Explorer Pen Hadow Sets Off Across Arctic Ocean As 748-Mile Planned Ice Thickness Survey Begins

[hatrack]

Polar explorer Pen Hadow will set off today to begin a 746-mile scientific survey of the floating ice in the Arctic Ocean. He is to lead a team which will gather data to give scientists a better idea of how long the ice cap will survive. The Catlin Arctic Survey group, which is leaving from London's Heathrow Airport, expects to reach the North Pole in late May.

The team will travel 746 miles (1,200 km) towards the Pole, dragging a radar unit which will take measurements every four inches (10 cm) of the thickness of the ice and snow.

The explorers hope the new data, which differentiates between the snow and ice, will give a better idea than measurements taken from satellites and submarines of exactly how thick the ice is. They hope this will enable scientists to project how long the ice cap has left.

There are wildly differing estimates of how much time there will be before the permanent ice cover is lost from the Arctic - ranging from just a few years away to beyond the end of the century.

EDIT

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/polar-explorer-sets-off-on-arctic-survey-1606552.html