Home » What we do » Tackling climate change » Catlin Arctic Survey

Catlin Arctic Survey

Fresh Arctic evidence for climate summit

Scientists are busy analysing data from a WWF-backed Arctic mission, which will provide important new evidence for the crucial climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.

Ann Daniels and Pen Hadow take ice measurements

The Catlin Arctic Survey team returned this May with unique new measurements of the thickness and extent of sea ice in the Arctic. The University of Cambridge’s Polar Ocean Physics Group - headed by Professor Peter Wadhams - is currently analysing the data, with initial results already suggesting that the sea ice is newer and thinner (and therefore more liable to melt) than expected. The results will help climate scientists around the world to understand how quickly the dwindling summer sea ice will melt and to predict more accurately the effect this will have on the global climate.

We are providing funding to help the research team speed up their analysis. It’s crucial that the results are available in time for the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, as they will strengthen our calls for a strong global climate deal. Governments must take action urgently to keep global temperature rise below 2°C, the threshold beyond which most scientists predict climate change could become catastrophic.

Pen Hadow and Ann Daniels with immersion suits on

“Climate change is happening now and nowhere is it more evident than in the Arctic,” said our head of climate change, Keith Allott.

“Sea ice is a critical part of Earth’s climate system and the loss of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is happening decades ahead of most predictions. We cannot predict all of the effects of this ice loss, but scientists foresee severe disruption to the natural world on both a local and a global scale.”

Brave explorers
Three experienced polar explorers – Pen Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley – took part in the Catlin Arctic Survey. They made around 16,000 observations and took 1,500 measurements over three months, enduring gruelling conditions, with freezing winds bringing temperatures as low as -70°C.

You can...