JOIN US TO UNCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE POLAR NIGHT
This unique Arctic science project will involve a multi-phase expedition, culminating in a world-first winter journey to the Geographic North Pole. The preceding months will allow the team to collect an array of scientific data never before possible.
Vast gaps exist in scientists' knowledge of the melting sea ice across the vast Arctic Ocean. Whilst more is learned each year about the changing climate in the sunny season - spring and summer - the months of winter darkness are still a forbidding enigma.
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The Dark Ice Project
First conceived over five years ago and having gone through a series of preparatory testing phases, the Arctic Ocean expedition named descriptively as the Dark Ice Project is one of a kind. Its concept is the work of polar expedition leader Alex Hibbert and brings back into the fray trusted past teammates. George Bullard was Alex's partner on the record-breaking 1374-mile Long Haul expedition and James Wheeldon has worked with Alex in the Greenlandic High Arctic and in Iceland's notorious winter months.
This trio have researched, reworked and optimised their audacious plan to combine genuine, novel and useful environmental science with one of the most ambitious exploratory polar expeditions of times past or present.
The Phases of the Expedition
- BOAT. Launching from some of the northernmost shores of land anywhere on Earth (exact location is currently under wraps), the team will travel north in a modified science craft through the last weeks prior to the onslaught of the winter freeze-up.
- DRIFT. Using special equipment, they will set up a floating, drifting headquarters on the dynamic sea ice of the Arctic Ocean. This phase will allow for many weeks of the most ambitious scientific work. All will occur in the darkness of polar winter.
- SKI. Once in position and taking into account weather, drift and dozens of other factors, the Dark Ice team then take to skis and complete the final few hundred miles across pressure ridges and open water to the North Pole. Theirs will be the first to reach the North Pole in true winter conditions and without resupplies. They will have lightweight science instruments with them in order to continue their work and widen the sphere of discovery.
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Why we need you!
As with any major journey, we will be partnering with a series of corporate allies, scientific grants and academic funding bodies. This complex network will ensure that every cog in the machine works on schedule and meets with success.
Of course, funding is tight. It always is, and in the world of polar expeditions, the last decade has made this even harder. As well as highly-specialised science goals with top universities and international environmental institutions, the team are passionate about 'open science' - that is, more basic yet still important data of a variety of types we can publish free, to the public.
This is where you come in. Woven into our journey will be our open science work and we need your assistance to make this as big, and as valuable to all, as possible.
The more we raise, the more we can do. Simple. £10,000 is a bare minimum and we implore you to help us smash through that initial target.
Why are we qualified? Why us?
Despite all being under the age of 32, the team have between them nearly a thousand days of serious, independent Arctic experience. They also hold a major polar world-record (the longest unsupported Arctic journey in history). A shared focus is for innovation - not copying previous ventures but instead driving their 'craft' forwards.
The team also bring a formidable scientific background to the table. There is no point doing science if it isn't done properly. The quality of data matters. Two science degrees from Oxford University and one from Edinburgh University will ensure that the surveying will be thorough and the data relevant.
What science are we contributing to and why?
The answer here is the most exciting part of our project. The sky is the limit and the better we're funded, the greater our depth and breadth.
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Aside from our super-specialist collaborations with universities and global climate researchers, we hope to include the following open science data:
- Ocean salinity
- Temperature variations with depth and ice cover
- Ice thickness and stage of development through early and mid-winter
- Microbiology in sea water and sea ice
- True weather measurements to aid remote sensing calibration in winter
This data will be raw, whilst digestible, and released for free, global use by schools, citizens or higher educational organisations. Open Science.
*We can add to this with funding that exceeds our base target - please help us do more.*
Why? The Impact? This is clear: Climate Change is still one of the least understood existential threats to our planet, civilisation and the nature we live amongst. Winter processes are even more poorly researched due to the dangers of operating in the dark. This project can contribute to reversing these facts.
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