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Arctic Climate Change Study Canceled Due to Climate Change (livescience.com)

A Canadian expedition to study climate change in the Arctic has been canceled due to climate change. Specifically, the icebreaker CCGS Amundsen had to be cancelled "due to complications associated with the southward motion of hazardous Arctic sea ice," reports University of Manitoba. From the report: This regrettably postpones the much-anticipated Hudson Bay System Study (BaySys) involving 40 scientists from five universities across Canada. Timing was key for this $17 million, four-year, University of Manitoba-led project. The need to deal with extreme ice conditions in the south meant the ship would arrive too late on site to meet research objectives. This year the Expedition Logistics and Science Teams accelerated the mobilization of the 2017 Arctic Expedition to permit departure of the Amundsen six days ahead of schedule. This would allow CCG to carry out critical marine safety and security operations in the unusually severe ice conditions in the Strait of Belle Isle and along the northeast coast of Newfoundland before beginning the Science Mission. Unfortunately, the conditions required much more extended support than anticipated. Fleet management issues and inadequate alternative ships forced the cancellation of the science program due to significant safety concerns. This decision to cancel the BaySys 2017 program was not made lightly. Although the cancellation was due to circumstances beyond control of the Expedition Team, every effort was made to develop a viable option to allow this valuable work to proceed.

3 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Global warming makes ice! by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The ice becoming more mobile to the point of becoming a hazard to navigation was something I've never seen predicted before.

    Well maybe you never saw it, but...

    I took statistics in college and one thing they teach is that not everything has to line up to show a trend.

    Except that this point does fit the trend. Does it really not make sense to you that higher temperatures would make the ice break up into smaller pieces and become mobile? Have you ever seen a lake melt in the spring? It doesn't just melt down into a single little ice cube and vanish; it begins to crack and break up into pieces long before the ice completely melts.

    --
    Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
  2. Re:Global warming makes ice! by shess · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But that doesn't stop the deniers trying to pretend that this is some problem with the concept of global warming.

    Yeah, I pretty much require all predictions to be 100% accurate before I believe any of it at all. For instance, if the weather person says it will rain with 10 mph wind, and there is no wind, do I take an umbrella? Hell no, because once any part of the prediction is wrong I know that all of the prediction will be wrong.

  3. Re:Global warming makes ice! by religionofpeas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the ice is too thick then the ice is too thick and we can call it an outlier, an unexpected weather event, or whatever the case may be. What this is not is "proof" of global warming

    The ice is not too thick. It is too fractured and mobile, and it's being pushed in the shipping channels. Therefore they've cancelled the research mission, so that the ice breaker can be used for search and rescue, as well as escorting ferries and fishing boats.

    They are twisting themselves in knots so that they don't have to admit the irony of a pair of ships being sent out to study thinning ice only to have to turn back because the ice was too thick.

    The only irony is you not reading the article.