Twice as thick. And not just the ice!

Tim Blair

History’s most pointless Arctic strolling tour continues. The latest from Christopher Booker:

Up in the Arctic, after yet another delay for bad weather, the hapless Catlin trio, sponsored by an insurance firm which hopes to make money out of alarm over global warming, continue their painful progress towards the distant North Pole, measuring the ice with an old tape measure and assuring Prince Charles by satellite telephone that it is “thinner than expected”.

 

When the Catlin trio heard a passing aircraft, which they hoped was bringing much-needed supplies, they little realised it was a DC-3 carrying an international team of scientists, using the latest electro-magnetic induction equipment to discover rather more efficiently that the ice was in fact “twice as thick” as they had expected.

 

The Catlin trio – not to be confused with the Barb Catlin Trio – have been out there now for 70 days and still aren’t even halfway to their destination. Less ice would make for an easier trip. 

 

A fuller report on the German aerial ice survey here.

 

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