuated all the 52 passengers aboard the Russian vessel MV Akademik Shokalskiy that has been stranded since Christmas Eve to the Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis.

However, after the rescue, Xuelong’s own movement was blocked by fields of floating ice.

Currently, Xuelong is located at 66.65 degrees south latitude and 144.42 degrees east longitude. It is surrounded by floes up to four meters thick and is about 21 km away from unfrozen waters, according to the SOA.

Qu Tanzhou, director of the State Oceanic Administration’s Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration, said the planned expedition by Xuelong is inevitably affected and changes are expected to be made to the vessel’s mission after it gets out of trouble.

“If the ship is stranded for a very long time, which is very rare indeed, then we’ll have to evacuate the people onboard and leave the vessel there,” he said.

AMSA Press Release:

6.30am AEDT Sunday 05 January 2014

US Coast Guard ice breaker to assist ships beset in ice in Antarctica

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC Australia) has requested the US Coast Guard’s Polar Star icebreaker to assist the vessels MV Akademik Shokalskiy and Xue Long which are beset by ice in Commonwealth Bay.
The US Coast Guard has accepted this request and will make Polar Star available to assist.
The Polar Star has been en route to Antarctica since 3 December, 2013 – weeks prior to the MV
Akademik Shokalskiy being beset by ice in Commonwealth Bay. The intended mission of the Polar Star is to clear a navigable shipping channel in McMurdo Sound to the National Science Foundation’s Scientific Research Station. Resupply ships use the channel to bring food, fuel and other goods to the station. The Polar Star will go on to undertake its mission once the search and rescue incident is resolved.
RCC Australia identified the Polar Star as a vessel capable of assisting the beset vessels following MV Akademik Shokalskiy being beset by ice overnight on 24 December, 2013. RCC Australia has been in discussion with the US Coast Guard this week to ascertain if the Polar Star was able to assist once it reaches Antarctica.
The request for the Polar Star to assist the beset vessels was made by RCC Australia to the US Coast Guard on 3 January, 2014. The US Coast Guard officially accepted this request and released the Polar Star to RCC Australia for search and rescue tasking at 8.30am on 4 January, 2014.
The Polar Star will leave Sydney today after taking on supplies prior to its voyage to Antarctica.
It is anticipated it will take approximately seven (7) days for the Polar Star to reach Commonwealth Bay, dependent on weather and ice conditions.
At 122 metres, the Polar Star is one of the largest ships in the US Coast Guard fleet. It has a range of 16,000 nautical miles at 18 knots. The Polar Star has a crew of 140 people.
The Polar Star is able to continuously break ice up to 1.8 metres (6ft) while travelling at three (3) knots and can break ice over six (21ft) metres thick.
RCC Australia will be in regular contact with the relevant US Coast Guard RCC at Alameda, California, and the Captain of the Polar Star during its journey to Antarctica.

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Posted in Alarmism, Antarctic, Climate, Ships, Weather | Comments Off on Consequences of Turney’s Antarctic junket are not yet over

Why was it necessary to rescue the Antarctic wimps’ expedition if the crew can remain aboard?

January 2, 2014

A Ship of Fools and Wimps. And they claim to be invoking the Spirit of Mawson!

The global warmists and their hangers-on have all been rescued from their ship trapped in the Antarctic ice. But the crew remains on board and are prepared to wait it out until the ice lets them go.

Why then did they have to be rescued with the enormous expenditure and diversion of resources that entailed? 

Their travails – if any – pale in comparison to what Mawson encountered 100 years ago.  For these fools to invoke the Spirit of Mawson is a travesty. They were in no danger. Their expedition to prove that the Eastern Antarctic ice was melting has ended up as a fiasco.

What were they being rescued from – except failure and boredom? Namby-pamby and spoilt brats and wimps come to mind.

The Australian writes:

Stuck on a ship of (cold) fools

YOU have to feel a touch of sympathy for the global warming scientists, journalists and other hangers-on aboard the Russian ship stuck in impenetrable ice in Antarctica, the mission they so confidently embarked on to establish solid evidence of melting ice caps resulting from climate change embarrassingly abandoned because the ice is, in fact, so impossibly thick.

The aim of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, led by Chris Turney of the University of NSW, was to prove the East Antarctic ice sheet is melting. Its website spoke alarmingly of “an increasing body of evidence” showing “melting and collapse from ocean warming”. Instead, rescue ships and a helicopter, all belching substantial carbon emissions, have had to be mobilised to pluck those aboard the icebreaker MV Akademik Schokalskiy from their plight, stuck in what appears to be, ironically, record amounts of ice for this time of year.

In that lies a hard lesson for those who persistently exaggerate the impact of global warming. We believe in man-made climate change and are no less concerned than others about it. But the cause of sensible policy is ill-served by exaggeration; there is a need for recognition of the science, which shows there are variations in how climate is changing and what the impact is, or will be.

Professor Turney’s expedition was supposed to repeat scientific investigations made by Douglas Mawson a century ago and to compare then and now. Not unreasonably, it has been pointed out Mawson’s ship was never icebound. Sea ice has been steadily increasing, despite the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s gloomy forecasts. Had the expedition found the slightest evidence to confirm its expectation of melting ice caps and thin ice, a major new scare about the plight of the planet would have followed. As they are transferred to sanctuary aboard the icebreaker Aurora Australis, Professor Turney and his fellow evacuees must accept the embarrassing failure of their mission shows how uncertain the science of climate change really is. They cannot reasonably do otherwise.

But what was the danger requiring them to be rescued? And why are their lives more valuable than those of the crew of the Akademik Shokalskiy?

Chris Turney comes out of this as the Chief Fool and Lead Wimp.The journalists will no doubt wish to treated as brave reporters returning from the war front. The Climate Change Research Centre of the University of New South Wales would seem to have more money than sense.

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Posted in Alarmism, Antarctic, Climate | 3 Comments »

Updates on the Antarctic global warming pilgrimage

January 1, 2014

Chris Turney and his warmists thought the globe was sweltering,
To the Antarctic they sailed to prove that the poles were melting,
But to their great surprise,
They got stuck in the ice,
But they had a festive time on board and got on with their drinking.

UPDATE 2: A Chinese helicopter arrived close to the vessel, bringing in a crew to assess the landing situation. The aircraft is expected to return within the hour to begin ferrying the first passengers out to another vessel.

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 …

Update 1: Thursday, 2nd January

The Guardian: The latest rescue mission for scientists, tourists and journalists on a ship trapped in ice off Antarctica has again been postponed.

A two-stage rescue had been planned for Thursday with a helicopter rescuing 52 of the passengers on Akademik Shokalskiy and taking them to the Chinese ship Xue Long before transferring them to another ship, Aurora Australis, on a barge in a 36-hour window of decent weather.

However, sea ice has prevented the barge from the Aurora Australis, where the passengers would ultimately be transferred, being able to get close to Xue Long.

The helicopter component of the rescue was to consist of seven 45-minute round trips to collect 12 passengers at a time and then their equipment and luggage.

AMSA Release: 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. 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. …. 

============================================

These “climate scientists” and hangers-on set out to demonstrate that the poles were melting.

Instead they have been stuck in the Antarctic ice for eight days now. Today the helicopter rescue of the climate scientists and their tame journalists who want to abandon ship was aborted because of bad weather. Their denials that the purpose was to demonstrate global warming sound very hollow:

It is also a bit rich now for expedition organisers to say they did not have climate change in mind when the trip was conceived. Promotional material says the expedition’s aim was to “discover and communicate the changes taking place in this remote and pristine environment”.

Outlining the science case, the expedition says: “Three years’ worth of observations gleaned by Mawson and his men provide a unique dataset against which we can compare the changes seen today. “Policy documents highlight numerous science questions that need to be urgently addressed across the region. And yet, despite of a century of research, major questions remain about whether the changes seen today are exceptional.”

The expedition notes say the East Antarctic Ice Sheet contains enough fresh water to raise the world’s sea level by about 52m.

The US icebreaker Polar Star (which can plow through ice 6m thick) could reach the trapped ship in about 8 days but as Anthony Watts points out the forecast winds could allow the ship to get free also in about 8 days.

As Real Science puts it

“Only A Complete Moron Would Attempt To Take A Ship To The Coast Of Antarctica Under These Conditions“.

They do not seem to be in any immediate danger – these scientists on their Ship of Fools.They seem to have celebrated Christmas and the New Year with great gusto and spirit! And their alcohol consumption is – of course – only to keep the cold out.

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Another unverifiable doomsday model predicts 4°C rise by 2100

December 31, 2013

What must first be noted is that the lead author, Steve Sherwood,  is from the Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales and is a colleague of Chris Turney – the global warming cheer-leader currently stuck in the Antarctic ice. The paper is largely unfounded speculation – no evidence or measurements in sight –  but speculation alarmist enough for Nature to publish it. The paper – according to the Nature Editor

offers an explanation for the long-standing uncertainty in predictions of global warming derived from climate models. Uncertainties in predicted climate sensitivity — the magnitude of global warming due to an external influence — range from 1.5° C to 5° C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2. It has been assumed that uncertainties in cloud simulations are at the root of the model disparities, and here Steven Sherwood et al. examine the output of 43 climate models and demonstrate that about half of the total uncertainty in climate sensitivity can be traced to the varying treatment of mixing between the lower and middle troposphere — and mostly in the tropics. When constrained by observations, the authors’ modelling suggests that climate sensitivity is likely to exceed 3° C rather than the currently estimated lower limit of 1.5° C, thereby constraining model projections towards more severe future warming.

Clouds are not well understood it seems but they are the answer!

The time-scale for their predictions – till 2100 is sufficiently far away that nothing can be confirmed or denied.

Presumably Sherwood was one of those advising the pilgrims trapped in the Antarctic.

Spread in model climate sensitivity traced to atmospheric convective mixing, Steven C. Sherwood, Sandrine Bony & Jean-Louis Dufresne, Nature 505, 37–42, doi:10.1038/nature12829

Abstract:Equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the ultimate change in global mean temperature in response to a change in external forcing. Despite decades of research attempting to narrow uncertainties, equilibrium climate sensitivity estimates from climate models still span roughly 1.5 to 5 degrees Celsius for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, precluding accurate projections of future climate. The spread arises largely from differences in the feedback from low clouds, for reasons not yet understood. Here we show that differences in the simulated strength of convective mixing between the lower and middle tropical troposphere explain about half of the variance in climate sensitivity estimated by 43 climate models. The apparent mechanism is that such mixing dehydrates the low-cloud layer at a rate that increases as the climate warms, and this rate of increase depends on the initial mixing strength, linking the mixing to cloud feedback. 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.

It all smacks of post-rationalisation.

Garbage In Garbage Out.

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Spirit of Mawson is dead as Turney and his Antarctic tourists prepare to abandon ship

December 31, 2013

UPDATE! The BBC reports that the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long may itself be stuck in the ice!!

===================================================

The Spirit of Mawson dies as Antarctic pilgrims/tourists and their great leader – but not the crew – are to be rescued by helicopter

The spirit of Sir Douglas Mawson is well and truly dead.  They have “fresh” supplies for at least two weeks and are well enough stocked to last through the entire summer. But the global warming pilgrims, the tourists, other diverse hangers-on and their tour guide have chickened out as they wait to be removed from the Akademik Shokalskiy by helicopter.

But not the crew.

If Turney is the leader shouldn’t he be the last one to leave the ice?

Chris Turney, the tour guide, describes himself as “Scientist, Explorer and Writer”. Why not “Hero”?

“Idiot” and “Charlatan” also come to mind. 

The Spirit of Mawson: 2013-2014 marks the centenary of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition led by the great scientist and explorer Sir Douglas Mawson. In a celebration of this remarkable endeavour, the new Australasian Antarctic Expedition (or AAE for short) will follow the route of its namesake, melding science and adventure, to discover and communicate the changes that have taken place in this remote environment over the last hundred years.

Led by Professor Chris Turney and Dr Chris Fogwill, from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, the 2013-2014 expedition will attempt to revisit the site of the original AAE huts at Cape Denison, Antarctica, the enigmatically named ‘Home of the Blizzard’.

But the Spirit of Mawson is not much in evidence here as Turney and his holiday makers plan to scuttle off the trapped ship leaving all the crew behind.

SMH: On Tuesday morning, Chris Turney, who is leading the expedition, said the 52 passengers on board the Akademik Shokalskiy would be flown out by helicopter after it stopped raining. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said all 22 crew members are expected to remain on board.

Authorities decided to resort to the helicopter evacuation after the Aurora Australis rescue ice-breaker was forced to retreat in the face of freezing 30 knot winds and snow showers 10 nautical miles from the Shokalskiy. Thick ice had earlier prevented the Chinese ice-breaker Xue Long and a French ice-breaker from reaching the stranded crew.

“Aurora can’t make it through. Looks like we’re going to be helicoptered out. Just need a clear weather window. Raining!,” Professor Turney posted just before noon (AEDT) on Tuesday.

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Posted in Alarmism, Antarctic, Climate | 6 Comments »

No global warming in Delhi – coldest December in a decade

December 30, 2013

It is missing in the Antarctic where ice levels are at record highs (and it is summer there) and it is missing in Delhi which at 28.6100° N is just outside the tropics (23.4378°S to 23.4378°N).

What global warming?

Where global warming?

It is impossible to have “global warming” if no local warming can be observed. Merely having a computer model say so or some arbitrarily weighted average  produce a number which cannot be observed  is insufficient.

Delhi: City reels under cold wave

Delhi: City reels under cold wave (image IBN News)

Weather is not climate of course, but 17 years of no global warming – while carbon dioxide emissions have continued to increase – is quite persuasive. Man-made carbon dioxide emissions do not drive climate and are clearly irrelevant.

The alarmists and the doom-mongers need to be held accountable for their “forecasts”.

Hindustan Times: The cold wave tightened its grip over Delhi on Monday as the minimum temperature went as low as 2.4 degrees Celsius in the city’s coldest December in over a decade.

The fall in temperature has been triggered by the biting cold in the Leh and Kargil towns in Jammu and Kashmir. Icy winds blowing from snow-clad mountains into the plains of the Kashmir Valley have also added to the intensity of the cold wave. The two towns, Leh and Kargil, recorded the coldest temperatures of the season on Sunday at -17.3 and -16.4 degrees Celsius respectively. 

According to the Indian Meteorological Department’s website, low temperatures are expected to persist for the next 24-48 hours. Mainly cloudy sky with possibility of rain or thunderstorm is expected on New Year’s eve in Delhi, with the minimum temperature possibly around 7 degrees celsius. 

The weather condition has been similar throughout north India. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar also grappled with cold with Lucknow recording a new low of 1.9 degrees Celsius. In Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar froze at -5.3 degree Celsius while Jammu was at 3.5. In Punjab, the lowest recorded minimum temperature was at 0.8 degrees in Amritsar while Patiala shivered at 2.3 degrees on Monday.

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Australian icebreaker abandons first attempt to reach the global warming pilgrims

December 30, 2013

This was a pilgrimage to the gods of global warming and led by a high priest of the Order of the Melting Poles. But they forgot to placate Uller and seem to have angered the ice-gods.

Ull, sometimes called Uller, ….  was the god of ice and snow, as well as hunters and archery. His following seems to have been overshadowed only by Thor and Odin, as all he had to offer his followers was blizzards and cold. Still, the Norse lived in a subarctic climate, so they tried to placate him instead of follow him. 

The Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis has abandoned its first attempt to reach the tourists on the Akademik Shokalskiy. The 2m+ ice was too thick and threatened to close in behind them and they had to turn back towards open water. The Chinese icebreaker Xue Long was also retreating to open water.

A French icebreaker abandoned its rescue mission on Saturday when it became clear that the ship wouldn’t get any closer than the Chinese boat had. The two remaining icebreakers with one helicopter between them have now to devise a strategy to rescue these irresponsible tourists/pilgrims/idiots led by Chris Turney. The cost according to the SMH is likey to be in the “multi-millions” and according to the Law of the Sea ought to be charged to the operators of this “pleasure” cruise.

pillory

But Turney needs to bear his share. As do the BBC, the Guardian and other media tourists. There is a case to be made for a certain amount of pillorying – maybe by reintroducing the stocks just for Chris Turney. The cover-story of this being a privately funded “scientific expedition” is a travesty. Douglas Mawson must be spinning in his grave at these tourists invoking his name and comparing their luxury cruise with his battles for survival.

From the SMH:

  • The Aurora Australis has abandoned its first attempt to cut through the ice surrounding the stranded Akademik Shokalskiy in Antarctica after moving just two nautical miles. 
  • About 6am, the Aurora’s captain, Murray Doyle, began to manoeuvre the icebreaker through thick wedges of consolidated sea ice. But by 9am [midday Sydney time], the master made the call to turn the ship around and move back into open water. “The ice became too thick for us to penetrate. Some of the floes are up to two metres of ice with a metre of snow on top and very compact. There was just nowhere for us to go.” 
  • Captain Doyle also feared that the 55-kilometre south-easterly wind running up the ship’s stern would blow ice in and around the back of the vessel. “It was pushing those same types of floes in behind us,” he said. “If we got into that compact stuff it would have sealed us in, we would have lost our manoeuvreability and we wouldn’t have been much use to anybody. 
  • A low-hanging fog also hampered rescue efforts. “We had no visibility so we couldn’t really see if there was a way through.” 
  • Captain Doyle had informed the Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Canberra of the situation. 
  • The passengers on the stranded Shokalskiy would likely be evacuated to the Aurora or Chinese icebreaker the Xue Long, which was also in the area. 
  • “It’s now up to us three ships [the Shokalskiy, the Aurora and the Xue Long] to agree on a [rescue] strategy,” Captain Doyle said. While the Xue Long had a helicopter onboard, it was too heavy for the Aurora’s helideck. “We also can’t use the helicopter at the moment because there is no visibility,” he said. “The helicopter wouldn’t be able to differentiate the horizon from the ice.” 
  • The captain planned to wait until the weather cleared before deciding whether to cut another path through the ice. The icebreak was designed to cut through ice floes of about 1.35 metres, not the thick ice built up in Watt Bay, some of which has grown over several years. “It wasn’t all multi-year ice, there was some first-year ice, which can be thick, especially if it’s old first-year ice,” he said. 
  • The Xue Long, which has been waiting near the Mertz Glacier since Boxing Day, was also making its way back to open water. “They’re trying to make it back into open water so they’re not trapped as well,” Captain Doyle said.

That this is no scientific expedition becomes obvious  from the Guardian report that Janet Rice, the Green party senator-elect for Victoria, Australia, who has been on board the ship since it left New Zealand, said: “I understand why people might be concerned, but the feeling today on board the ship is like a summer holiday when the weather is bad, when you’re stuck inside reading books and playing Scrabble. We’ve been assured that we’re in no danger and it’s just a matter of waiting.”

I wonder if the Green party is covering her costs?

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Trapped in the Antarctic ice: Global warming tourists/pilgrims posing as scientists

December 29, 2013

Irony upon irony.

A global warming pilgrimage deserted by their gods.

A climate change opportunist named Turney,

Was the tour guide for an Antarctic journey,

He trapped in the Ice his environmental tourists,

and diverse other journalists and warmists,

For the ice had little time for his dumb theory.

The Antarctic saga continues.

A fossil fuelled cruise ship trapped by heretical Antarctic ice, waiting to be rescued by other fossil fuelled ice breakers or even fossil fuelled aircraft!

Who will pay – I wonder – for the rescue of these pilgrims of the global warming religion?

The Players:

BBC: Antarctic ship: New bid to free vessel trapped in ice

An Australian vessel is en route to East Antarctica in a renewed bid to free a scientific mission ship trapped in dense pack ice since Tuesday.

Earlier rescue attempts by Chinese and French icebreakers were foiled by the thick ice.

However, a BBC correspondent on the Russian research vessel says big cracks have appeared, raising hopes that it may even be able to move on its own.

Seventy-four scientists, tourists and crew are on the Academician Shokalskiy.

The Guardian: Icebound Antarctic passengers face air rescue if ship cannot reach them soon

The arriving icebreaker Aurora Australis is the last chance to open up a passage to open water for Akademik Shokalskiy. 

Passengers aboard the Akademik Shokalskiy, the ship stuck in ice off the coast of Antarctica since Christmas Day, were told on Sunday morning they would have to be evacuated by air if icebreaker ships could not get to them within 48 hours.

The Russian-operated ship has about 50 passengers – including scientists and paying members of the public – and 20 crew on board. It became stuck in the ice near Cape de la Motte in east Antarctica, abouit 1,500 nautical miles from Hobart in Tasmania, after strong blizzards hit the vessel on Christmas Eve. Surrounding pack ice was pushed by strong winds against the Antarctic landmass, pinning the Shokalskiy in place.

On Friday, the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long tried to battle through the thick ice towards the Shokalskiy but had to turn back after 12 hours and within 8.5 nautical miles of the Russian vessel, because the going was too difficult. The Aurora Australis will arrive at the edge of the sea ice, which is about 20 nautical miles from the Russian ship, in the early hours of Monday local time (about 1pm Sunday GMT).

“What we’re depending on is the extra grunt of the Aurora Australis,” said Greg Mortimer, co-leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE), which has chartered the ship. “It’s a more traditional icebreaker hull, which is like a bathtub with a big engine inside it – it can push over the ice and lay down on top and work its way like that.”

This handout image released by the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of New South Wales and taken by Andrew Peacock of www.footloosefotography.com shows the ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy trapped in the ice at sea off Antarctica (27 December 2013)

Tourists pretending to be scientists (image BBC)

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Germany returns to coal – and in a big way

December 29, 2013

Reality strikes.

Reblogged from http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/

By Paul Homewood

image

 

http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2013/11/germany-initiates-new-generation-of-coal-fired-new-builds.html

The new coal fired power plant, which began operations last month in Walsum, along with the one launched in Lunen earlier this month, represent the start of Germany’s new generation of hard coal power stations.

Altogether, ten new hard-coal power stations, of 7,985MW capacity, are scheduled to start producing electricity in the next two years. This is in addition to the two lignite, or brown coal, power stations, with capacity of 2875MW, which came on stream last year.

From PEI:

 A new generation of hard coal-fired power plants has been initiated in Germany with the activation of the 725 MW Walsum facility in Dortmund. 

Steag GmbH started Germany’s first new power plant fuelled by hard coal in eight years, allowing the generator and energy trader to take advantage of near record-low coal prices that have widened profit margins.

While electricity output commenced this week, the plant will begin commercial operations later in the year following “optimization works and testing,” according to an email statement.
It marks the start of Germany’s biggest new-build program for hard coal stations since its liberalization in 1998. Ten new hard-coal power stations, or 7,985 MW, are scheduled to start producing electricity in the next two years, according to information from German grid regulator Bundesnetzagentur and operators.
Coal prices have fallen to their lowest price in four years, making this type of facility extremely attractive from a profitability standpoint.
Generating electricity by burning coal currently makes a profit of 9.16 euros a MW-hour, compared with a loss of 19.31 euros a MW-hour from gas-fired power, according to data compiled by Bloomberg based on next-year German power prices.

The 10 new units will boost German hard coal generation capacity by 33 per cent to 32,432 MW from 24,447 MW as of Oct. 16, regulator data show.

 The Bundesnetzagentur website also lists coal plants due for decommissioning by 2018, and the capacity of these total 1458MW, a much smaller number, so it seems clear that most of the new capacity is intended to replace nuclear.

The combined capacity of the new plants, including the two lignite ones, based on 80% utilisation, will supply 13% of Germany’s total electricity generation.

It is worth comparing this new coal capacity with the UK’s offshore wind capacity, either existing or coming on stream in the next four years. As I pointed out last week, this amounts to 8.2GW, a similar scale given the UK’s lower overall demand. However, rather than supplying regular, reliable power all year round, it will supply, at best, only 40% of this capacity. For this, we will be paying some £3bn a year in subsidies.

In contrast, the new German coal plants are expected to produce a profit of 9 euros/MWh.

It is also worth noting that Germany have a batch of new gas power stations coming on stream, adding capacity of 2.6GW. As neither these, nor the coal plants, will have Carbon Capture fitted, it is difficult to see how Germany will reduce CO2 emissions in the next few years.

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Ironies multiply as rescue ice-breaker is also stuck in Antarctic ice

December 28, 2013

I posted earlier about the irony of the Guardian having to report this story about the lack of the expected melting of ice during the Antarctic summer.

The ironies multiply.

The objective of the tourists, the journalists and the ostensibly “scientific” team was to recreate the journey of Douglas Mawson 100 years ago. They got stuck in 3m thick ice and three ice-breakers have gone to their rescue. The first, a Chinese ice-breaker is now also stuck in the ice. The “scientific” team is led by – wait for it – Chris Turney, a “professor of climate change” at the University of New South Wales in Australia!!

Some immediate questions arise:

  1. Who pays for the rescue ships? (I do hope the Guardian and the BBC and the University of NSW pay their fair share).
  2. If the journey of 100 years ago cannot be retraced because there is more ice now – what does that say about global warming theory and melting polar ice?
  3. What does a professor of climate change do – apart from profess his faith in climate change?
  4. When does “climate change” change from being global warming to global cooling?

CNN reports:

Only at the South Pole: Icebreaker also stuck — in ice — heading for stranded ship

South Pole weather has stymied a rescue by a Chinese icebreaker trying to reach an expedition vessel trapped for the past four days in frozen seas, a ship officer told CNN Friday.

The Chinese icebreaker Xue Long, or Snow Dragon, was just six nautical miles away from the rescue, but now it’s stuck in an Antarctica ice floe, too.

The Chinese crew is hoping a French icebreaker 14 nautical miles away will arrive and offer relief, said Zhu Li, chief officer of the Chinese ship.

But it’s likely the French vessel Astrolabe will also be slowed by the polar cap’s extreme frigidity, Zhu said.

Those two icebreakers — plus a third, from Australia — were battling the planet’s coldest environment in trying to reach the stranded Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy, whose 74 researchers, crew and tourists remained in good condition despite being at a frozen standstill since Monday. …..

Antarctic sea ice is currently at record levels and global sea ice extent is greater than it has been for two decades. It should be noted that few proponents of climate change yet have the courage to state what is really happening but which is politically incorrect. That global warming has stopped and global cooling has begun and that carbon dioxide emissions are largely irrelevant to climate.

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