Melting polar ice creates a new challenge for British adventurers

Lewis Smith - 

The retreat of sea ice in the Arctic is not just opening up the fabled North-West Passage to shipping. It has made it possible for explorers to row to the North Pole.

A team of British adventurers is about to cast off in an attempt to be the first people in the world to row a boat to the magnetic North Pole.

Rowboats haven't featured in polar exploration since 1916, when Ernest Shackleton got his men off an ice floe and on to the relative safety of Elephant Island before going on to South Georgia to get help, after his abortive attempt to cross Antarctica.

The new team, led by the veteran adventurer Jock Wishart, hopes to set out from Resolution in Canada at the end of July and row the 450 miles to the Pole in a specially designed boat.

On the way they will face howling winds that, despite it being the Arctic summer, will bring temperatures down to -15C.

The six-man crew will also face the prospect of being crushed or capsized by moving ice floes and attacked by hungry polar bears.

Average temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic regions have risen by more than anywhere else in the world, and it is having an impact on the ice.

Satellite pictures show that in the past 30 years the sea ice has retreated dramatically. By the end of last summer the Arctic ice had shrunk to its third smallest area on record, the National Snow and Ice Data Centres, part of the University of Colorado in the US, found. The ice is breaking up so rapidly during the summer that some scientists believe the Arctic will be largely free of ice by the end of summertime by 2030 to 2040. Average temperatures for the region have risen by 1C in the past 20 years alone and are expected to continue rising.

With ice melting at a rate unseen in living memory, more parts of the Arctic Sea are becoming accessible. The changes have meant oil drilling in the region is now being considered as a practical proposition, yachts have been able to sail the North West Passage for the first time, and fresh challenges are opened up to people like Mr Wishart.

"We are seeing the shrinkage of the ice cover in the Arctic and consequently it becomes possible to row to a Pole. It's one of the very last great feats, being able to row to a Pole," he said.

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