
From the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up department: The website Watts Up With That? (h/t reader Steven Ein) has the story of a research staffed by “climate scientists” dispatched to the southern hemisphere to document the disappearing sea ice. If a comedian were fashioning a skit around this story, their ship, the Akademik Shokalskiy, would find itself stranded in a thick ice sheet.
Which is precisely what happened. And as if the climate experts weren’t wearing enough egg on their faces, it’s summer in Antarctica.
The icebreakers Xue Long and Aurora Australis, and a French research vessel Astrolabe are cruising towards the Akademik Shokalskiy at full throttle for rescue.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) is coordinating a search and rescue for a Russian passenger ship beset by ice approximately 1500 nautical miles south of Hobart.
The vessels closest to the stranded ship are at least two days away sailing time. Don’t be concerned, however, that the crew will starve, since they can always eat the sand which is there (sandwiches there). Oops, wrong punch line.