IT began as a journey to "investigate the impact of changing climate" and to "use the subantarctic islands as thermometers of climatic change".

But more than 70 global warming activists, journalists and crew, led by University of NSW professor of climate change Chris Turney, are currently trapped by millions of tonnes of ice after their ship was caught in freezing conditions on the Antarctic coast.

Attempts by two ice breakers to reach the Australasian Antarctic Expedition's Russian-registered ship, stranded since Christmas Day, have been abandoned due to bad weather and the sheer volume of ice surrounding the vessel.

media_camera The Akademik Shokalskiy still stuck in the ice off East Antarctica, as it waits to be rescued. Picture: Andrew Peacock

Yesterday plans were underway for a helicopter rescue as some on board hinted at growing tensions.

"The mood is getting more frustrated by the day," photographer Andrew Peacock said in an email.

"There are so many variables - every briefing is different - and people are getting a little worried now while the weather stays poor. Lack of control and missing loved ones are starting to put some emotion into our conversations!"

media_camera The Akademik Shokalskiy has no hope of exiting the ice under her own steam and even heavy icebreakers have failed to get to the trapped crew. Picture: Andrew Peacock

In some quarters, sympathy for the trapped activists is running low. "You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh at the spectacle of global warming fanatics trapped in the ice on their way to Antarctica, where they planned to make a big deal about the relative shortage of ice," wrote US journalist John Hayward as the ordeal entered its sixth day.

"It's even funnier because the highly sympathetic mainstream media so clearly understands how utterly embarrassing this is."

Prior to the $1.5 million expedition, the ABC reported that Turney and his team would "try to answer questions about how climate change in the frozen continent might be already shifting weather patterns in Australia."

media_camera The passengers stretch their legs on a short excursion off the ship as they wait for the release of the ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy, which is trapped in the ice at sea off Antarctica. Picture: Andrew Peacock

Subsequent ABC reports make little mention of the expedition's climate aims. A headline in the Sydney Morning Herald described the trapped vessel as an "Antarctic tourist ship".

Expedition leader Turney claims that climate change might actually have caused the ship's problems. The academic told Fox News that the ice surrounding his ship is old, rather than recently formed, and possibly from a 125km-long iceberg that broke apart three years ago. Climate change may have caused the iceberg to fragment and float into open sea, Turney said.

In an earlier statement sent from the 71m, twin diesel-engined MV Akademik Shokalskiy, Turney's team said they had become "stuck in our own experiment."

"We came to Antarctica to study how one of the biggest icebergs in the world has altered the system by trapping ice. We are now ourselves trapped by ice surrounding our ship," the team wrote.

"Sea ice is disappearing due to climate change, but here ice is building up."