Feeling the Heat: Unlocking the Arctic's Frozen Secrets

09.07.2010 BBC

Forecasts suggest that this year will see the amount of sea ice in the Arctic retreat to one of the lowest extents since satellite records began. So what will be the impact of an Arctic devoid of sea-ice during the summer in the future? Science writer Richard Hollingham has joined a scientific expedition trying to find out.

"It's incredibly cold!" to paraphrase the words of Heiko Moossen as he emerged from a dive hole in the ice.

"As I went in my whole face was burning because it was so cold."

Mr Moosen, from the University of Glasgow, was diving under the ice to catch clumps of algae in a plastic bag.

"It was really hard because as you breathe out, the bubbles travel along the bottom of the ice and disturb the algae," he explained.

 Scientists are keen to track the impact of declining summer sea-ice That there is any plant life at all, a metre beneath the Arctic sea ice at 80 degrees North, is in itself remarkable. "It looks like an inverted landscape with hills and valleys but with quite a lot of light coming through the ice," he added.

The landscape above is every bit as beautiful: in the sunshine glistening ice floes stretch in every direction, separated by jagged ridges of ice and leads of gently rippling water.

Birds - including the almost perfectly white ivory gull - circle overhead, seals flop by the ice edge and, every day or so, a polar bear wanders by.

"I think it's very, very beautiful and a very unusual place to be," said expedition leader Ray Leakey from the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS).

"It's also fascinating scientifically because we know so little about it. Few expeditions come here so we're among the first people."

Locked in the ice

Even getting this far North - we are currently around 1,000km from the Pole - has been a challenge.

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