camp 14 Denali

Siberia, North Pole, South Pole, Greenland Icecap and Alaska all in one looong year. It was an remarkable year  and although new expeditions are on the table and blissfully daily routine has slipped back into my life, I  want to thank my sponsors for making this happen: Polartec, 3M, Mountain Hardwear, Patagonia, Icebreaker, private donors, Oikos, VSB fonds, Triodos Foundation, Volkskrant, Fonds 1818. Additional sponsors are mentioned at the bottom of this page. The media after reaching the South Pole was overwhelming but it also got the important message of climate change across to the younger generation. I am greatful for the teachers and children who followed me on the web and watched faithfully each Friday morning (6 weeks long)  “Nieuws uit de Natuur” on dutch TV where I gave updates on climate change on the Greenland Icecap. Special thanks to all the teachers supporting the cause of climate change. The school visits between the expeditions where the most rewarding especially when I see meaningful initiatives kids are taking to reduce their carbon footprint. When the school year starts again, we will announce the winners of the contest. National pride aside (being the first Dutch women who skied to the South Pole) I have been quiet happy to sit still at the moment in lovely Fernie, BC (where I live) and recap all the experiences of the last year. I don’t know where to start: so many of my own thoughts, wisdom of indigenous peoples of the Arctic and Siberia, information from scientists and of course my fellow explorers on all  expeditions. What is next? writing a series of articles, my book, preparing lectures and head back to Holland to wrap up the educational project. And then I am getting serious about training for Everest - on the schedule for May 2009. Anyone for tire pulling this fall?

The strange thing about Greenland’s ice -cap is that some parts are thinning by up to a meter a year and other parts are growing due to warmer temperatures which increases precipitation. As the ice cap is more than 3 kilometers thick what is the problem? The ice sheet, which covers seven-eighths of the land’s surface, contains an estimated 11 percent of the world’s fresh water. During the last 110,000 years it is believed there have been at least 23 ice warming periods in Greenland – like the one we see happening now. The discovery of abrupt climatic shifts, or Dansgaard-Oeschger oscillations, has been the most surprising element in ice core research and baffles scientists. The last glacial period show temperature increases over Greenland of up to 6 degrees Celsius, in a time span of less than a decade. This has prompted great interest in the causes of such a dramatic change, and has led to speculation that the current increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere might trigger such change in the coming decades. The problem is that the exposed ocean water will reflect less solar rays than ice. This causing a further warming of the atmosphere. Without other factors intervening, the additional warming will lead to more breakup of ice. Additional melt water from the ice will bring large fluxes of freshwater into the north Atlantic causing a buoyancy effect from the much less saline water. The cold waters will cease to sink, and the low undercurrent flow is likely to considerably weaken, halting the Atlantic thermo circulation. The Gulf Stream, a major part of the clockwise-rotating system of currents in the Atlantic, the North Atlantic Drift, and other currents will be affected by a large influx of freshwater. Research by Australian scientists has suggested that a 3C rise in global temperatures would be enough to trigger the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. In 2006, research conducted by researchers at Nasa suggested that the rate of melting of the giant ice sheet had tripled since 2004. A complete melt of the ice sheet would cause a global sea level rise of about 7m and 23m if Antarctica were to go!