UK Team Confirms Plan For Six-Month Arctic Basin Trek To Hand-Sample, Record Ice Data - AFP

[hatrack]

A British explorer said Tuesday he would go ahead next year with a pioneering expedition to measure the thickness and density of the rapidly shrinking Arctic Ocean ice cap. Pen Hadow and two other British explorers will set off in February for a six-month, 1,200-kilometre (750-mile) trek to the North Pole to take samples of ice, snow and air. The trip had been due to start in February this year but was postponed to allow the expedition's scientific remit to be expanded.

Hadow and his team will manually drill into the ice to extract samples, helping to update the mass of data, hitherto mostly estimated, on the state of the ice cap. "The only way to get a proper measurement of the snow and ice is to take measurements from the ice surface, or by drilling into it," he told AFP. "Explorers are the only people who can undertake a survey of this kind."

Hadow -- the first explorer to trek solo and unsupported from Canada to the North Pole -- and his team will send the data via satellite from a specially designed portable computer.

The project will fill the gap in existing measurement studies by satellites and submarines which cannot differentiate between layers of ice and snow.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/British_explorer_to_measure_Arctic_ice_cap_next_year_999.html