Traverse
A polar traverse applies to expeditions travelling across a geographical feature – eg continents, oceans, glaciers and mountain ranges.
A traverse has different start and end points.
An Antarctic or Arctic traverse has to traverse the full continent/ocean.
I know that on a 100-day expedition my environmental footprint is much smaller, in terms of what I use in the way of natural resources, than in daily life. And – even though I am environmentally aware – I could probably fill a house with all the rubbish I produce in that same time frame when I am at home. When preparing for an expedition, I love to be part of the ‘reduce to the max’ movement. To date we have pushed waste reduction so far that the total amount of rubbish amounts to only 1.2kg for two people for 100 days (6g per person per day). For example, holding it above the stove flame shrinks thermo-retractable foil to a minute ball that can be easily stored in our small rubbish bag. Add to that the minimal 15ml of fuel burned per person per day, and I believe that we are exemplary when it comes to reducing our environmental impact.
Even with the flights there and back, I would probably fly just as much if I stayed at home, if not more. (Asking those people who claim to be the greenest people on Earth how many flights they take each year always provokes an interesting response!) It all comes down to a personal decision as to how much you care, how much respect you have for our planet, and how much you want to keep it a beautiful place to live for generations to come.
Almost unbelievably some expeditions do leave expedition gear behind, even discard a second sled that they took to aid their progress, or dump fuel that weighs too much (and was only taken along due to bad planning). Some even fake equipment loss or failure in order to have their insurance cover the expenses of an unnecessary pick-up. Such blatant choices cannot be responsibly accounted for, and such behaviour is unforgivable. The more aware of our impact we become, the better we will be able to decide how to reduce it.
Considering the environment in a small sailboat, treading lightly and risking getting stuck, or…
…ploughing through in a nuclear-powered icebreaker. The choice is ours.
Becoming environmental ambassadors
It is up to each of us to find a way to at least offset our own environmental imprint. Emissions of CO2 generated directly from the tourism sector today account for 5 per cent of global CO2 emissions; on Antarctica tourism is responsible for 2 per cent of CO2 production (the sum produced by all the scientific bases). How much positive behavioural change or environmental awareness will result from either tourism or scientific activities? Minimising the environmental impact in Antarctica and sending home convinced environmental ambassadors should be a top priority for both. (Luckily, corporate activity can be excluded as a direct cause of environmental damage, as the sixth continent is a superb example of an area unilaterally protected from exploitation by the Antarctic Treaty.)
With limited resources available on the ice and none of the CO2-producing tools used at home, polar expeditions are a great example of how we can ‘survive’ with very little. If done well, there is hardly any waste. During long-haul expeditions the weight of waste (packaging foil) can be reduced to 5.1g per person per day.
As always, a collaboration will be needed between the parties involved in transportation to and from the polar regions, but it is also clear that responsibility lies with the individual. There will always be those who care and those who do not, but a willingness to recognise our environmental imprint and do something about it is vital.
SWITCHING FROM OIL TO WIND POWER
While guiding on a cruise ship to Antarctica in 2003, the sight of a small yacht made me think about the impact of an icebreaker with about a hundred tourists on board. I envied the liberty the little yacht offered. The crew was not on board, and when I asked at Port Lockroy where they had gone I was told that they were climbing ‘up high’. That was it! The maximum time I could spend on a cruise ship landing was a morning or afternoon. I wanted more freedom, and more time.
Four years later, I found myself en route to the Antarctic leading a seven-man crew on board the Euronav Belgica, a specially outfitted 47-foot steel yacht. To generate maximum attention for the white continent during International Polar Year I planned to re-enact the 20 landings executed by the Belgica, the ship led by Captain de Gerlache who had invited Roald Amundsen and Frederick Cook on board in 1897–98, and carry out a comparative meteorological comparison.
Apart from the potential for adventure in an independent schedule, the ‘pure’ aspect also made perfect sense. If you're planning a trip to Antarctica, it using wind power is much more environmentally friendly. A yacht does have an engine and waste water but with the will to minimise our impact, huge steps towards minimal consumption and ‘greening’ our activities could be made.
The facts
There is clear scientific evidence of the reduction of ice in the Arctic due to global warming.
Average ice extent for September 2011 was 4.61 million km2 (1.78 million square miles), 2.43 million km2 (938,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average (see graph). This was 310,000 square kilometers (120,000 square miles) above the average for September 2007, the lowest monthly extent in the satellite record. Ice extent was below the 1979 to 2000 average everywhere except in the East Greenland Sea, where conditions were near average.
While recent studies have shown that in wintertime Antarctic sea ice has a weak upward trend, and substantial variability both within a year and from year to year, the differences between Arctic and Antarctic sea ice trends are not unexpected. Climate models consistently project that the Arctic will warm more quickly than the Antarctic, largely due to the strong climate feedbacks in the Arctic. Warming is amplified by the loss of ice cover in the Arctic Ocean in areas that had been ice-covered for decades, and by the warming of Arctic lands as snow cover is lost earlier and returns later than in recent decades.
Arctic sea ice extent for September 2011 was 4.61 million km2 (1.78 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that month. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. (Image courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, US)
Source: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews (website of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colorado, US)
Moreover, rising levels of greenhouse gases and the loss of stratospheric ozone appear to be affecting wind patterns around Antarctica. Shifts in this circulation are referred to as the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO). As greenhouse gases have increased, and especially when ozone is lost in spring, there is a tendency for these winds to strengthen (a positive AAO index). The net effect is to push sea ice eastward and northward, increasing the ice extent. As the current sea ice anomaly has developed, the AAO index has been strongly positive. (See the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) AAO Index, www.noaa.gov.) For more information about the
