Polarstern reaches North Pole

[XemaSab]

According to this press release by the Alfred Wegener Institute, the polar icebreaker Polarstern has reached the North Pole this morning, 22nd August at 9:42 AM CET.

The 55 scientists and technicians from 6 different countries are there to investigate the changes in the Arctic. Hence the name of their expedition: TransArc - Trans-Arctic survey of the Arctic Ocean in Transition.

I have translated one part of the press release that I found of particular interest:

Schauer was in the central Arctic for the last time in 2007 and this time around has found an ice cover that is similar to the one in the year that went into the history books as the year with the lowest sea ice cover since satellite measurements in 1979 began. The first ice thickness measurements confirm this: in 2011 as well as in 2007 most of the ice has an ice thickness of 0.9 meter. In comparison, most of the ice in 2001 was measured at 2 meter. That year total sea ice extent at the end of the melting season corresponded to the long term average.

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2011/08/polarstern-reaches-north-pole.html

[truebrit71]

1. I apologize if I am being a bit thick but...is that article saying the all of the arctic ice...

...is less than a metre thick?

I thought that satellite photos have shown it to be much thicker than that..??

[XemaSab]

3. That's how I'm reading it

:o

[truebrit71]

4. Holy crap, and stuff...

:yikes:

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. The central Arctic, anyway

The ship sailed from Norway, and the article seems to say that going via the North Pole is, this year, the easier way to get to the north of the Canadian sector - so maybe the area between Canada and the Pole is still thicker. And they're saying it was about the same thickness in 2007, which turned into the record low by September.

[jakeXT]

2. Doh! And I thought it has moved in the sky

A pole star is a visible star, especially a prominent one, that is approximately aligned with the Earth's axis of rotation; that is, a star whose apparent position is close to one of the celestial poles, and which lies approximately directly overhead when viewed from the Earth's North Pole or South Pole. (A similar concept also applies to other planets.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_star