Assploding irony alert.
(9 News) — An Antarctic rescue mission has suffered a setback after a Chinese icebreaker had to abandon its bid to free a ship stranded in sea ice.
A group of Australian scientists, explorers and tourists has been stuck on the Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy since Christmas Day.
The ship, with 74 people on board, sent a distress call after becoming trapped in heavy sea ice, which has continued to expand around it over the past three days near Antarctica.
Three ice-breaking ships were sent to free the stranded vessel, located more than 1500 nautical miles south of Hobart.
China’s Snow Dragon icebreaker was the first to arrive and rammed through much of the sea ice until it came within six-and-a-half nautical miles of the stranded vessel.
But in a setback to the rescue mission, the icebreaker had to turn back on Saturday after it, too, encountered heavy sea ice that threatened the ship’s own safety.
“It can’t break through any further,” said Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) spokeswoman Andrea Hayward-Maher.
Via WUWT:
The expedition is being led by Chris Turney, “climate scientist”, who has “set up a carbon refining company called Carbonscape which has developed technology to fix carbon from the atmosphere and make a host of green bi-products, helping reduce greenhouse gas levels.” The purpose of the expedition is “to discover and communicate the environmental changes taking place in the south.”
Via NTZ:
The metaphor just couldn’t be more fitting: desperate true believers of global warming/accelerating polar ice melt now find themselves trapped by thousands of square kilometers of summertime sea ice that wasn’t supposed to be there.
No picture could better symbolize and communicate the intellectual bankruptcy and disillusionment of a faithful group who refuse to believe they have been led astray. This has to be deeply embarrassing, if not outright humiliating.
It’s reported here that many of the climate science boatpeople are actually from renowned media outlets, like The Guardian, who we can safely assume were onboard hoping to capture dramatic images of vast areas of open sea water, or of calving ice sheets with hundreds of tons of ice breaking off and plunging into the sea hourly. And with a little luck, maybe even some photos of a couple of drowned penguins.