More like frozen in ice.
"The expedition is retracing some of the travels and replicating some of the studies of the Australian geologist Douglas Mawson, who first explored East Antarctica from 1911 to 1914"
And 100 years later the passage is frozen?!?!
PPFFFFFFFFFFTTT!
"Helicopter set to pluck 56 from iced-in ship; Most of crew will remain on vessel in Antarctic sea" by Henry Fountain | New York Times, December 31, 2013
NEW YORK — Passengers and some crew members aboard a research ship that has been stuck in thick Antarctic ice for nearly a week will be evacuated by helicopter, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday.
The ministry said in a statement that because icebreakers had been unable to clear a path to the chartered Russian ship, the Akademik Shokalskiy, a helicopter aboard one of the icebreakers would be used to ferry 52 scientists, graduate students, journalists, and tourists and four crew members to safety when weather permits....
High winds and snow early Monday forced an Australian icebreaker to abandon its attempt to reach the icebound ship. A Chinese icebreaker failed in a similar attempt on Saturday; it carries the helicopter that will be used in the evacuation....
Can't Greenpeace help?
The 233-foot Shokalskiy became stuck in the ice last Tuesday when strong winds pushed loose pack ice up against it near Cape de la Motte, about 1,700 miles south of Hobart, Tasmania. The Shokalskiy is carrying the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, scientists and tourists who are studying changes in the environment of East Antarctica in the century since the region was first explored.
The Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis, which had been diverted from a supply mission to the Australian Antarctic base, Casey Station, reached the area early Monday, entered the pack ice, and got within 12 miles of the Shokalskiy, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, but the authority said in a statement that poor visibility due to the snow and winds of up to 35 miles per hour made it unsafe for the icebreaker to continue. It is now in open water about 20 miles away, the authority said.
The Xue Long was about two months into a five-month Chinese Antarctic expedition when it was asked to help with the rescue....
The expedition, including 20 tourists, set sail from Bluff, New Zealand, on Dec. 8 on what was to be a monthlong voyage. The expedition is retracing some of the travels and replicating some of the studies of the Australian geologist Douglas Mawson, who first explored East Antarctica from 1911 to 1914....
That's about the same time the Titanic went down at the other end of the world.
Even though it is summer in the Antarctic, waiting for the ice to break up on its own is not an option, said Chris Turney, a leader of the research expedition and a professor of climate change at the University of New South Wales in Australia, in an earlier phone interview from the ship, because of the risk that the ship could drift along with the ice and collide with one of several icebergs in the area.
Summer there, huh? Isn't that when ice is supposed to be melting?
Relating: Icing Over Global Warming
Good thing the fart mi$t is hot.
Since the ship became stuck, Turney and others have been a regular presence on Twitter and other social media sites. Some have made short videos describing their experiences.
Turney said that some of the people aboard had gone onto the ice to study birds and to make other scientific observations, and that others had occupied themselves on board with ad hoc classes in subjects like knot tying.
See any eagles?
And a steady diet of films has been available to help pass the time, he said.
See: Taxpayer Dollars Put to Good Use
“At first, people were starting to watch disaster movies,” Turney added. “But I had to stop that.”
Now it is mostly comedies, although episodes of the hit series “Breaking Bad” have been popular, too.
Oh, great. A meth house that is cool!
--more--"
"California marks 2013 as historically dry year" by Alicia Chang | Associated Press, January 01, 2014
LOS ANGELES — A swath of California closed out 2013 with its driest year on record, marked by above-normal temperatures and thirsty reservoirs.
Are you tired of the Globe farting in your face yet?
Although a drought has not been declared, some communities urged residents to conserve water.
I don't think water should be wasted, but I don't think government has your best interests at heart anymore. Using less water means more for them.
Dozens of cities saw historically parched conditions this year, setting new marks in record-keeping that in some cases dates back more than a century...
So says government, the same government telling you Fukushima radiation is not a problem.
December is typically one of the wettest months, but a stubborn dome of high pressure has steered storms away from California for the past month.
So they say.
--more--"
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
The rescue was closely followed around the world
Winds, tide, freezing temperatures mark first storm of 2014
Boston’s snow czar leaving post today
He's abandoning you, Boston. I'm not reading any of that stuff because I lived it. Sorry.
Related:
Nor’easter may bring up to 14 inches of snow
UPDATE: Officials warn of extreme temperatures
More than 600 brave cold in South Boston Polar Bear Plunge
Where all the fart-misters? Shouldn't they be taking a swim?
I'll stick with blogging as long as I can today, readers. Pray God we don't lose power. That's the only thing worth praying to these days; power companies, our puppet-ma$ters, and their $tring-pullers are out.
UPDATE: All 52 passengers rescued from ship trapped in Antarctic ice
"The scientists on that ship were funded to prove that
global warming is melting the Antarctic ice, so they sailed on down
there for the start of summer in the Southern hemisphere because one can
be assured of plenty of photos and videos of melting ice to please
their financial backers as summer sets in!
Or so they thought.
The only reason the thick ice was
"unexpected" is because these so-called scientists believe in the dogma
of St. Al of the Gore and his first church of Human-Caused Global
Warming. For those of us outside the Climategate cult and not paid to
see warming everywhere (even when it does not exist) it has not escaped
out notice that since the March 20, 2000 UK Independent headline
proclaimed that "Snowfalls are not just a thing of the past"
we have had several record-setting winters in a row, and the actual
evidence is that a decline in solar activity is taking Earth into a new
Maunder Minimum and with it a little ice age.
One would think that if stopping global
warming were the real goal all along, the scientists would look at all
the snow and ice, declare victory, and move on to other pursuits. But
the real agenda behind the hysteria about human-caused global warming is
to trick the public into paying carbon taxes and buying carbon credits,
with the brokers of these paper commodities (including Al Gore
himself) becoming insanely rich in the process. This is why even as
another heavy snowstorm settles in over the East Coast, we see a story in today's UK Telegraph about how scientists are declaring that global warming is speeding up and the world is doomed (unless of course we all agree to pay carbon taxes and buy carbon credits)." -- Whatreallyhappened
Also see: In the icy grip of fear that global warming is claptrap
