For all the huff and puff from the bought scientists about Antarctic ice supposedly melting away, reality has bitten once again in the shape of Australia’s Antarctic supply ship Aurora Australis being stuck fast in ice near Casey Station. Richard mentions the situation on EU Referendum.
The first thought in such a situation is that surely an ice-breaker will be sent in to dig Aurora Australis out of the frozen stuff. But minds should cast themselves back to a story from last year here on this blog, where one of the best ice-breakers on the oceans, Oden, was withdrawn from Antarctica by the Swedish government in order to deal with ice problems in the Baltic Sea.
With the usual climate scientists arguing global warming hasn’t abated perhaps we could expect Oden to be back down south breaking up all that apparently fast melting Antarctic ice. So where is the great Oden? Let’s take a look…
I guess that means we can expect plenty more ice in the Baltic this winter.
Autonomous Mind 
Great post.
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Nice to see Jolly Jim Hansen’s GISS outfit have managed to create a warming trend by representing 1904-1944 temperatures for the whole of Antarctica by splicing in records from the South Orkneys:-
“Projecting temperatures from the Antarctic Peninsula over the entire the entire 64-90S latitude zone, which covers an area of 25 million square kilometers, is bad enough, and projecting temperatures from a single record like Base Orcadas over a zone this large is even worse. But it gets worse yet. The map below shows where Base Orcadas is. At 60 degrees 44 minutes south latitude IT ISN’T EVEN IN the 64-90S latitude zone. It’s in the next GISS latitude zone up – the 44-64S zone.”
Climate Science. You know it makes sense……
I note with interest a hysterical report that the ‘ice runway’ at the Australian Antarctic station is ‘melting.’ But there was no mention of the Aurora Australis being stuck in the ice shelf itself. Apparently that doesn’t count, but a few millimetres of surface melt does.
A bit like the headline iin the latest Scientific American (a bit f an oxymoron I suspect) that screamed that “97% of the Greenland Ice Sheet melted over the summer.” Obviously hadn’t bothered to check the satellite images. I’m no “expert” but it looks to me as if the Greenland Ice Sheet is still 97% there …
The saga of great Oden is a tangled one. Suffice it to say that it’s presence in the Baltic has more to do with idiot Swedish politicians than yer actual Baltic ice.
Given the fantastic job Oden was doing “dahn sarf” – using it in the Baltic is like towing a caravan with a Ferrari – the Yanks want it back, the Swedish Polar Institute want to get back to doing Antarctic research.
That’s not saying the Baltic ain’t gonna freeze … but then it freezes every year regardless of what’s in the newspapers or on the telly and if ships get stuck it’s not unknown for buses and trucks to substitute.
Really – Oden is “probably the best icebreaker/research ship in the world” and putting it on precautionary standby in the Baltic is damaging gesture politics at best and a monumental folly.