Russian Arctic scientists forced to abandon melting research station

by Rich Bowden - Jul 14 2008, 21:17

Russian scientists are abandoning their research station in the Arctic this season as the ice floe on which they were camped has melted at a rate far ahead of schedule.

Twenty polar researchers and two dogs have been rescued by the "Mikhail Somov" research ship after the ice floe where they had been working since last September shrank dramatically from six kilometres (3.8 miles) to just 600 metres in length, according to Agence France Presse (AFP) quoting Sergei Bolyasnikov, a spokesman for Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Institute.

"The 20 polar researchers and their two dogs climbed on board the 'Mikhail Somov'[research ship]," said Bolyasnikov. "All scientific programmes at the station have been stopped."

The scientific project, named North Pole-35, was a study designed to study Arctic flora and fauna, environmental conditions and geography.

The early exit from the research mission, which had not been expected to finish until September has been blamed on global warming and the ever-decreasing Arctic sea ice. The observed melting of ice has some scientists predicting the Arctic could be ice free far sooner than previously expected with the unknown ramifications this will have on the amount of rainfall and snow across the northern hemisphere.

"The observed rates of change have far outstripped what we projected," senior research scientist Mark Serreze of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Centre told the Scientific American.

"We seem to melt a little more each summer," he said.                                  

 

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