BERLIN (AP) – A German icebreaker accompanying scientists on a year-long international expedition in the high Arctic has reached the North Pole, after making an unplanned detour due to lighter-than-usual sea ice conditions.
Expedition leader Markus Rex said on Wednesday that the RV Polarstern could reach the geographic North Pole due to large openings in sea ice that would normally make shipping in the region above Greenland too difficult.
“We have made rapid progress in a few days,” Rex told The Associated Press. “It’s breathtaking – we currently had open water until the eye could see.”
The region above northern Greenland is normally covered with thick silk ice that sometimes builds up over several years, he said. But this year, the Polarstern was able to make it in less than a week from the ice edge in Fram Street to the pole.
The mission sailed from the German port of Bremerhaven last September, anchored on an ice float and conducted several experiments to study the impact of global warming on the Arctic until the summer heat broke the ice cover apart.
After passing the pole, the Polarstern will anchor to a new fluid and observe the beginning of the freezing process that the Arctic will observe in a new mantle of sea ice.
The 100 crew and scientists will return to Bremerhaven, Germany on October 12.
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