Tag Archives: North Pole

The 2 Degrees North Pole Expedition

Expeditions, , , , , , , , ,

2Dgrees
An experienced team of polar explorers set off on April 4th intending to ski from a latitude of 88° North to 90° North, better known as the North Pole!

According to the expedition’s web site those 2 degrees of latitude are symbolic of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreement in Paris to “hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels”, and are thus part of the expedition’s name.

Here’s the team of Bernice Notenboom, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels pictured shortly before departing on their arduous journey via the Russian Barneo ice camp near the North Pole:

2DgreesTeam

Apart from hauling their sleds across some very challenging terrain they will also be doing lots of “citizen science” en route, including stopping regularly to measure the depth of snow covering the sea ice:

2 Degrees Snow Depth. Photo: Martin Hartley
Photo: Martin Hartley

As part of that scientific mission the NASA Operation IceBridge Orion P3 aircraft overflew the team, and amongst other things took this picture:

Photo: NASA
Photo: NASA

Bernice announced on the 2 Degrees expedition’s blog this morning that:

A milestone today – skied 1/2 degree of latitude.

Victor Serov who I call into every night with our position is really happy with our progress: ” You are doing very well Bernice and you are doing science” is his encouraging response every time I call in.

I imagine he is sitting in a tent in Barneo with a giant map, North Pole in the middle, and plotting all routes towards the pole. Each team on the ice has to call in coordinates at night so if something happens, they are standby with 2 MI8 helicopters to assist. Like yesterday somebody had to get evacuated because of frostbite.

To get a compliment from a Russian scientist who has spend a year in Vostok in Antarctica [coldest place on earth] as well as being an accomplished polar explorer, we should be proud of ourselves to have skied 1/4 of the way on day 5. But it hasn’t come easy. The half degree has been really hard work temperatures dipped to -41C too cold to film, do science, all we can do is keep moving until we need to eat and drink.

The sleds weigh over 80 kilo’s and new pains and aches show unexpectedly in places you don’t want them, like my back. On the odd break, I would get the notebook out, jot down the GPS position while Ann pokes into the snow and yells the various snow depths to me. The rest of the day we are doing cold management: toes we don’t feel anymore and need nurturing or placing your thumb between the fingers to warm them up inside your mitt, and worse letting your arm hang so the blood can race back to the extremities.

If you are cold all blood flows to your heart and core to protect it, so to call it back is playing a trick with your mind. Despite this careful nursing, I still end up with frost nip on all fingers. I now need to be extra careful with exposure to cold.

Meanwhile Ann Daniels published this image of the sort of terrain they’ve been crossing on her Twitter feed:

Ann Daniels 20170409 Photo: Martin Hartley
Photo: Martin Hartley

The expedition’s current position is reported as as 88.52 N, 147.75 E. Only another 1 1/2 degrees to go! As this map of the drift of the Barneo ice camp shows, the winds are currently somewhat in the team’s favour:

Barneo-Drift-20170408

Every little helps!

Santa Extends His Secret Summer Swimming Pool

Satire, , ,

The Swedish icebreaker Oden and the Canadian icebreaker Louis S. St. Laurent recently met up at the North Pole on a joint scientific expedition. To be more precise the Oden’s Captain’s log recorded her position at 11:03 UTC on August 22nd as N 89° 59,998´ W 046° 40,558´.

Take a look at who was waiting for them:

santa-pole-201608

and then take a look at his newly extended swimming pool:

oden-pole-20160828

What could be more refreshing after a long voyage than a quick dip followed by a Piña colada by the pool?

swim-pole-201608

Santa’s secret summer swimming pool is obviously big enough this year to accommodate all the icebreakers and nuclear submarines on the planet. All his little helpers have a giant pool of their very own too:

NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole on September 8th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole on September 8th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite

Could Northabout Sail to the North Pole?

Satire, , , , , , , ,

No is the obvious answer just at the moment, since the plucky little yacht is currently parked at a pontoon in Tuktoyaktuk. However actual facts aren’t sufficient to stop Tony Heller suggesting that Andrew Freedman suggested on Mashable that Mark Serreze of the NSIDC said that such a feat is feasible:

Mark “Arctic Is Screaming” Serreze says the Ship of Fools could sail to the North Pole.

Tony (AKA (m)Alice) attempts to justify his scurrilous allegation by referencing Andrew’s recent article entitled “After unusual Arctic storms, sea ice coverage in region is plummeting“. According to Andrew:

In an interview with Mashable, Serreze said sea ice coverage across the different regions of the Arctic has fallen dramatically in association with a series of unusually powerful summertime Arctic storms during August.

That much is certainly true, as we here at Great White Con have documented in detail. Mr. Heller however highlights this section of Mr. Freedman’s article:

In fact, if they want to, the Hempleman-Adams and the rest of the ship’s crew could actually sail nearly all the way to the North Pole, since sea ice cover is largely absent to about 86 degrees north, according to Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.

It’s not out of the question that the North Pole will become a geographical marker in open water, rather than ice cover, sometime in the next few weeks.

Serreze called this situation “pretty darned unusual.”

Let’s examine the facts about this “pretty darned unusual” situation shall we? Here is the latest high resolution AMSR2 visualisation of Arctic sea ice concentration:

Arc_20160902_res3.125

Can you see the stretch of open water leading all the way from the East Siberian Sea, where Northabout was a couple of weeks ago, to 86 degrees north? Apparently Tony Heller and his faithful followers cannot! Not only that, but also supposedly:

A NASA image [shows that] the North Pole is indeed encased in Thick ice right now.

Here’s a (somewhat foggy) NASA image of the North Pole right now:

NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the North Pole on September 3rd 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the North Pole on September 3rd 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite

and for good measure here’s a (somewhat foggy) NASA image from 86 degrees north in the Central Arctic Basin right now:

NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the Central Arctic on September 3rd 2016, derived from the VIIRS sensor on the Suomi satellite
NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the Central Arctic on September 3rd 2016, derived from the VIIRS sensor on the Suomi satellite

Need I say more?

 

[Edit – September 4th]

Today Terra offers a glimpse of the Greenland side of the North Pole:

NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the North Pole on September 4th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the North Pole on September 4th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite

 

[Edit – September 5th]

Today Aqua offers us a view of what’s left of the sea ice on the Siberian side of the North Pole:

NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole on September 5th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole on September 5th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite

 

[Edit – September 9th]

SHOCK NEWS!!!

Tony Heller has just posted an accurate image of the state of the sea ice near the North Pole! Here it is:

unreal-pole-20160908

The accompanying text is nonsense of course:

The Ship Of Fools is facing a -10C weather forecast in five days, which would be impassable. They better put their fossil fuel powered pedal to the metal and get out of there fast, so that they can go back to Bristol and lie about the ice.

Meanwhile, professional fraudster Mark Serreze said last week they could sail to the North Pole

Needless to say Tony doesn’t provide a link to his source. Try this one and then have a good look around on NASA Worldview.

 

[Edit – September 10th]

Lord Soth on the Arctic Sea Ice Blog mentions this image of the 2016 version of Santa’s secret summer swimming pool:

More Heat Heading for the North Pole

Temperature, , , , , ,

We speculated a few days ago about whether the “Son of Storm Frank” might have battered Britain by now, and be sending a 10 meter swell past Svalbard towards the Arctic sea ice edge. That’s not quite how things have worked out in practice however! We haven’t had another named storm affecting the United Kingdom directly, but we have received a series of long distance swells from a sequence of hurricane force storms further out in the North Atlantic. I even managed to test my Arctic surfing equipment by personally partaking in the swell generated by Hurricane Alex!

Moving from the water into the air, here’s the Danish Meteorological Institute’s forecast for Greenland tomorrow:

Greenland-20160123+24h

If you’re at all familiar with isobars you’ll note yet another storm off Southern Greenland and that comparatively warm, moist air will be heading up the east coast of Greenland towards the Fram Strait, albeit not at the speeds generated by Storm Frank! As a consequence here is Climate Reanalyzer’s surface temperature anomaly map for first thing tomorrow:

CCI-AnomT-20160123+24h

and here is how it looks by Wednesday lunchtime:

CCI-AnomT-20160123+108h

As you can see, the ultimate effect of the recent hurricane force storms in both the Atlantic and the Pacific is to attack the Arctic with warm, moist air from both sides. Whilst we wait to see exactly how this much shorter term forecast pans out, particularly at the North Pole itself, the DMI’s graph of temperatures in the central Arctic has burst back into life after a “brief hiatus” in the New Year. Here’s how it looks at the moment:

DMI-T80N-20160123

North Pole Webcam Begins Transmissions

Webcams, , , , , ,

Construction of Ice Camp Barneo 2014 began close to the North Pole at the beginning of April, and now the first scientific data has started flowing  from the sea ice near the Pole. The first of three webcams has been successfully  installed on the ice, and the slightly noisy initial images are available from the North Pole Environmental Observatory 2014 web site:

NPEO webcam 1 image from April 14th 2014
NPEO webcam 1 image from April 14th 2014

Data is now also arriving from ice mass balance buoy 2014E, which as you can see if you click on the pushpins on the map below, has been drifting at the rate of 16 km / day during its brief lifetime on the Arctic sea ice so far:

Here’s the initial temperature profile for 2014E:

Temperature profiles for ice mass balance buoy 2014E from April to May 2014At present the ice on the floe is 1.7 m thick, covered with 19 cm of snow. As you can see, temperatures were a touch chilly when the buoy was installed on April 12th, at around -32 degrees Celsius. A variety of expeditions have already set off from Barneo in various directions. Expedition Hope are heading in the direction of Cape Discovery on Ellesmere Island, and here Bernice Nootenboom illustrates the effects of such low temperatures on the human body:

Bernice Nootenboom near the North Pole. Photo: Martin Hartley
Bernice Nootenboom near the North Pole. Photo: Martin Hartley

You can also view data from IMB 2014E and the other active ice mass balance buoys on our IMB overview page.

 

How Many Subs In Santa’s Swimming Pool?

Concentration, , , , , , , , ,

An extract from a  discussion about submarines surfacing at the North Pole, courtesy of Steven Goddard’s “Real Science” blog. One of us must be blind!

Them:

Hey spambot, what is this picture of?

USS Skate (SSN-578) made submarine history on 11 August 1958 when it became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole
USS Skate (SSN-578) made submarine history on 11 August 1958 when it became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole

Us:

It would seem to be the USS Skate on 11 August 1958 when it became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole. What is this picture of?

NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole area on September 2nd 2013

NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole area on September 2nd 2013, derived from bands 1, 4 and 3 of the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite

Them:

Frozen ice. What is my prize?

And basically yours is just a snipe hunt. Mine disproves your hysteria.

Us:

No prize I’m afraid. The correct answer is vast areas of open ocean. Plenty of room for every submarine on the planet.

Them:

Sorry, there is no open water. Check your picture again. So you are reneging? Typical.

Us:

I have checked again, and I still see lots of open water underneath a thin veil of cloud. Perhaps you should arrange a hasty visit to an optician? Luckily microwaves can see through clouds, even if you cannot. Here’s another satellite image of the North Pole area from September 2nd 2013, this time a University of Hamburg visualisation of data from the AMSR2 sensor on board the Japanese SHIZUKU satellite.

AMSR2 image of the North Pole area on September 2nd 2013

AMSR2 image of the North Pole area on September 2nd 2013

The circle is 85 degrees North. How many subs do you suppose will fit into Santa’s secret summer swimming pool?

Them:

You have X-ray vision? I am sorry! I did not realize you were stuper girl! Want to try again? This time with normal vision.

BTW. for the SLOOOOOW learners. 85 North +/= North pole. The North Pole is WITHIN 85 North. But it is NOT 85 North.

The Skate is at 90 North. The NORTH POLE.

You may have x-ray vision, but you still cannot read a map. neither picture shows open water AT the north pole.

How many submarines are on the planet Snowy? better recheck your figures. They are not tinker toys.

Us:

You’re a hard man to please Phil! Feast your eyes on this picture instead then:

NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole area on August 28th 2013, derived from bands 1, 4 and 3 of the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite

NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole area on August 28th 2013, derived from bands 1, 4 and 3 of the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite

Them:

We’ll keep you posted!