On 1 March 2007, Alain Hubert and Dixie Dansercoer set off on a remarkable expedition to walk from Siberia to Greenland. Three months later, after many dangers and near-disasters, their 2,000 km trek across the icy wilderness is nearing the finish, thanks to Envisat, ESA’s orbiting eye in the sky.
At first, despite the extremely harsh, dangerous and physically demanding conditions, all went well. Then the sea ice began to break up unexpectedly as the two Belgian explorers neared the Greenland coastline. The pair had no choice but to try to find a way around the broad stretches of open water.
Fortunately, they were able to rely on support from two instruments on Envisat – the all-weather radar sensor and the optical MERIS instrument. By carefully examining satellite images of the changing ice conditions, Leif Toudal Pedersen (Danish National Space Centre) was able to help the explorers to avoid the rapidly disintegrating ice pack.
The team are now on stable ice. With less than 50 km to go, they can see clear views of Greenland ahead. The intrepid explorers are expected to reach the end of their long trek across the entire Arctic basin this week.
Their gruelling journey across the ice-covered Arctic Ocean, known as the Arctic Arc Expedition, is one of many scientific activities taking part during the International Polar Year. The two experienced polar explorers were particularly interested in collecting snow-depth data. This information will be used to prepare for ESA’s CryoSat-2 mission, which is due to go into orbit in 2009.
