KEY POINTS:
As Grant Redvers gazes at the desert of white around him, the New Zealander is amazed to think the next time he visits the frozen Arctic Ocean he could be sailing through open water.
The ice is melting at such a spectacular rate that this part of the
world will be a very different place in just 10 years, says the environmental scientist from Masterton.
Results from many scientific tests carried out by crew on the polar schooner the Tara, Redvers' chilly home for the past year, have been released and show that change in the northern-most part of the world is more dramatic than expected.
The Tara was deliberately trapped in the Arctic ice more than a year ago to drift with the transpolar current from one side of the ice to the other, to research climate change in conjunction with scientists from a European research project known as Damocles.
The scientists have analysed the data and say there has been a "spectacular retreat" of the summer sea ice.
They now predict this ice will melt away completely within eight to 15 years. At the release of the findings, in Paris recently, they revealed that between between September 2005 and September this year more than one million square kilometres of sea ice had disappeared.
If, as they now predict, the summer pack ice completely melts away within a decade, 80 per cent of the solar energy normally reflected back into space by the ice would instead be absorbed by the ocean.
This would lead to the warming of the ocean and therefore the atmosphere and this in turn would lead to an accelerated melting of the Greenland continental ice.
The scientists say the fresh water flowing to the ocean from Greenland would slow down the circulation of Northern Atlantic salty water towards the Arctic Ocean, triggering a cooling of western Europe and leading to "climate upheaval far beyond the Arctic and subarctic regions".
Redvers is the expedition leader on the Tara, the boat once sailed by Sir Peter Blake and known then as the Seamaster.
Scientists have come and gone during the project but Redvers has been on board throughout. He has seen a winter of perpetual darkness, a summer of 24-hour daylight and is now heading into the darkness of winter again - though he is unlikely to see the season through.
A dramatic acceleration in the drift speed means the boat is likely to break free of the ice in the coming weeks to months, far earlier than expected.
Out on the ice, a long way from Paris and an even longer way from home, Redvers talks about feeling lucky, yet sad that he is among the last people who will see this lonely, magical landscape as it is now.
The prediction of the disappearance of summer sea ice in 10 years is dramatic. This is an enormous amount of ice.
There will be serious consequences for animal life, such as polar bears, and political consequences for the region as countries around the rim of the ice cap compete for oil, gas and mineral resources which will suddenly become accessible.
Waterways will open up and tourist and cargo vessels will become the norm.
"We're travelling through a threatened environment - you really get that sense," says Redvers.
"We're really seeing a turning point in the Arctic environment and we're lucky in a way to be up here observing it. But in another sense this is a little bit sad. We're watching the decay of a threatened environment, for sure."
He thinks he might come back in 10 years to see how the predictions pan out. But, from this ice - once so thick that early explorers thought there was land underneath - Redvers says he believes he will be sailing next time.
Even this summer, scientific cruises on icebreaker vessels sailed a direct path from northern Siberia to Alaska. Usually there is a lot of ice but these cruises saw none.
Certainly, there will be a big opening up of the trade routes along the North West Passage and the North East Passage above Russia, says Redvers.
"Even in the last few years they've seen a big increase in the days that it's possible to navigate without having problems with ice, which will be a huge economic benefit for trade, for transport of goods and products through the northern sea route.
"It's about 40 per cent shorter than going through Suez or Panama, between Europe and northeast Asia or northwest America, so you're almost cutting your transport costs in half."
This would mean a lot of extra traffic, possible oil spills and the pollution of a still pristine environment, but Redvers says a lot of the little northern sea route ports are hanging out for the extra traffic.
"They think it's going to be a bit of a gold rush for them economically."
The area is already becoming active as countries try to lay claim to the rich untapped resources, such as for the massive hydrocarbon resources in the central Arctic basin.
"We saw that this summer with the Russian expedition which went to the North Pole to plant the flag, and then also on the other side the Danish who were doing surveys to prove their continental shelf off Greenland extended to the North Pole.
"So I think all these countries which are around the Arctic, they're sort of trying to stake their claim a little bit stronger with the expectation that in a few years there will be a lot of wealth and mineral resources to exploit."
The science is good and bad news for the animal and sea life of the Arctic.
With warming, marine productivity will increase so species such as the northern cod and herring will do well.
But for the indigenous populations living around the Arctic who depend on whaling, sealing and hunting walrus, the news is not so good.
A lot of that activity is dependent on the summer ice, says Redvers. The crew saw quite a bit of animal life including birds and polar bears "cruising by" during the summer. "We had a period of about three weeks when we had one or two polar bears every day, so we've seen what we think is quite a bit of activity during the summer."
But if the summer ice disappears, the future is bleak for polar bears.
Polar bears spend the majority of their time on the ice and while some go onto land to breed many remain on the ice their whole lives.
"If there's no ice they're going to get forced south, obviously. They're going to get forced on to a terrestrial habitat that's already inhabited by other types of bears - and us, man.
"So their whole way of living, their feeding zones, change completely. I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to think they could be forced to extinction if there's no summer sea ice."
There is nothing much which can be done to stop the train in terms of the disappearance of the ice, he says.
"It's really just a matter of having to wait and see."
Redvers and the crew still get a buzz every time a bear comes close.
"Everyone gets woken up if it's at night and we're outside with spotlights or everyone's out there with cameras.
"The thing I get shocked with every time is seeing such a big animal living in this desert where we don't see much life at all and thinking how they can survive up here, just to see something so well adapted to this harsh environment."
Polar bears are graceful animals but, Redvers says, it is important not to be lulled into a false sense of security. Huskey Zagrey, the old dog on board who sounds the polar bear alert, races out on the ice to bark at them.
Mostly the bears are "pretty cool" with him but once he got too close, was swiped and needed stitches.
"They're very agile and quick and quite ferocious as well."
For Redvers and the crew, the next challenge is exiting the boat from the ice.
The Tara is not far from the Greenland coast and already there is almost no daylight. The weather has been stormy and though the boat is still firmly stuck in the ice, the ice has fractured and in some places there is open water.
The boat may not easily float free. An icy keel 8m deep is still attached to the bottom from the first winter and that ice will have to come off.
"We don't really know how it's going to happen," says Redvers.
"As we get closer to the ice edge it could potentially be quite a violent sort of event, like when a storm comes through and breaks up all of the ice and we find ourselves in water and broken bits of ice then have to try and push our way out.
"Or it could be a relatively soft sort of an exit, just getting closer and closer to the ice edge and then one day a fracture opens up and we slip into an open lead and motor our way out."
