Posts Tagged ‘Chris Turney’

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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!!

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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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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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