French Explorer Unveils Plan To Cross Arctic Basin In Airship - Reuters

[hatrack]

Paging Admiral Nobile! Admiral Nobile, please pick up the white phone!

MARSEILLE, France - A French explorer unveiled plans on Friday to fly over the Arctic in an airship to measure the ice cap amid concern at the pace it is melting. Jean-Louis Etienne (www.jeanlouisetienne.fr) said his 10,000 kilometre (6,214 mile) journey will serve as a benchmark for monitoring the impact of global warming on the North Pole.

Etienne's expedition will begin in April 2008 in northern Norway and take him over the Barents Sea to Spitzberg. He will then fly over the magnetic North Pole and Beaufort Sea before heading to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, where he is due to land in May. "Measurements are being made by ships but ships do not cover the kind of surface that we will cover," Etienne told Reuters.

"The airship will allow us to fly over vast areas and it will give our measuring equipment the stability that a helicopter cannot give."

Data will be collected using an electromagnetic probe hanging below the 54-metre-long, 14-metre-wide airship, Etienne told reporters at the inauguration of the Russian-made craft.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/44814/story.htm

[mike_c]

1. is this just grandstanding or can he supply better data...

...than satellites? It seems unlikely.

[GliderGuider]

2. In my discussion with a Canadian ice scientist a couple of weeks ago

I asked him about the technology available for measuring ice thickness. He said satellites are really good at measuring extent, but really crappy at measuring thickness. The only way to do that accurately is with a penetrating radar on an aircraft. The problem is the aircraft has to fly quite low, like a couple of hundred feet. That's dangerous in a plane, but in an airship? Sounds like it has definite possibilities.

[mike_c]

3. ah, that makes sense....

Thank you!