Climate change expedition halted due to ‘extreme ice conditions’

A team of scientists says it had to abandon an expedition through Hudson Bay because of hazardous ice conditions off the coast of Newfoundland caused by climate change.

photo/Agrant141 per wikimedia commons

“…bad ice conditions off the coast of Newfoundland” caused the BaySys expedition to change course to help ferries and fishing boats navigate the Strait of Belle Isle, said David Barber, a climate change scientist at the University of Manitoba and leader of the Hudson Bay expedition, which is comprised of about 40 scientists from five Canadian universities.

Barber says the thick, dense ice had traveled to the area down from the High Arctic and struck unsuspecting boats and even take on water.

“The requirements for search and rescue trumped the requirements for science,” said Barber. “The search and rescue calls were coming in quite fast and furious.”

“It was just extreme ice conditions that required everything that we’ve got in order to make sure we were able to provide the services,” said Julie Gascon, the coast guard’s assistant commissioner for the central and Arctic region.

Strong northeastern winds started packing in ice in late April and never stopped, said Gascon. The result was sea ice conditions treacherous for even an icebreaker to navigate.

“We never had any issues in the past of this nature,” she said. “Very severe ice conditions.”

In 2016, an expedition got stuck in the ice as “global warming” did move fast enough. Some of the recent studies are pointing to a less warming trend than the widely-accepted IPCC model, more here.

So less than a year we have more change…surprised?

photo courtesy of The Discovery Channel