Icebreaker CCGS Amundsen
Icebreaker CCGS Amundsen. By Tatiana Pichugina – P1030361, CC BY 2.0, Link

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

h/t James Delingpole / Breitbart – University of Manitoba has a new term for excess sea ice; they now call it “climate change”.

Large Canadian Arctic climate change study cancelled due to climate change

The Science Team of the Canadian Research Icebreaker CCGS Amundsen has cancelled the first leg of the 2017 Expedition due to complications associated with the southward motion of hazardous Arctic sea ice, caused by climate change.

This regrettably postpones the much-anticipated Hudson Bay System Study (BaySys) involving 40 scientists from five universities across Canada. Timing was key for this $17 million, four-year, University of Manitoba-led project.

The need to deal with extreme ice conditions in the south meant the ship would arrive too late on site to meet research objectives.

The decision to terminate the 2017 program has significant impacts on partners and the large number of graduate students involved.

“Considering the severe ice conditions and the increasing demand for Search And Rescue operations (SAR) and ice escort, we decided to cancel the BaySys mission. A second week of delay meant our research objectives just could not be safely achieved – the challenge for us all was that the marine ice hazards were exceedingly difficult for the maritime industry, the CCG, and science,” says Dr. David Barber, Expedition Chief Scientist and BaySys Scientific Lead.

Read more: http://news.umanitoba.ca/large-canadian-arctic-climate-change-study-cancelled-due-to-climate-change/

At least we now have an answer to the question “What do Arctic researchers do if they are stuck in port for…