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LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: A short time ago I was joined from Hobart by the expedition leader, Chris Turney.
Chris Turney, a boatload of people was trapped in the ice for two weeks, an international rescue effort diverted four ships, there've been delays in the Antarctic programs of four nations and likely millions of dollars in insurance claims pending. Could this have been avoided?
CHRIS TURNEY, EXPEDITION LEADER: Well, hello and lovely to be back in Australia. The Australasian Antarctic Expedition was a multi-disciplinary program of research going into an area of enormous environmental and global climate change, using the latest information - the satellite data, the weather observations and forecasts. The final part of a research program suggested we were working in clear area. We'd been hugely productive up to that time. We were heading back out north and unfortunately got caught by this massive breakout of sea ice. Now, unfortunately that has had an enormous knock-on effect to some teams, apparently. We're terribly sorry about that and we're hugely grateful to the large international effort, including the Australians, primarily, and the Chinese, who helped get the team home safely.
LEIGH SALES: Let me ask you to address some of the issues that were raised while you were in the ice. Did sufficient planning go into the mission and was it the right choice of ship given that it wasn't an icebreaker?
CHRIS TURNEY: Well, there was a lot of planning, actually. It was two years worth of work. We had a phenomenal team of scientists and expeditioners behind us who had a wealth of experience and there's no question at all about the vessel. The vessel was a fantastic Russian vessel. It's a class between an ice support strengthened and icebreaker. It was superb. It was just one of the inherent risks was getting caught in that - in a massive breakout of ice.
LEIGH SALES: Who paid for the scientific expedition and then who ultimately is responsible for the rescue costs?
CHRIS TURNEY: So, we had a variety of different corporations that supported and basically we sold berths to the public, much like Scott and Mawson and others had done 100 years ago, to actually get those team members onboard and embed them in the science team. With regards to paying for the actual recovery, for the help and the return of the team back to Australia, the expedition vessel and individuals were all fully sponsored and that's being worked through with insurance now.
LEIGH SALES: Your mission has been subject to ridicule in some quarters. This editorial from The Australian pretty well sums up the tenor of it: "We have to feel a touch of sympathy for the global warming scientists and others stuck in impenetrable ice in Antarctica. The mission they so confidently embarked on to establish solid evidence of melting icecaps resulting from climate change, embarrassingly abandoned because the ice is in fact improbably thick." What's your response to that kind of commentary?
CHRIS TURNEY: That's quite interesting. Well, we've been living in a bubble for the last couple of months and just talking to people. I had heard there was an editorial. I haven't read it.
LEIGH SALES: There was quite a bit of commentary along these lines.
CHRIS TURNEY: There's obviously a - oh, no, there's obviously misunderstanding with regards the impact of climate environmental change. This was not a climate change issue. It's clearly a misunderstanding between continental ice and sea ice. This was an issue where the sea ice had broken out from another part of Antarctica and then moved by weather. And we communicated that as soon as we knew that, with satellite information, we've put that on the blog. Before the expedition and during the expedition we were communicating daily what we were finding and it seems unusual to draw that conclusion from the information we were providing. Ultimately, I think this actually is a reflection of how as a scientific community we need to engage perhaps more explaining the science method rather than just the results. It sounds a bit like the wonderful quote from Carl Sagan where he said, "If we don't communicate the science method, how is the public meant to know the difference between pseudo-science and science?"
LEIGH SALES: You mention the need for effective communication. At a time when opinion polls show that the public is becoming less concerned about climate change, do you concede that your mission was bad PR? That the average lay person may look at what's happened, who doesn't know that much about climate change, and say, "Mmm, well the boat got stuck in extreme ice, how does that square with global warming?"
CHRIS TURNEY: Well, climate change is a incredibly complex situation. We - there's all sort of things going on around the world and I think really one of the other purposes of the expedition was to strike up that conversation with people. It's not just a soundbyte, it's having a dialogue with people to show them how observations lead to conclusions. If people have misunderstood that somehow a movement of old, thick sea ice from one part of Antarctica to another might somehow argue against global warming, it's - that shows how much more work we have to do.
LEIGH SALES: Were you able to gather much research data before the boat became stuck and so was the trip worth it in that regard?
CHRIS TURNEY: Oh, look, it was hugely productive. In the six weeks or five weeks that we were operating, we've got a wealth of information from the sub-Antarctic islands, crossing the Antarctic convergence, we've left drones and floats in the ocean which are broadcasting their position and the temperature and saltiness over time and will continue to do so for many years. We got into Cape Denison, we pioneered a new route into the old Mawson hut, travelling across 65 kilometres of sea ice. We got into that location, delivered the conservators to the Mawson hut, collected data on the impact of changing sea ice on the penguins, collected evidence, or samples - 80 kilos of samples, actually - to show the former extent of the ice sheet. The only constraints we've got for over 2,500 kilometres.
LEIGH SALES: Chris Turney, thank you so much for your time tonight.
CHRIS TURNEY: Thank you.