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3-Man Team Begins Ice-Survey Trek To the North Pole

Posted by timothy on from the counting-the-cubes dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Satellites have shown how the Arctic sea-ice has been shrinking in recent years, but a three-man scientific team making an expedition to the North Pole should give scientists a better idea of how thin the ice is becoming. 'We're making the surface journey because that's the only way we have of gathering these direct observations of how thick the snow and the ice is,' said team leader Pen Hadow, who in 2003 became the first person to trek solo and without support from Canada to the North Pole. 'That's what the scientists really need to know.' There is more at stake for the British team than achieving some invented personal goal: 'The journey's going to be about 700 miles in distance, taking about three months,' said Hadow. 'In the earlier phases, the temperatures are about minus 50 degrees ... And we're towing sledges with our camping equipment and our survey equipment — almost twice our body weights — for most of the distance.'" "Arctic ice modeler Wieslaw Maslowski, a science adviser to the survey, hopes the data gathered during the journey will enable him to refine his forecast of when the first ice-free summer might arrive. 'According to our studies, it's very likely that if this current trend of ice decline based on the last decade or so continues, or accelerates, the ice might be almost gone in summer sometime between 2010 and 2016.'"

5 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. More Climate Change-balls.... by Burnhard · · Score: 1, Insightful

    According to the NSIDC, Arctic ice extent is almost back to the 1979-2000 mean (within 1 standard deviation), so I'm not too sure what all the fuss is about. Exclusive: "Scientists go on long walk".

    Polar Ice Trends

    1. Re:More Climate Change-balls.... by Burnhard · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Submarines have been measuring ice thickness for decades (e.g. HMS Tireless). One of their discoveries was the ice moves about (due to wind), so measuring thickness at one spot today and then again next year is pretty meaningless.

  2. Re:Why walk... by Maxime+Chaya · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's actually quite possible, since you're pulling not carrying. In Antarctica, during my South Pole expedition, I was pulling over 100 KGs uphill for over 600 nautical miles. Daily energy consumption is around 9000 calories. It's all about pace, not speed. --Maxime Chaya www.TheThreePoles.com

  3. Re:Live Blogging from the North Pole by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    but right to the end he was probably more alive than you or I will ever be.

  4. Re:Arctic and Antarctic sea ice has been -growing- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You can see it from space

    I can see the depth of your reading comprehension from right here!

    Don't you have something better to do than whine about scientists going out and actually taking measurements instead of using models and guessing?