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13 May 2009:

The Caitlin Arctic Survey team, led by Devon explorers Pen Hadow and Ann Daniels, has been safely airlifted off the floating Arctic Ocean ice cap after a gruelling 73-day expedition.

They were due to be collected later in May, but were picked up sooner to ensure their safety.

The main finding of their expedition is that the ice is much thinner than expected (see more below).

Scientists believe the team has already provided valuable information on sea ice which will benefit explorers in the future. They will be interpreting the data which the team had to collect manually as soon as they return to Eureka in northern Canada.

Speaking from the high Arctic on a live link from the pick up landing strip, Pen Hadow said: "It was a gruelling but successful expedition.

"In our time here we have captured around 16,000 observations and taking 1,500 measurements of the thickness of the ice and snow as well as its density. That's a valuable set of data we've collected for scientists. So we'e handing it over to them now."

The team covered 434kms of frozen arctic ocean in temperatures around -46 degrees Celsius, and sometimes faced a wind chill factor of -70 degrees Celsius.

Pen Hadow, Martin Hartley, Ann Daniels

7 May 2009:

As she prepares to be airlifted from the ice in the next 10-15 days Ann Daniels says it is the sound of the Arctic which will stay with her most vividly after she's returned home to Devon.

"Every step I take across this icy wilderness is accompanied by a 'squeak, squeak' as my ski poles pierce the ice underfoot," she says.

"But it's natural sound that's most unsettling.听When it is quiet, the silence seems sinister but when you hear a sudden noise you experience an almost animalistic reaction.听

"Your heart jumps, your head's up, you're thinking 'where's that noise'".

After 67 gruelling days on the ice the team is now preparing to be lifted off the ice - no specific date has been decided for the air operation and the decision will be taken based on advice from the pilots, detailed satellite imagery and reports from the team themselves.

Earlier this week the trio - Pen Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels - were down to only 1,000 calories a day while they waited for a re-supply flight.

The flight did get in through a break in the bad weather to land with much needed food and other supplies - it was a tricky operation, but the team is now making its final push northwards and accumulating more survey data on the way.

Trekking across the ice cap (Martin Hartley)

16 April 2009:

Initial findings by an Arctic survey team led by two Devon explorers show a thinner ice cap than expected.

Ped Hadow from Dartmoor and Ann Daniels from Whimple in East Devon are having to take manual measurements of the ice because all of their state-of-the-art equipment has broken down in the extreme weather conditions at the North Pole.

Hadow is having to drill down into the ice to get the measurements, the first of which show an average ice thickness of 1.77m.

The findings are now being analysed by the scientific partners of the Catlin Arctic Survey team.

The depth indicates it is first year ice, which would have started to develop in September 2008. Scientists expected this area of the Arctic Ocean to be covered by multi-year ice.

This suggests that the older, thicker ice has either moved to a different part of the ocean or has melted. It points to an ever-smaller summer ice covering around the North Geographic Pole this year.

Pen Hadow, speaking on satellite phone from the team's latest floating camp out on the ice, said: "To discover that there's virtually no multi year ice in this part of the transect is a real surprise to me. I am really interested to know what the scientists make of it."

The results are from their ongoing drilling programme after the conditions affected their high tech equipment.听SPRITE, the pioneering Surface Penetrating Radar for Ice Thickness Establishment, and onboard sledge computer kit have both been disabled by the extreme conditions.

A fault, not previously detected, has also prevented use of a SeaCat probe which measures the water column beneath the floating sea ice - although a new version is being sent on the next re-supply flight.

The equipment failure has made the expedition even more gruelling for Hadow, Daniels and photographer Martin Hartley.

"No one should underestimate how challenging this has been so far," said Simon Harris-Ward, the Catlin Arctic Survey's director of operations.

"The extreme weather, even by Arctic standards, has affected much of their tried and tested standard kit. They've had breakages to equipment such as stoves and skis because of the harsh conditions."

The ice is thinner than the team expected

Pen Hadow said they were prepared for setbacks: "It' never wise to imagine that either man or technology has the upper hand in the natural world.

"It's truly brutal at times out here on the Arctic Ocean and a constant reminder that Mother Nature always has the final say."

Despite the technological setbacks the team has so far conducted over 1,100 separate measurements at 81 drill locations.

And scientists believe the loss of the equipment will not prevent a successful mission: "There's no question that the Catlin Arctic Survey's manual measuring techniques have the capacity to provide the first large scale direct measurements of ice thickness in the high Arctic for many years," said Seymour Laxon from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University College London.

"Drilling holes might be the most basic method, but it's also the most fundamental."

In spite of its setbacks, the team is committed to continuing its science programme and gathering as much data as possible as they push northwards.

The main focus is now on the manual drilling programme. It takes about three hours to complete the data collection at each sampling site so there will be less time available each day to make headway on the route.

As a result, the team might not make it to the North Geographic Pole.

Simon Harris-Ward said this would not be a problem, however: "The overall focus is the science, so reaching the Pole is largely irrelevant to this expedition.

"What matters most is gathering the maximum amount of data possible over a scientifically interesting route."

The team has endured frostbite and the trio still face the prospect of blizzards, continual subzero temperatures and swimming across stretches of open water.

They are due to be flown off the ice on 5 May 2009.

The background:

Pen Hadow and Ann Daniels flew from the UK to Canada on 11 February to embark on a scientific survey of the Arctic Ocean's floating sea ice.

It's hoped their findings will help scientists calculate how long the dwindling ice cap could last.

The third team member is specialist polar photographer Martin Hartley.

The three-month Catlin Arctic Survey started on 1 March 2009, when the team was flown onto the ice some 500 miles off the coast of northern Canada.听

In what is an extreme physical challenge, the Catlin Arctic Survey Ice Team hopes to trek 1,000 kilometres to the North Geographic Pole measuring the thickness of the ice and collecting other scientific data to help scientists understand more about what is going on.

They took with them a specially-built radar to take 12 million measurements of the permanent Arctic Ocean sea ice.

Evidence before this expedition appears to suggest that the Arctic Ocean floating sea ice is melting rapidly and may vanish as early as 2013, leaving the top of the world without a permanent expanse of snow and ice for the first time during summer months.

The consequences include the warming of the Arctic Ocean as it absorbs energy from the sun which has previously been reflected back into space by the vast expanse of ice and snow.

It would also open open up sea routes for shipping through the North West and North-East Passages.

But there will be huge changes to the eco-system, including the habitat of its most iconic creature - the polar bear.

Once completed, the project's findings will be made available for the United Nation's Climate Change Conference of Parties in Copenhagen, Denmark, in November 2009.

Current estimates of how long ice will be a year-round feature around the North Pole vary considerably - with scientific predictions ranging between five and 100 years.

Hadow - the first explorer to trek solo and unsupported from Canada to the North Pole - said the Arctic Ocean was "not only an astonishingly beautiful place but a globally unique environment of immense significance to the balance of the Earth's whole eco-system."

He added: "Experienced explorers are the only people who have the expertise to undertake a survey of this magnitude and help science in this way."

Daniels, a mother of 14-year-old triplets and a five-year-old daughter, was a member of the first all-women teams to trek to both the North and South Poles.

The trio have selected five menu meals to take with them, including two types of curry and a casserole. Snacks will include high calorie foods such as cheese, salami and chocolate.

The US Naval Postgraduate School, the Nasa IceSat Mission and the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge are all involved in the expedition.

The project will help fill the current gap in existing measurement studies by satellites and submarines - which cannot differentiate between ice and snow layers.

Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, from the US Naval Postgraduate School, said the data would enable them to test the accuracy of their modelling and re-assess projections as to how long the surviving ice was likely to last.

The project's patron is the Prince of Wales and it is supported by the United Nations Environment Programme and World Wildlife Fund International.

The past year saw record melting of the Arctic ice cap to 39% below the average minimum, causing experts to predict the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer much sooner than previously predicted.