Can the Catlin Arctic Survey Team Cover 683 km in the Next 21 Days? « Watts Up With That?

According to the people who rescued Pen Hadow from his earlier polar near-misadventure in 2003, the latest safe date for recovering people from the North Pole is April 30. The team is currently 683 km away from the pole, which means that they would need to cover 32km per day - an increase of 5X over their average rate so far. That might prove difficult with an exhausted, hypothermic, frostbitten team walking over broken ice and dragging heavy equipment at -34C.

The Reference Frame: Pen Hadow's scientific expedition disintegrating: Poll about their fate included

But I personally don't expect Hadow to care about the safety of the airplanes much: he has already been evacuated from the North Pole in late May of 2003.

Thirty-five kilometers per day wouldn't be that hard for OK athletes. But these people may be exhausted, mostly due to their terrible planning. I wish them good luck - but not necessarily miraculously great luck! ;-)

Climate Observations: Revisiting Bratcher and Giese (2002)

Will these natural variations overwhelm any anthropogenic sources of warming and drive global temperatures down, as opposed to only flattening the curve as it has recently and as it had from the 1940s to the late 1970s? Only time will tell.