*http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,497853,00.html
French Oil Giant to Measure Arctic Melt By Ansbert Kneip* How much truth is there to the dire warnings of melting polar ice caps? A team now plans to embark on a spectacular trip to find out just how thin the ice in the Arctic really is. The group is an odd alliance consisting of a French adventurer, a German scientist and a multinational oil corporation. Jean-Louis Etienne has spent more than two decades getting to know the North Pole. The explorer and adventurer has crossed the Arctic on foot, sailed in the Arctic Ocean and spent one winter living alone in a hut on the pack ice. He insists he's the last person to be imagining things when he observes changes taking place in the region. "It's clear as day," he says, "the ice has changed, there's no getting around it." Satellite images aren't necessary to see that, he says. "Shall I give you an example?" This spring, he says, temperatures in the Arctic were much warmer than normal. In April 2007, when Etienne was at a location near the North Pole, the thermometer there read -15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit). "Just 15 below, can you believe it?" In other words, it was clearly unseasonably warm. The weather used to be different, says Etienne, and he experienced it in an up close and personal way when he crossed the Arctic on foot for the first time in 1986. It was Etienne's first major expedition, the one that made him famous. He spent 63 days walking across the ice, alone, to reach the North Pole. It was so cold that the pilot who dropped Etienne off on the edge of the polar ice cap in far northern Canada was afraid to shut off his engine, fearing that the propeller would freeze if he did. The icy landscape was spectacular in those days, says Etienne. He describes the way the distorted ice looks when ice floes collide -- they splinter, crack and are pushed up to form ridges. The bizarre formations, known as compressed ice ridges, were much higher in the past -- so high, in fact, that it was impossible to cross them with a sled. Etienne swears that he remembers these formations correctly. He also insists that 20 years ago, the North Pole was truly a different place: there was more ice; it was colder; and the obstacles were taller. Jean-Louis Etienne is now 60. He has lost most of his hair and liver spots dot his bald head. He could have slowed down long ago, giving talks about polar bears and autographing coffee-table books. But standing across from him in his Paris office, with a view of Montmartre, one quickly senses that a slower pace is not his style. Every Frenchman knows Etienne, their short, wiry Arctic hero, more famous in France than even mountain-climbing legend Reinhold Messner is in Germany. When Etienne embarks on an expedition, it's front-page news in the French papers. Earlier this year, Etienne met with executives at French oil company Total, and told them what the Arctic was once like and how the ice is shrinking today. He also asked them for the 7 million ($9.6 million) he needed for his next spectacular adventure. Total, the world's sixth-largest oil company, is worth 143 billion, employs 95,000 people worldwide and produces 2.36 million barrels of oil and natural gas a day. Total made the internal decision long ago to become as environmentally friendly as possible, although many see these kinds of voluntary commitments as less than convincing, especially coming from an oil company. When the oil tanker "Erika" broke apart off the coast of Brittany in 1999, it wreaked environmental havoc, sending thousands of tons of Total oil into the Atlantic, polluting beaches and killing wildlife. The case was recently brought before a French court, prompting television networks to re-broadcast the ugly images from the freighter disaster. Yves-Marie Dalibard, Total's director of public relations, immediately recognized the value of Etienne's proposal. A polar expedition could create a new image for Total, where pictures of oil-covered seals and struggling sea birds would be replaced by photographs of breathtakingly pristine landscapes of ice. Dalibard receives two or three meticulously prepared requests for financial backing per day. An energy savings project here, an art exhibition there -- he turns down almost every one of them. But when the celebrated Etienne showed up in his office with his stories of vanishing ice and slides to illustrate his point, Dalibard was immediately convinced that the project made sense. It would benefit Etienne, help scientists and perhaps even be of value to the globe. And it would certainly be good for Total. With the help of Total, Etienne is now planning his return to the Arctic. He wants to make one last trip, because he believes that the world is changing at the pole, and because he wants to understand exactly what's happening there. There is no shortage of observations that agree with Etienne's own that the pole isn't what it used to be. According to researchers from Greenland, spring arrives earlier each year (more...) and the warm period lasts longer. Canadian companies that operate polar expeditions say that crossing the North Pole (more...) from Siberia to Canada is now almost impossible because the ice has become too brittle. Although it is clear that some kind of process is underway, scientists still don't understand exactly what it is causing it. Some hope that the polar changes are merely coincidental. Critics say that Etienne could well be confusing personal impressions with the global situation. Here is an old man telling stories about his past, they say, a man who is likely to play up his adventures and exaggerate the hardships he faced. Who knows, they conjecture, if he had ventured out onto the ice 10 days earlier in April 2007 or had been dropped off at a point 100 kilometers away, perhaps everything would have looked different -- possibly the way it looked in the past. Besides, thin, brittle sections of ice existed 20 years ago, which could suggest that what is now taking place is a completely natural, and normal, phenomenon. These are valid considerations, especially in light of observations that appear to demonstrate precisely the opposite of what Etienne has seen. For example, it is not getting warmer everywhere. This year boats carrying about 500 seal hunters got stuck in the pack ice. Even though seamen have known the dangers of the Arctic for centuries, they were taken by surprise by the severity of this winter. Supplies had to be brought in by air for weeks until the ice had melted enough to release the hunters and their boats. And contrary to popular belief, the polar ice cap is not melting everywhere. In fact, the ice cover appears to be the thickest in places where it is relatively warm, namely off the coasts of Alaska and Canada. Surprisingly enough, the sea off the coast of Siberia, the Arctic's ice chest, contains relatively little ice. The problem is a scarcity of data on the weather at the pole. Scientists are observing changes and documenting what is clearly some form of climate change, and yet they are unable to predict it. Satellite photos show that the surface of the ice is shrinking. But whether the North Pole will be ice-free in 40 years, 60 years or never is mere speculation. To this day, scientists are still unable to determine exactly how thick -- or thin -- the ice in the Arctic actually is. That is why Etienne is crossing the North Pole once again. He will fly several thousand kilometers across the polar ice cap next spring in an airship and collect data. This time, he says, the purpose of the adventure is not to set any records. In fact, Etienne won't be the first to make such a journey in an airship. That pioneer was Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who made the trip in 1926. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] *************************************************************************** Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia *************************************************************************** __________________________________________________________________________ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Reading only, http://ppi-india.blogspot.com 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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