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back to article Chinese sat-snaps to help boffins forecast Antarctic sea ice

One of the thornier problems to beset Antarctic researchers is threading or punching a ship through sea ice, so Australia wants to tap China for better sea ice forecasts. Predicting sea ice conditions is an almost-untouched discipline, but it's becoming important, with more countries taking an interest in the icy continent ( …

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  1. thames

    Northern Hemisphere Ice Forecasts

    Canada already does sea ice forecasts for Canadian waters, and releases them on the normal Environment Canada web site. It's required for routine navigation on the east and northern coasts, Hudson Bay, and the Great Lakes (the Pacific coast is warm and doesn't freeze).

    If there is anything new being reported in this story, it's that apparently nobody is currently doing the same for the Antarctic, or at least perhaps not to the same extent. However, there will be plenty of existing scientific work from northern latitudes which can be applied to the Antarctic.

    It's a commendable effort, but it's not ground breaking science, so I'm not sure what they mean by "to develop scientific methods for forecasting sea ice conditions". The scientific methods already exist, the problems will more likely revolve around applying the Chinese observations to the local conditions to produce useful ice forecasts.

    2 0 Reply
    1. Mark 85
      Reply Icon

      Re: Northern Hemisphere Ice Forecasts

      Maybe they see the Antarctic as "different". What you describe is some coast surrounded by ocean and bodies of water surrounded by land. The bay and lakes are fresh water, not salt. Maybe there's enough difference to merit a different method? Alternately, it could be someone wants some grant money.

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  2. Your alien overlord - fear me

    And people wonder why boffins keep claiming the ice sheets are disappearing. Breaking news - big fuck-off ships are ramming it. Breaking, breaking news - the planet is not warming up and causing the ice-sheets to disappear although technically, it still is a man made disaster.

    0 4 Reply
  3. The Axe

    Ship of Fools

    "passengers and crew on a Russian ship had to be rescued by a Chinese helicopter and transported to Hobart by Australia's Aurora Australis."

    Should be pointed out that the passengers were "scientists" investigating where all the ice had gone. No wonder they got named as the Ship of Fools for getting trapped in the ice their climate models said didn't exist.

    2 1 Reply
  4. Turbo Beholder
    Alert

    Any serious attempt “to develop scientific methods for forecasting sea ice conditions” needs to work with weather information, and this is bound to cross the globalwarming circus in no time.

    But then, if some facts disagree with the General Line of Party, it's the facts' problem.

    0 0 Reply

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