Tag Archives: GWCABBWSC

The Great White Con Arctic Basin Big Wave “Fantasy?” Surfing Contest

The Great White Con 2015 “New Einstein” Award

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As regular readers will have realised by now, we are subject to a continuing barrage of verbal abuse as we fearlessly pursue our goal of telling the truth about the Arctic whatever the obstacles. Following the latest such episode we have consulted our learned counsel and decided to publish the spiciest episodes here. By the time August 2015 draws to a close a poll of our loyal reader(s) will determine which of our utterers of undeleted expletives will be awarded a wild card entry into the 2015 Great White Con Arctic Basin Big Wave Surfing Contest.

Here are the contestants so far this year:

1) Tony (“Steve Goddard”) Heller, with:

I’m amazed you have the gall to show up around here, after saying I should be jailed for accurately reporting and predicting Arctic ice.

Pathetic and quite psychotic Jim. And the NASA press release said nothing about uncertainty or satellites.

World class wanker

 

2) David (“Climate of Hate“) Rose, with:

3) Roger (“TallBloke”) Tattersall, UKIP’s Yorks and North Lincs Energy and Climate Change spokesman and prospective parliamentary candidate for Pudsey, with:

 

4) Gail Combs, regular commenter at unReal Science amongst other places, with:

Jim, How does it feel to be morally responsible for the deaths of thousands of people a year?


Please feel free to speculate about the ultimate outcome of this exciting new competition in the space provided for such purposes below!

David Cameron Practices for Big Wave Surfing Contest

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Shock News! It has recently been brought to our attention by the online version of the Western Morning News (WMN for short), our local daily newspaper, that the once Great Britain’s current Prime Minister (GBPM for short) has been secretly training for next week’s Arctic Basin big wave surfing contest just down the road from here in North Cornwall! According to the WMN:

David Cameron let criticism of his Cornish holiday wash over him today as he hit the waves. Today he spent the afternoon riding the waves on the beach at Polzeath, surrounded by ordinary holidaymakers. Mr Cameron took to the water in a three quarter-length wet suit and brightly-coloured bodyboard. He was accompanied by a detective who kept a discreet watch on him from the shallows.

Despite the discreet detective an intrepid paparazzo braved the pounding Polzeath surf and managed to grab this shot of Mr. Cameron in action:

DaveSponging

The next obvious question, to us here in the Great White Con Ivory Towers at least, is whether Dave would prefer to wear neoprene or fur for the competition next week. Which do you think suits him best?

In the meantime the surf on Barrow beach is building:

and even as we speak a pulse of swell has blasted past Point Barrow and is currently heading straight for the Beaufort Sea Marginal Ice Zone.

alaska.hs.f009h-20140824

A Few Players Short of a Great Green Con Surf Team

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Shock News! Over in the denialosphere at the (un)Real Science blog I’ve been challenged to yet another Arctic sea ice bet. This one now seems to be signed and sealed, but will probably have to wait a few years before it is delivered:

Them:

Have you come up with the terms of our bet yet? I have yet to find one single alarmist willing to bet their house on an ice free Arctic at any time over the next 20 years, I may have to extend to 30 years, though the amount of cigarettes I smoke, I doubt I will be around that long.

Us:

Having personally discussed the matter with Rear Admiral Jon White:

http://econnexus.org/the-economist-being-economical-with-the-truth-about-climate-change/

and having since publicly stated that I’m more pessimistic than him, how about $1000 in favour of ShelterBox on CT area < 1 mio square kilometers by the summer of 2022 at the latest?

Them:

$1000 on CT area being less than 1 million square kilometres at some point between now and 2022 sounds fine to me, we have a bet. Remember, this is where to send your $1000

http://www.chas.org.uk/how_we_help_families/our_hospices/rachel_house

Meanwhile I’ve been trying to find someone, anyone, willing to don a polar bear suit and then stand up on a surf board. I have yet to find one single “skeptic” willing to accept my challenge to become part of the “Great Green Con” Arctic surf team.  First in line for an invitation was “Steve Goddard” (AKA Tony Heller):

Them:

Within a week, a cyclone will be spreading Arctic sea ice, and extent will flat line or increase.

Us:

I’m following that cyclone with much interest too Tony! What’s your Arctic surf forecast?

https://greatWhiteCon.info/2014/08/the-arctic-surf-forecast-for-late-august-2014/

Do you fancy joining the GGC team?

Them:

[Abject silence]

Meanwhile over on Twitter Matt Ridley has been having a “debate” with Bob Ward about Bob’s latest article in the New Statesman:

Us:

 

Them:

[Abject silence]

Whilst we wait for a “skeptic” willing to stop doing a chicken impression and start impersonating a polar bear to reveal themself, how is the surf in the Chukchi Sea coming along?  There are already some signs of a building swell to be seen. The US icebreaker USCGC Healy is currently bobbing about on a modest swell off Barrow:

Healy-20140822-1801_595

Whilst onshore a modest wave can currently be seen breaking on Barrow beach:

ABCam_20140822_1137

Here’s what that swell looks like on the WaveWatch III nowcast:

alaska.hs.h000h-20140822Meanwhile the cyclone brewing in the Arctic is now forecast to have a central pressure below 990 mb next week, by GFS at least:

gfsnh-0-114-20140822

We’ll keep you posted!

The Arctic Surf Forecast For Late August 2014

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Regular readers adept at reading between lines may already have concluded that here in the Great White Con Ivory Towers we have been surreptitiously organising the world’s first ever Arctic Basin Big Wave Fantasy Surfing Contest (or GWCABBWFSC for short). Today we are proud to announce that the long waiting period may now be almost over!

Here is the long range Arctic weather forecast from GFS 192 hours from now (courtesy of MeteoCiel):

gfsnh-0-192-20140819

and here is the ECMWF equivalent:

ECH1-192-20140819

There looks to be a certain amount of agreement there, so now let’s take a look at ECMWF for T+240h:

ECH1-240-20140819

If the forecast pans out (a very big IF this far out!) there’s an Arctic storm brewing with the isobars packed tight over all the open water in the Laptev Sea, pushing the potential swell through the East Siberian Sea and on into the Beaufort Sea before it crashes against the northernmost shores of North America.

We fondly imagine a Great White Con team containing the likes of Andrew Cotton:

Garrett McNamara:

and Maya Gabeira:

taking on the biggest waves ever recorded on camera off Alaska’s North Slope, each clad in their respective sponsors’ thickest, finest neoprene.

The opposing “Great Green Con” team will be composed of volunteers from amongst the serried ranks of fiddlers with the facts on Fleet Street such as Andrew Neil, David Rose and Christopher Booker, all clad in matching Polar Bear suits to keep the cold Arctic waters at bay:

SurfBearTo coin a phrase oft used in this particular portion of the blogosphere:

We’ll keep you posted!

The World’s Leading Arctic Surfing Expert

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I left the “Self styled” bit out of today’s title, which would have otherwise have been too long for comfort! With all due modesty I do in fact have lots of hard evidence to back my claim. By way of example, here’s a copy of a recent conversation over at “Steve Goddard’s” (un)Real Science blog, but with all the expletives and (most of the) ad homs deleted:

Them:

SurfBearCould global warming bring surfing to the Arctic? – Telegraph Blogs

I’m afraid this by now iconic “photoshopped” image of a surfing polar bear culled from Geoffrey Lean’s blog at the Daily Telegraph strikes all Arctic surfing experts,  yours truly included, as nothing more that a piss poor piss take (or PPPT for short)!

 

Us:

As the current “silver” surfer in residence here, perhaps I should point out that this subject is very dear to my heart. The surfing not the bears!

For a photoshopless video of things to come see Red Bull’s “Surfing in Alaska”:

 

Them:

Hats off to you guys (and beautiful girl)! I got cold just watching it!

 

Us:

Hats off to Maya certainly. Far more balls than most men, and (conventionally) beautiful with it.

http://stabmag.com/an-interview-with-maya-gabeira-about-drowning-at-nazare/

 

Them:

Numpty alert! [Etymology: Numpty first surfaced on the terraces of west of Scotland football grounds, many, many years ago. A player who couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a shovel would be a f***ing numpty. “Awww Jimmy you f************ing numpty!! You couldnae score wi’ ma’ sister!”]

Three numpties on one thread; is this a record? Could it be due to global warming?

 

Us:

Cotty tames the waves that almost killed Maya. Paxo interviews him about the experience!

Numpty alert?

Time passes…..

Another surf vid. This one is much more low key. It captures the mellow vibe of a midwinter session somewhere on the North Devon coast:

The Beach – Episode 1 from Jim L. Hunt on Vimeo.

http://econnexus.org – In which Ralph Freeman, bassist for the Universe Inspectors and British big wave surfer extraordinaire, catches a short ride at Putsborough Beach 18 months after suffering a broken neck whilst surfing low tide Croyde.

It’s great to see a local legend apparently back to full fitness after his injuries.

That was the first time I ever saw Ralph Freeman in action on his trademark bright yellow board, but it wasn’t the last!

Finally, for today at least, here’s a video that Tony Heller and his band of merry (mostly) men have not thus far been privy too. The Red Bull record of the day Maya Gabeira drowned and then Carlos Burle brought her back to life:

 

P.S.

Time passes…..

In conclusion, here’s the conclusion of the University of Washington paper, that for some strange reason neither Tony or Geoffrey mentioned:

“It is possible that the increased wave activity will be the feedback mechanism which drives the Arctic system toward an ice-free summer. This would be a remarkable departure from historical conditions in the Arctic, with potentially wide-ranging implications for the air-water-ice system and the humans attempting to operate there.”

 

Them:

Translation…

Surfs up!

 

Us:

Quite so! Some associated technology testing:


 

Them:

We’ll keep you posted!