I’ve been watching to see if this would become official. It looks like the
Polar Star is on route to help the Snow Dragon.
ALAMEDA – The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star is responding to a Jan. 3rd request from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) to assist the Russian-Flagged Akademik Shokalskiy and Chinese-Flagged Xue Long that are reportedly ice-bound in the Antarctic. The Russian and Chinese Governments have also requested assistance from the United States. – See more at: http://www.uscgnews.com/go/doc/4007/2062390/U-S-Coast-Guard-Cutter-Polar-Star-to-assist-vessels-in-Antarctica-#sthash.vcKia6YQ.dpuf
Jim, who once spent time on the Polar Sea in 1998, was interested to learn her sister ship the Polar Star was back in commission. Evidently, it was reactivated on Dec. 14 after a $90(?) million refurbishing job and was on its way to McMurdo Bay. This little detour is, as we all know, a result of Chris Turney’s brilliantly planned research/tourist venture. Let’s hope the conditions change to permit the Chinese to free themselves before the Polar Star arrives or the Polar Star can get them out without getting itself trapped. Otherwise, maybe we’ll end up seeing one of the Russian nuclear powered ice breakers showing up.
Update: Jan 5.
I’m not going to start a fresh post for this. But here’s a tidbit
Chris Turney, leader of the Shokalskiy’s expedition to retrace the steps of Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson, defended the mission on Sunday.
“The science on the expedition was supported by a number of major research institutions including NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the University of Wisconsin and a host of others,” he said.
Turney said there was a long history of both governmental and private vessels going to the assistance of others in the Antarctic.
The claim that the “science was supported by … NOAA” could span a wide range of support. I can’t help but wonder the extent of NOAA support for either the science, the mission or even decisions about how to carry out the mission. Is it as little as a graduate student or postdoc with a NOAA sponsored fellowship managed to get permission to conduct it on this trip? Or did NOAA do something to formally endorse this mission? Do they ahve any oversight?
Does anyone know?
Per the Russian wiki link: “These ships must cruise in cold water, in order to cool their reactors.[citation needed] As a result, they cannot pass through the tropics to undertake voyages in the Southern Hemisphere.”
It’s just left Sydney and will free the two ships before it heads off to do the task it was meant to , i.e cut access paths for resupplying the Antarctic bases.
The Polar Star is able to continuously break ice up to 1.8 metres while travelling at three knots and can break ice over six metres thick.
Lucia
Over the last month or so I have been reading your blog from the beginning, so to speak, but now I do not see the years listed on the right under Archives. I looks the same on my phone so I don’t think it is me. : (
Thanks for the entertainment and education.
itronix
itronix–
I received a few notes of display errors and turned off the archives plugin as an experiment to see if its that plugin. I’ll be looking for a new one. You can probably find the years and months by just doing addresses like:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/10
lucia (Comment #122259)
I received a few notes of display errors and turned off the archives plugin as an experiment to see if its that plugin. I’ll be looking for a new one. You can probably find the years and months by just doing addresses like:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/10
Thanks!
itronix
Lucia,
Did you see that those Russian ice breakers have already been used for tourist travel to the north pole? Only US$25,000 per person for a three week cruise. So the eco-loons just needed the right boat…. and generous public funding.
SteveF,
Yes. I saw that. When he was on the Polar Sea, Jim said the crew claimed none of the crew on the Russian nuclear ice breakers had any hair. (The implication being radiation. ) Of course we don’t know if that’s true. But the Coast Guard rumor probably wouldn’t be good for attracting tourists.
anonymous,
Thanks! I guess the irony of attempted rescue by both fossil fuel and nuclear fired ice breakers is outside the range of possible.
Lucia,
On second thought, the sciency-eco-tourists would probably prefer to burn a few hundred tons of diesel and add to the CO2 level in the atmosphere than use a nuclear reactor on board their vessel. Everything nuclear is bad you know. Wait, CO2 is bad too! Seems most everything about sciency-eco-tourism is bad!
.
I did some searching for information on Russian nuclear powered vessels; they have had their share of accidents, but mostly submarines; I saw nothing about nuclear accidents in icebreakers.
SteveF (Comment #122277)
January 5th, 2014 at 10:39 am
“On second thought, the sciency-eco-tourists would probably prefer to burn a few hundred tons of diesel and add to the CO2 level in the atmosphere than use a nuclear reactor on board their vessel. Everything nuclear is bad you know.”
There are rather convenient ways to relieve eco-guilt with regards to CO2 emissions created by eco-tourists by, for example, planting trees and purchasing carbon credits. That might require something on the order of planting a forest of trees given the current situation. Nuclear might require other actions to avoid eco-guilt. I would suppose publically fretting about nuclear might work for some while others might require attending a sit in or two protesting the use of nuclear energy.
The World Nuclear Association writes here
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Radiation-and-Health/Nuclear-Radiation-and-Health-Effects/
“Crews of nuclear submarines have possibly the lowest radiation exposure of anyone, despite living within a few metres of a nuclear reactor, since they are exposed to less natural background radiation than the rest of us, and the reactor compartment is well shielded.” Water is a good radiation shield.
A few facts of radiation levels,
Averge radiation near Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan is currently 1.5 mSv/yr.
The average background radiation in North America is 3 mSv/yr.
Exposure by airline crew flying the New York – Tokyo polar route is 9 mSv/yr.
Natural background levels in several places in Iran, India and Europe is 50 mSv/yr.
Long-term safe level for public after radiological incident is 220 mSv/yr.
Natural background level at Ramsar in Iran, with no identified health effects is 250 mSv/yr.
There have been no deaths or cases of radiation sickness from the Fukushima nuclear accident. The tsunami caused over 19,000 deaths. Some 160,000 people were evacuated from their homes resulting in the premature deaths of 1100 people due to stress, and some due to disruption of medical and social welfare facilities.
It is unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future among the general public and the vast majority of workers. 146 emergency workers received radiation doses of over 100 mSv during the crisis. Only six of them had received over 250 mSv.
The allowable short-term dose for emergency workers taking life-saving actions is 500 mSv.
The lowest level at which increase in cancer risk is evident is 100 mSv.
The threshold of a short term dose for causing temporary nausea is 1000 mSv. This dose will also likely cause a fatal cancer years later in 5 % of persons.
SteveF,
The first Russian nuclear icebreaker had two accidents. The reactors were replaced after the 2nd accident due to sledgehammer damage getting to the leak. That ship has since been retired. Don’t know of any others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin_(nuclear_icebreaker)
I swear I did not read this article before posting my comment above.
“Forest needed to cover carbon footprint of icy rescue”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11181470
Kenneth,
With the Polar Star diverted, I think you can add “American” to that list.
For me Turney’s frolic is a modern Quest. Secular, sciencey, but still looking for a Holy Grail. For Turney, the Holy Grail is evidence of AGW. Turney does not have a mere academic/faith-based interest in finding his Grail. He has a great deal of financial motive to find his Grail.
Apparently Dr. Turney was inspired by the vision of a microwaved potato. He noticed that it was charred in manner that led to the idea he could save the world from AGW by microwaving wood chips into something his start up company calls biochar. He has received kudos, and more importantly funding, for his plan to save the world from CO2 by way of microwaved wood chips.
So it would be interesting to know the investment relationships represented on the passenger roster. Not to mention the efficacy of microwaving wood to save the world from CO2 poisoning.
hunter,
I like this whine
The reason most people were unaware of “their work” is that in reality, the notion that lots of people will become aware of the work as a result of his taking along blogging kids, reporters and so on is deluded. People have other interests during the Thanksgiving-Christmas season. Frankly, the entire “recreating Mawson” journey is not that interesting to most ordinary people.
No amount of breathless “this is a privilege” verbiage is going to change the fact that absent getting stuck, the story would ordinarily come of as an uninteresting travelogue. Maybe that’s a “bad thing”, but it’s reality.
I’m guessing if this had been done purely as a travelogue, it would have gone better because the people group would be smaller and they wouldn’t have a zillion competing interests with each “researcher” having their own priority– which if dropped– would likely make the trip nearly entirely unproductive for that researcher trying to fulfill the requirements of his grant!
Re: hunter (Jan 6 07:36),
Adding charcoal to the soil might actually improve soil quality. If you’re going to do carbon sequestration, that is better than, say, pumping CO2 into a salt dome. Using microwave energy to make the charcoal in the first place seems rather pointless, though.
Of course, I’ve thought that for carbon sequestration purposes we shouldn’t recycle paper products at all. We should bury it all in well constructed landfills.
KF,
“There are rather convenient ways to relieve eco-guilt with regards to CO2 emissions created by eco-tourists by, for example, planting trees and purchasing carbon credits. That might require something on the order of planting a forest of trees given the current situation.”
If planting trees is a genuinely sustainable way of off-setting carbon-doom, then why are we worrying about the whole CO2 problem? Just plant some trees. Job done.
Unless it only works for middle class people wanting to justify a jolly.
Pierre Gosselin’s “NoTricksZone” blog has a very sarcastic take on Turney’s latest claim [ as above ] that the MV Akademik Shokalskiy was a Russian “Ice breaker” rather than as has been regularly noted everywhere, it has merely been reinforced for travel in icy conditions.
In short the whole Turney exercise was a badly planned, over hyped, cheapy debacle from end to end with no adequate preparation, a ship not built and equipped for the job, science that was going to be done in three days that took Mawson 3 years and the Australian Antarctic researchers some 30 or more years to do adequately plus being a supposed “dangerous” endeavor where the leader took along his wife and kid and a whole group of on ice partying basket weavers and a milkshake withdrawal case as so called scientists.
And a leader, Turney who failed to heed or deliberately ignored the Captain’s warnings and demands for an immediate return to the ship so as to get underway before they became trapped by the increasing ice.
From the NTZ blog;
“Expedition Fiasco Leader Professor Chris Turney Fibs Yet Again: Now Claims Akademik Shokalskiy Is An “Icebreakerâ€!
http://notrickszone.com/2014/01/06/expedition-fiasco-leader-professor-chris-turney-fibs-again-now-claims-akademik-shokalskiy-is-an-icebreaker/
To quote;
“Turney claims that the ship is an icebreaker when clearly it is not. That’s a falsehood, if not an outright lie. The fact is that the Akademik Shokalskiy is simply reinforced for travel in icy areas and has only the lowly UL rating, meaning it is suitable for “independent navigation in the Arctic in summer and autumn in light ice conditions and in the non-arctic freezing seas all the year round“, see http://www.globalsecurity.org“.
Re; James Evans (Comment #122315)
Sometimes there is little left to do but just laugh at the stupidity of some of the species, Homo sapiens.
From the NZ Herald;
“Forest needed to cover carbon footprint of icy rescue”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11181470
To quote;
The expedition had pledged to plant about 800 kauri trees in Northland to cover its carbon footprint. Environmentalists believe planting trees helps to offset the impact of burning fuels such as diesel.
But former Act Party leader and Herald on Sunday columnist Mr Hide said that would have to increase to about 5000 trees to make up for the fossil fuels burned in the rescue.
Mr Hide said he had come to that figure using online carbon calculators, but admitted he’d had to make some assumptions.
Expedition leader Chris Turney said more trees would be needed than earlier estimated but he was yet to work out how many.
[end]
_________
Of course to plant a few thousand trees somewhere a lot of other CO2 sequestering biological activity will have to be destroyed where the trees are to be planted.
But I guess that doesn’t really matter in the eyes of this lot of green incompetents as the destruction of other bits of probably much better suited to the local environment biological life forms would never register with them as in their ignorance, the planting of trees is the fulfillment of their role as saviours of the planet
ROM (Comment #122335)
January 6th, 2014 at 6:39 pm
My point about the tree planting is that many environmentally inclined people are criticized for the far fling traveling they do and their resulting carbon foot print. In order to avoid bad publicity they say they will plant trees or purchase carbon credits. I would guess that much of this is simply a PR stunt to get the critics off their backs and not to appear as hypocrites and they know that also. Who would ever confirm whether they followed through on these pledges? You could plant trees but who would see that those trees are maintained and grow to maturity – or as you say replace other CO2 consuming plants.
Akademik Shokalskiy is out of the ice:
http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/713874
And Snow Dragon (Xue Long) also:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/chinese-icebreaker-snow-dragon-breaks-free-from-sea-ice-1.2486870
No mention whether the Polar Star was involved in either case.
Great! Earlier on, the ETA for the Polar Star was the 9th. But there was always the possibility that weather would change and the other ships would get themselves out. If they got out on their one: that’s great!
DeWitt Payne said:
Interesting thought. Of course, there are a lot of ways to look at it. If you burn 1000kg of coal and use e.g. 20% of the energy to sequester all the CO2 produced, you’ve supplied some carbon-free energy overall. If you burn 1000kg of coal and grow trees to re-absorb the CO2, which you then sequester as charcoal in the soil, is that more sensible than using 20% of the coal energy to sequester? Is it more efficient? Wouldn’t it have been better just to burn the trees in the first place and leave the coal in the ground? Or, since photosynthesis is only a few percent efficient, wouldn’t it have been even MORE sensible to tear trees down and replace them with PV cells, and still leave the coal in the ground?
Biochar only makes sense to me when it applies to agricultural waste of low fuel value where the logistics of gathering and transporting to a power plant aren’t worth it. Microwaving wood chips is an extraordinarily dumb idea. You have to transport the wood to the microwaves and it’s going to produce a whole load of pyrolysis gas as it chars, including a fair bit of methane. The pyrolysis gas should be used as fuel or it’ll be wasted and act as a greenhouse gas, but if you’ve gone to that much trouble you may as well burn to completion, generate electricity and displace some coal.
Oh we can’t have people actually *using* the soil! Then they might eat, and if they eat, they might not die, and if they don’t die, how can humanity go extinct?
You can follow the Xue Long here
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/
This fiasco is like the Energizer Bunny it just keeps going and going.
The Aurora Australis is now being prevented from unloading their cargo due to winds keeping them 20 miles away from Casey.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=2627
Looks like the Shokalskiy will make it back to NZ before their former passengers.
You can also follow the Aurora Australis at http://www.marinetraffic.com/
Looks like all the heavy breathing about the Spirit of Mawson having to pay for delays to other charterers was wrong. Current situation described as
http://www.cheesemans.com/antarctica_akademik_shokalskiy.html
Also, the point that Akademik Shokalskiy was only ice strengthened and not an icebreaker is weakened by pointing out that there are other charter operators using the same ship for Antarctic expeditions.
That point isn’t weakened by the info at your link which describes the ship as
In fact, it confirms the point that the ship is only ice strengthend and not an ice breaker.
Huh? The issue was raised as an open question about what might happen if they don’t make it back in time because it was currently stuck and getting freed seemed uncertain. The ship getting freed doesn’t turn the initial discussion into a “wrong” statement.
That is (or would be) ironic. 🙂
Eli-
I”m a bit puzzled anyway. Your link says
That suggests the Shokalskiy might still not make it in on time, but the next group chartering thinks it likely will. (They say the timing is tight.) They are going to alert people if it does.
Did you have a more recent update that indicates the Shokalskiy will get in for sure? One hopes so, both to permit the awaiting non-science tourists to take their vacations (in a different region of the pole!) and so that costs and losses don’t escalate.
Has anyone reported which “science” projects went unresearched due to getting stuck? (Just curious.)
OPEN LETTER to PROF CHRIS TURNEY, University of NSW, Sydney
Dear Prof Turney
I am a physics graduate who in recent years has turned his attention to very comprehensive study of climate, climate models and the alleged greenhouse radiative forcing conjecture. I have written to you personally and now make this matter public herein and elsewhere on various climate blogs.
I make the following points …
(1) Any study of temperature records for various inland cities (such temperatures being adjusted for altitude) will reveal that the mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures are lower in the more moist regions, because the greenhouse gas water vapour cools, as does carbon dioxide to a very small extent.
(2) The total solar energy reaching the top of the Venus atmosphere would not be anywhere near enough to raise its surface temperate to about 730K so such cannot be explained by radiative forcing.
My challenge to you is to find anyone with sufficient knowledge of thermodynamics who can in any way support the conjecture that radiative forcing determines planetary surface temperatures.
(This has also been emailed to Prof Turney directly with a note that it is being posted on about 15 climate blogs.)
Point was that the ship is used by others for Antarctic cruises, which means that the Spirit of Mawson expedition was not doing anything out of the ordinary using an ice strengthened ship
Eli,
Did you even read the text at the link you provided? The “point” others wished to make was that the ship was taken into regions it ordinarily would not be taken. And that point they wished to make is supported by your link:
In contrast, the point you are trying to make is not supported by your link!
“In contrast, the point you are trying to make is not supported by your link!”
.
This is what politically motivated wabbits do….. anything, no matter how stupid, in support of ‘the cause’.
Lucia (#122463): “That suggests the Shokalskiy might still not make it in on time, but the next group chartering thinks it likely will. (They say the timing is tight.) ”
The Mawson trip was scheduled to return to NZ on Jan. 4. With the next trip leaving on the 18th, there was a fortnight available to prepare — refuel, take on food (& booze!), do whatever maintenance is necessary, perhaps give the crew a break. The itinerary allocated 7 days to return, including some sightseeing at Snares Island. If the Shokalskiy left Antarctica on the 7th and kept to the same schedule, they’d make port by the 14th, and would have around 4 days to get the ship ready for its next voyage.
On the plus side, the stewards (at least) will have already had a break.
Aurora Australis still hasn’t made port in Casey. It’s still cruising back and forth at about 6 knots. Still too windy I guess.
Ship track here. May have to adjust zoom slider down to view track.
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:109.8861/centery:-66.29276/zoom:8/mmsi:503043000
Somebody had some fun with this:
https://twitter.com/GalileoMovement/status/419365230808793088
Shokalskiy is due back at Bluff on Jan 14 2000 UTC, per this. Which would be the morning of the 15th in NZ, if I haven’t messed up the conversion. So they have 3 full days before the passengers for the next cruise are scheduled to board on the 18th.
Akademik Shokalskiy has arrived in Bluff NZ, as of around 2000 UTC Jan 13.
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/273458210
There has been no end of self service nonsense in this whole thing. For example, whooda thunk that the Aurora Australis got stuck in the ice for three weeks into December which was the major set back for the Aussie Antarctic expedition. And oh yes, ships with birders on them get stuck, and hey what, it’s chartered by a company that hires the noted go to Antarctic explorer Headland
Eli,
I have no idea what your point is. Does this some how make it “not stuck” when trying to rescue Turley? Or does it mean equipment and provisions not dropped off when Turley needed to be rescued were somehow magically not delayed because birders also got stuck?
Eli,
This may come as a shock to you. But if I click the link to http://www.antarctica.gov.au/media/news/2013/aurora-australis-back-home-after-delay-in-icy-seas from the blog you site as your authority, the final bit discussing the side trip to rescue the ‘birders’ reads
That is: the majority of projects are unaffected.
In contrast, if you read what it says after the Aurora Australis got stuck for Turley’s rescue it reads amongh other things:
Programs were interrupted due to the rescue of Turley. Based on complaints of scientists in Antarctica, it appears a number are disgruntled by the Turley incident. It remains to be seen how this all plays out, but I have no idea why you think the ship changing schedule due to the birders somehow means the scientists in Antarctica can’t be upset about Turley, nor why it means we aren’t permitted to notice they are upset at Turley.
Might the also be unhappy with the birders? Sure. Or maybe not. Ask the French guy. He seemed like someone who will provide interesting quotes. I’ll take French or English. Happy with either.
Just checked marinetraffic.com. Akademik Shokalskiy left Bluff NZ on the afternoon of the 18th, which was the scheduled date of its next cruise. So there seems to be no loss on that account.