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Polar Explorers Lonnie Dupre and Eric Larsen send daily dispatches during their unprecedented four-month journey to the North Pole and back. The expedition team will pull and paddle specially modified canoes across nearly 1,000 miles of shifting sea ice and open ocean. Their objective is to complete the first ever summer expedition to the North Pole and to highlight the growing issues surrounding global warming.
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Hot Times Up North

Jul 12, 2006
It seems like a long time ago that Lonnie and Eric were battling their way through the towering jumbles of ice rubble just north of Ward Hunt Island, Canada. At this point in the expedition, it was all they could do to advance 3 miles toward the Pole. While Eric and Lonnie clawed their way north, two other expeditions slowly advanced south from the Pole.

These two expeditions had started in Russia, with hopes of crossing the Arctic Ocean to Ward Hunt Island, via the North Pole. They did not know it at the time, but during this past winter less ice had been formed on the Arctic Ocean than ever previously recorded.

Just after Lonnie and Eric received their re-supply drop at N87, the other two expeditions were evacuated. Their progress south had been slowed drastically by rapidly breaking ice floes, in which these two winter expeditions were not equipped to travel effectively. The pilots who serviced these expeditions had never seen the pack ice break up this early.

In the middle of the route between Ward Hunt Island and the North Pole, ocean currents for the most part push east. To the east lies the open ocean, where the pack ice eventually disperses into individual floating pans of ice and icebergs. As the Arctic Ocean breaks up, these eastward currents have a greater effect.

The other two expeditions had been pushed well east of their intended route.

Using their canoe-sleds, Lonnie and Eric successfully puddle-jumped out of the east-pushing currents and on toward the North Pole. As they closed in on the North Pole the number of leads they found increased instead of decreased as they had expected.

On the Arctic Ocean, open water breeds more open water. Ice reflects sun rays. The dark seawater in leads attracts sun rays. Fueled by global warming, these conditions create a vicious, widening warming-spiral that not only leads to more ice melt, but also raises temperatures and increases humidity.

Lonnie and Eric experienced this spiral in a way no other humans ever have. If we do not act now to stop global warming, this spiral will, in less than 50 years, destroy all the ice on the Arctic Ocean and the polar bear along with it.

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