Crossing the Arctic in a CT

[Ed Cesnalis]

With a million square miles of new sea ice in the Arctic this year a crossing in a CT on skis should be easy. Any takers?

 

 

67% Increase In Arctic Ice Extent Since Last Year http://stevengoddard...ince-last-year/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Doug G.]

Looks like a political post in CT clothing.

I wonder where the rise in the oceans is coming from if the ice is not melting overall? Of course thin ice on top does not mean an increase in ice, but an increase in ice cover. I don't think I would land on it though. (I am aware of an Alaskan village - Shishmaref - that has had to move because of the encroaching water.)

 

A bit more on topic for the forum - Are skis approved for the CT? I have never seen a reference to this at all.

[Ed Cesnalis]

Ice overall has been melting for 12,000 years, everyone agrees on that.

 

Noting that there is a new 1,000,000 square miles of ice this summer isn't political. Predictions were for an ice-free arctic in 2013 and instead there is now ice from Canada to Russia.

 

The new IPCC report just leaked and even it is 'Dialing Back the Alarm on Climate Change' http://online.wsj.co...2485712464.html

 

I don't know if FD has issued any LOAs for compound skis but I should would like to try some.

 

Crossing the arctic is at least an entertaining thought exercise.

[sandpiper]

Looks like a political post in CT clothing.

I wonder where the rise in the oceans is coming from if the ice is not melting overall? Of course thin ice on top does not mean an increase in ice, but an increase in ice cover. I don't think I would land on it though. (I am aware of an Alaskan village - Shishmaref - that has had to move because of the encroaching water.)

 

A bit more on topic for the forum - Are skis approved for the CT? I have never seen a reference to this at all.

 

I'm not sure rising oceans are the problem (or at least not the whole problem)at Shishmaref and theirs is not a new problem for them. Arctic storms continually erode what is essentially a barrier island. They have relocated on the island due to erosion at least once that I am aware of. I am not an authority on their problem but this has been going on there since before the term "global warming" was in our common vocabulary.

[Doug G.]

Doug, I was about to withdraw my political comment thinking it was probably a result of reading the source, but then I took the time to watch your add on video which has nothing to do with anything related to this forum. It is a political parody which some will find humorous, but others, like myself will take issue. It should not be here. Post it on Facebook where it is more appropriate.

 

Sandpiper, I think I read recently that there are 31 other villages in Alaska facing the same issues.

A side note...I ran across a Science Weekly from the early 1960s a while back. It was done by Scholastic (the Weekly Reader people) also for school kids, which is when I got it, there was an article in it saying that "If your grandparents are telling you the winters just aren't as bad as they used to be, they are right." and went on to talk about milder winters and climate change. There was nothing political or economic attached to it. I found it both surprising an interesting.

 

 

I still think we are off topic for the forum. I could post an invitation to a float flight to Greenland to see the ice sluffing off, or maybe a flight over Glacier Park (US) which is down to one glacier. I don't think they fit the forum however.

 

I am done with this topic. I fight these battles on a more appropriate forum.

[Ed Cesnalis]

Doug,

 

My name is Ed not Doug.

 

Again I will concede ice is melting and has been since we headed into this interglacial more than 12,000 years ago.

 

Take 'exception' to the video if you like I think it makes an interesting point. Data can be manipulated but in the end reality cannot. There is a huge difference between the ice free Arctic Ocean we were told to expect this year and one that has 3,000,000 sq miles of ice. There were many planned crossings by ships that couldn't be made this year.

 

The rare opportunity that shipping missed out on this year does present one to our community.

 

The common theme on this forum is Flight Design's aircraft but we are human and as pilots and are effected by politics. I'm not quite ready to not notice that the predicted warming stopped happening 17 years ago and as a result I question what it means to me and my lifestyle.

 

Glaciers and aviation are related, one of my favorite flights is to the Palisade's glacier. From my CT I see that the ebb and flo of the size of most of the local glaciers has to do with the amount of snowfall we receive not the temperature trend.

 

This photo is of the Palisades and taken from my CT

 

[Ed Cesnalis]

...Are skis approved for the CT? I have never seen a reference to this at all.

 

Arne Bitstad & Hans Gjengedal and their CTSW with our skis

This is how the Hallingdal Flyklubb in Norway enjoy their flying. Arne Bitstad and Hans Gjengedal have installed a set of skis on their CTSW and are enjoying the flexibility of retractable skis.

 

 

 

[sandpiper]

 

Sandpiper, I think I read recently that there are 31 other villages in Alaska facing the same issues.

A side note...I ran across a Science Weekly from the early 1960s a while back. It was done by Scholastic (the Weekly Reader people) also for school kids, which is when I got it, there was an article in it saying that "If your grandparents are telling you the winters just aren't as bad as they used to be, they are right." and went on to talk about milder winters and climate change. There was nothing political or economic attached to it. I found it both surprising an interesting.

 

I dealt with these issues in these villages for most of my 30 year career with the Alaska Dept. of Transportation. Not saying that rising sea levels is not existent, just saying many of these villages on either on the ocean or on rivers. Erosion is a very common thing and has been for a long time. These villages never were established with much thought to water/storm problems. They were built because that is where subsistance was.

 

As for winter weather, just like rabbits it goes in cycles. I clearly remember 1960's Fairbanks winters having longer extreme cold snaps than when I moved back to Fbks. from Anchorage in the 1980's and early 1990's. It still got just as cold, only the cold snaps were shorter and fewer. Climate has changed throughout the eons and will again.

[Doug G.]

Sorry about the name change Ed. You have to admit it is a good name though.

I suspect the skiis are not available for the US.

[C ICEY]

Death of a Glacier. This one won't be coming back.

 

This photo yesterday in an area of some of the southernmost glaciers in the Purcell Mountains of Southeastern British Columbia.

The area finally allowed enough water down the bergschrund to the rock surface so the whole ice mass, or rather what was left of it, slid into the valley floor.

It wasn't a big glacier, but the most recent moraine indicates that it was significantly bigger in its last push.

 

In the last eight years of closely flying all this region, I have witnessed many similar ice losses. Glacier ice and neve above the schrund collapsed, only to return as a snow field that will not build ice again. The account can only be anecdotal, but it is irrefutable. Almost without exception, every glacier in this region is receding.

In the past twenty years, since I began exploring exactly the same mountains in sailplanes, I can also anecdotally state my sense that crystal clear days are receding as well. I also remember the old days of forest fire haze as well. This is not that. It is a quality of the atmosphere that has in my observation deteriorated over that time period.

 

I remember in the 1990's, a plaque somewhere near a Four Corners USA vista viewpoint lamenting the common crystal clear view of the 1930's compared to the completely obscured vista of the day. That hazy atmosphere is spreading north.

 

The survivable atmosphere is a very thin skin, as anyone who has flown above 12,500 feet well knows. We are filling it with garbage. A couple hundred million years accumulation of the easiest to extract hydrocarbon resources have been burned in a few generations. Fact.

 

Take it as you will.

That fact isn't going to stop me from flying this country in my little plastic plane.

I guess this is my admission of guilt to the children of our children's children.

 

Sorry.

[Doug G.]

Thanks for sharing that ICEY. In the eighties we went on a camping trip to Glacier Park and then up the western side of the Rockies to Kootenai, Banff, and Jasper provincial parks. In Jasper they was a glacier that used to be along the highway. At that time you coil barely see it and, for a fee, you could take a tracked bus out to it.

[Ian]

.......I wonder where the rise in the oceans is coming from if the ice is not melting overall? .......

 

Given that the Arctic ice is floating then its formation or disappearance will have no effect on sea levels - Archimedes had that figured out around 250BC.

 

Now the Antarctic is another matter .......!!

[Doug G.]

And so is Greenland! Another bit of anecdotal evidence - the Northwest Passage that was sought for hundreds of years opened up last year.

[Ed Cesnalis]

I thought it was the NorthEast passage that opened up and the new news is that China has now used it. The reason for the usage is the predicted ice free Arctic Ocean, the Russians have to send out ice breakers to rescue the ships getting caught in the ice. With the 67% increase in coverage the passages may prove to be costly endeavors.

 

The IPCC report is leaking as I type this, most of the predicted warming has already happened! The move away from alarmism is huge.

 

Since the last IPCC report in 2007, much has changed. It is now more than 15 years since global average temperature rose significantly. Indeed, the IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri has conceded that the “pause” already may have lasted for 17 years, depending on which data set you look at. A recent study in Nature Climate Change by Francis Zwiers and colleagues of the University of Victoria, British Columbia, found that models have overestimated warming by 100% over the past 20 years. Explaining this failure is now a cottage industry in climate science. The most plausible explanation of the pause is simply that climate sensitivity was overestimated in the models because of faulty assumptions about net amplification through water-vapor feedback. This will be a topic of heated debate at the political session to rewrite thereport in Stockholm, starting on Sept. 23, at which issues other than the actual science of climate change will be at stake. –Matt Ridley, The Wall Street Journal, 14 September 2013

 

There is a of nervousness internationally that the central climate change message is being lost as efforts are being made a global agreement. The concern is the Abbott government’s change of on a carbon tax will encourage other countries to delay or weaken their commitment. The election of an Abbott government has focused attention on Australia. Former prime minister John Howard has been booked to deliver this year’s Global Warming Policy Foundation lecture in November. The title of his address: One Religion is Enough.—Graham Lloyd, The Australian, 14 September 2013

 

A new study in the journal Nature Climate Change that compared 117 climatepredictions made in the 1990′s to the actual amount of warming finds that 99% of them overestimated the amount of warming. On average, the predictions forecasted two times more global warming than actually occurred.—Maxim Lott, Fox News, 12 September 2013

[FastEddieB]

And so is Greenland! Another bit of anecdotal evidence - the Northwest Passage that was sought for hundreds of years opened up last year.

 

Again off topic, but I've always enjoyed this song:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOW1gVW2S5w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

Stan Rogers was a real talent who we lost way too young.

[Runtoeat]

Here's what is causing the problem. (don't ride in an elevator with a cow!) :blink:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/mammals/methane-cow.htm

[FlyingMonkey]

All I know is that I grew up in Connecticut, and moved to Georgia in 1985 to escape the cold. If I take an amazing adventure flight in my CT, it will NOT be to the Arctic.