Chris Turney has been been confronted with the irony that they are trapped in so much ice when we have global global warming (except for the last 15 years). One of his explanations are: “There's a misconception here – we are not trapped in new ice that's been created because its cold,” said Turney. “This is very old, thick ice that's been re-mobilised. It was attached to another part of the continent and has broken out and, with the south-easterly winds we've had, has pushed it up against the coast … and pinned us in. The event is likely to be a result of long-term climate change that is happening in this part of the world. When the 120 km-long iceberg, B09B, came through the area a few years ago it knocked the tongue off the nearby Mertz glacier, which itself is 120 km long. The iceberg grounded on the sea bed in Commonwealth Bay causing the sea around it to lock up with ice attached to the continent."
His explanation is probably fine and plausible, but it does not really answer the contradiction in any way. The more ice that is pressed out to sea, is normally due to a combination of the ice sheet on on land thickening and liquid under the ice. The good Chris Turney cannot escape the fact that the sea ice extend is about to break an all time record and that the coldest temperature ever measured on the surface of this planet, was in Antarctica 2013.
What puzzle me is haw they could be trapped in the ice in the first place. Is this a result of ignoring satellite images and other actual measurements, as so common for the "green" movement? Did the captain object to the route? These and many more questions may very well come up when the evacuation bill is to be paid and the possible loss of the Russian operated vessel Akademik Shokalskiy.
Akademik Shokalskiy was build in Finland in 1982 for the purpose of oceanographic research and owned by the Russian Federation's Far Eastern Hydrometeorological Research Institute in Vladivostok. It has 7 sister ships. The tonnage is 1764 gross register tons and is capable of speed up to 14 knots powered by two 1147 HP diesel engines and fuel capacity of 408 tons.