Curiously Polar

Curiously Polar

By Chris MarquardtSociety & CultureScienceHistoryPlaces & TravelEarth Sciences
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Curiously Polar episodes

  • 138 Unintended Consequences: The EU Seal Ban and Indigenous Seal Hunters

    Watch this on video | Buy us a coffee: Chris / Henry / Mario

    POLAR NEWSREEL

    Protection of marine wildlife can result in conflicts with small scale fishing communities. // Protection of marine wildlife can give healthier ecosystems and increased carbon capture by the ocean: meet the sea otter. // More whales equals more carbon storage. // After the decrease in hunting pressure harp seals are increasing in numbers and their population is growing fast

    UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: THE EU SEAL BAN AND INDIGENOUS SEAL HUNTERS

    In 1964 Radio Canada released a film about hunting harp seals in the Gulf of St Lawrence. The images, later admittedly choreographed and not corresponding to the reality of the hunt, shocked the world and resulted in opposition to this activity. Among the notable opponents we find a baby seal-hugging Brigitte Bardot, one of the icons of the fight to end seal hunting. It took forty years for the EU to deliberate in 2009 what is known as the EU Seal Ban which in practice was a ban on imports of seal products. The ban's wording was at best unfortunate and this caused dire problems for the Inuit and indigenous communities traditionally relying on sealing for nutritional, cultural and spiritual needs especially in Greenland and Canada, and resulted in the 2015 amendment to the regulations. The present EU law allows trade in seal products from "hunts conducted by Inuit or other indigenous communities" and sets a clearer definition criteria among which we find the terms "tradition", "subsistence" and "animal welfare". In spite of the EU public apology, the damage to the Inuit and other indigenous communities of the Arctic might be permanent.
    Another consequence of the decrease in hunting pressure has been an increase in harp seals numbers and in the area of highest hunting pressure, the Northwest Atlantic, their population has been growing fast.

    This is an episode of the Curiously Polar podcast

    with

    Chris Marquardt https://chrismarquardt.com/
    Henry Páll Wulff: https://henrypall.com/
    Mario Acquarone https://www.buymeacoffee.com/polarmario

    Listen to all podcast episodes at https://curiouslypolar.com

    All video episodes at https://tfttf.com/curiouslypolarvideo

    Find us here:

    Web: https://curiouslypolar.com
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiouslypolar
    Instagram: https://instagram.com/curiouslypolar

    1 hr 6 min
  • 137 A Comprehensive Polar Library, Part 1

    Watch this on video | Buy us a coffee: Chris / Henry / Mario

    POLAR NEWSREEL

    There have been historical mentions of polar bears using tools to hunt walruses mainly based on accounts by Inuit local. An article by Dr Ian Stirling, the foremost authority on polar bears, reviews the knowledge on the matter and concluded that "possible tool use by polar bears in the wild is infrequent and mainly limited to hunting walruses // Space technology has an impact in the polar area in more than one way, reports The Barents Observer. This Thursday parts of a rocket will hit the surface of the Barents Sea and hopefully avoid the many vessels that are present in the area. // Cleaning the Arctic of past sins is a priority of the Russian Chairmanship of the Arctic Council. The Barents Observer reports of success for an expedition to find the location of nuclear material dumped in the sea. // Being different is usually considered detrimental to reproductive success, but new research shows that penguins with unusual coloring still find mates. // The demand for krill oil seems to increase and so is the fleet equipped for harvesting this resource. But is it a good - sustainable - idea? // While trying to save award-winning director Alexander Melnik during strategic drills in the Arctic, Russian Emergency Situations Minister Yevgeny Zinichev died tragically.

    A COMPREHENSIVE POLAR LIBRARY, PART 1

    This week we present a collection of our most favorite polar books, gems that are not to miss for your comprehensive polar library.

    • For pioneering expeditions to climb the Arctic peaks: H.W. Tilman (1974) "Ice with Everything" and (1977) "Triumph and Tribulation", originally by Nautical Publishing Company. Look for these and other fascinating works by the prolific Tilman on Amazon
    • In "The Ice at the End of the World: An Epic Journey Into Greenland's Buried Past and our Perilous Future" writer Jon Gertner explains how Greenland has evolved from one of earth’s last frontiers to its largest scientific laboratory. The story begins with adventure describing explorations of Greenland’s ice covered interior from the 1880’s through the 1930s, leading to climate change, the future of Greenland’s ice sheet and glaciers, and what that holds for the world.
    • An account of the events during World War 2 that led to the establishment of the Sirius Patrol in North East Greenland and beginning of the home-rule: David Howarth (1957) "The Sledge Patrol", Collins. On Amazon
    • Many books have been written about the story of Ernest Shackleton, but Nick Bertozzi managed to address a different audience to this remarkable story of survival. The graphic novel "Shackleton: Antarctic Odyssey" is introducing Shackleton’s expedition aboard in a nice and surprisingly uplifting way.
    • About the expeditions seeking the North West Passage and especially about the Franklin voyage and all the rescue efforts that followed, but not only: Pierrre Berton "The Arctic Grail, the quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole 1818-1909", first edition in 1977, my copy shown during the podcast is 1988 published by McLelland and Stewart. Last published in 2000 by The Lyons Press and still available on Amazon
    • Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnasson manages what many people before and after him couldn't manage: making Climate Change personal. In his book "On Time And Water" he uses elements of memoir, world history, mythology and the latest scientific reportage to help readers connect with and truly understand where we are in the fight and what is at stake. A true marvel.

      • This is an episode of the Curiously Polar podcast

      with

      Chris Marquardt https://chrismarquardt.com/
      Henry Páll Wulff: https://henrypall.com/
      Mario Acquarone https://www.buymeacoffee.com/polarmario

      Listen to all podcast episodes at https://curiouslypolar.com

      All video episodes at https://tfttf.com/curiouslypolarvideo

      Find us here:

      Web: https://curiouslypolar.com
      Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiouslypolar
      Instagram: https://instagram.com/curiouslypolar

      54 min
    • 136 Back With a Vengeance

      Watch this on video | Buy us a coffee: Chris / Henry / Mario

      POLAR NEWSREEL

      The time of discoveries in the polar regions has not ended yet. A team that was aiming to land at Oodaaq island, the northernost dry land in the world north of Greenland, actually landed on new emerged bank slightly northwest of it and thus serendipitously discovered the, so far, northernmost emerged land in the world. The discoverers have suggested the name “Qeqertaq Avannarleq”, which means “the northernmost island” in Greenlandic.
      Algae are the basis of all life in the oceans. This project from UNIS in Svalbard studied how the rapid temperature rise in the Arctic affects the sea ice algae and the phytoplankton. The results are to be used for modeling the impact of Arctic warming on the ecosystem.
      Penguins have inspired the shape of one of the newest additions to the instruments to study oceans: the Quadroin, a 25kg and €80,000 wireless AUV that can sample data autonomously down to 150m in environments where other vehicles are unable to go, for example, under sea ice or in shallow water.
      For the first time in recorded history rain fell at the normally snowy summit of Greenland. Over a weekend in mid August temperatures at the Greenland summit rose above freezing for the third time in less than a decade. The rain dumped 7 billion tons of water on the ice sheet, the heaviest rainfall on the ice sheet since record keeping began in 1950.
      Our currently most favourite iceberg out in the ocean, the well documented A-74 that's nearly the size of Greater London, reportedly touched the western tip of Brunt Ice Shelf due to strong easterly winds. The bump, however, has not been strong enough to effect Brunt Ice Shelf and nearby Halley research station of British Antarctic Survey which has been in hibernation since the begin of the pandemic.

      BACK WITH A VENGEANCE

      After a two months break we are back with an alarming topic. The IPCC has recently released the first part of their Sixth Assessment Report focusing on "The Physical Science Basis" of climate change. Two more parts are due for completion next year, "Mitigation of Climate Change", and "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability" as well as eventually the "Sixth Assessment Report Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2022". The good news on this report is: There is nothing new. There's no big news, nothing that we didn't already know. We're seeing the effects of climate change already. And this report just confirms what our research and experience has told us is happening. "The Physical Science Basis" states that unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach. What’s surprising is that the IPCC uses in this report a very strong, definitive language, like the use of words like unequivocal in a way that leaves no doubt. It takes away all the conspiracy arguments of the so-called sceptics. In its press release the IPCC summarises the report very clear: "Climate change is bringing multiple different changes in different regions – which will all increase with further warming. These include changes to wetness and dryness, to winds, snow and ice, coastal areas and oceans."

      This is an episode of the Curiously Polar podcast

      with

      Chris Marquardt https://chrismarquardt.com/
      Henry Páll Wulff: https://henrypall.com/
      Mario Acquarone https://www.buymeacoffee.com/polarmario

      Listen to all podcast episodes at https://curiouslypolar.com

      All video episodes at https://tfttf.com/curiouslypolarvideo

      Find us here:

      Web: https://curiouslypolar.com
      Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiouslypolar
      Instagram: https://instagram.com/curiouslypolar

      47 min
    • 135 The Best Explorer Polarquest

      Watch this on video | Buy us a coffee: Chris / Henry / Mario

      POLAR NEWSREEL

      A decision by the National Geographic Society gave popular recognition to the Southern Ocean as the World’s fifth ocean with its own distinct features. On Amery Ice Shelf a large meltwater lake suddenly disappeared. After spending 24,000 years frozen in permafrost a tiny multi-cellular animal called Rotifer has been revived. On the other side of the planet soils from rocky ridges in the center of Antarctica don’t contain no microbes, something never found anywhere else.

      THE BEST EXPLORER POLARQUEST 2021

      For years, Mario’s father has conducted explorations, especially in polar waters, on his own sailing boat, Best Explorer, with the ambition to expand the knowledge of places and peoples and at the same time to conduct cultural and scientific projects in collaboration with public and private institutions. After finishing his circumnavigation of the Arctic, Best Explorer is writing a new chapter joining the Polarquest 2021 and will set sail on a scientific exploration of Svalbard and the Arctic ocean, sampling of water for eDNA, driftwood for drift paths and accumulation dynamics, mapping glaciers with drone and side-scan sonar survey looking for the wreck of the famous airship Italia.

      This is an episode of the Curiously Polar podcast

      with

      Chris Marquardt https://chrismarquardt.com/
      Henry Páll Wulff: https://henrypall.com/
      Mario Acquarone https://www.buymeacoffee.com/polarmario

      Listen to all podcast episodes at https://curiouslypolar.com

      All video episodes at https://tfttf.com/curiouslypolarvideo

      Find us here:

      Web: https://curiouslypolar.com
      Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiouslypolar
      Instagram: https://instagram.com/curiouslypolar

      40 min
    • 134 Polar Explorers, pt. 2: The Heroine of Wrangel Island

      Watch this on video | Buy us a coffee: Chris / Henry / Mario

      POLAR NEWSREEL

      In Episode #125 we talked about Dinosaurs in Antarctica and recently we stumbled across the trailer for an upcoming film with the same title, check it out! The 43rd Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting between 14 and 24 June marks the 60th Anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty and the 30th Anniversary of the Madrid Protocol (also known as Protocol on Environmental Protection. While those talks are taking place a debate on the future of the Antarctic Treaty System has been initiated, raising the question how to maintain Antarctica a military-free continent. In Russia the supposedly most dangerous vessel no longer poses a nuclear threat to the Arctic. Researchers of the University of Waterloo have recently found that several toxic, long-lasting human-made contaminants have found in people living in northern Canada.

      THE HEROINE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

      Born in the remote settlement of Spruce Creek, forty miles east of Nome, Alaska, 23-year-old Iñupiat women Ada Blackjack was stricken by life hardships already at young age. When she joined an Arctic expedition across the Chukchi Sea to Russia's Wrangel Island in 1921 out of her desperation to pay for her last surviving son’s medical care, no one could have guessed that she would raise to fame.

      The Wrangel Island Expedition was a curious and baffling episode in the history of Arctic exploration—at best, an example of shocking hubris; at worst, a case of murderous neglect. Almost from the beginning, the team was ill-prepared, had bad luck and made poor decisions.

      Setting sail with four young men in their twenties on an expedition to colonise the island north of Siberia, she had doubts when she realised that the hired Inuit families to come along on the expedition bailed out of the venture on the day of departure. Hired for her sewing and cooking skills, Ada suddenly became in charge of the camp when three of the expedition party perished while searching for help after the promised ship didn’t picked them up the next summer. Left alone with the deadly ill last man of her team, she took care about him until his death and learned how to survive in the hazardous condition of the high north. Even though she lacked any wilderness skills, she taught herself to hunt and trap, picked roots, hauled wood, made her own clothing, and dodged hungry polar bears.

      It was her wish to be reunited with her son that drove her will to survive. She returned two years later as the only survivor put in the rank of heroines, presented as the female Robinson Crusoe. Later she has been accused of negligence, after having let the fourth man, Knight, die. Fame did not benefit her and she spent the rest of her life trying to get out of poverty.

      Despite of her fame, life continued to be a struggle for Ada. Bennet never overcame his health issues and eventually died, at age 58, in 1972. Unlike the organisation of the expedition, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Ada didn’t profit from the expedition. Deeply wounded by the media circus and the experiences she had on Wrangel Island, she withdrew more and more and led a simple life as a reindeer herder.

      Then, on May 29, 1983, Ada Delutuk Blackjack Johnson died at age eighty-five at the Palmer Pioneers’ Home, where no one knew she was once an Arctic hero.

      The experimental dramatic short film Ada Blackjack Rising preserves her memory and brings together the current inhabitants of Northern Alaska with that legendary woman from the same land. The film is based on the biography, Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic, written by Jennifer Niven.

      This is an episode of the Curiously Polar podcast

      with

      Chris Marquardt https://chrismarquardt.com/
      Henry Páll Wulff: https://henrypall.com/
      Mario Acquarone https://www.buymeacoffee.com/polarmario

      Listen to all podcast episodes at https://curiouslypolar.com

      All video episodes at https://tfttf.com/curiouslypolarvideo

      Find us here:

      Web: https://curiouslypolar.com
      Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiouslypolar
      Instagram: https://instagram.com/curiouslypolar

      1 hr 2 min
    • 133 Mario is Back

      Watch this on video | Buy us a coffee: Chris / Henry

      POLAR NEWSREEL

      After the 2019 Ministerial meeting could not agree on a joint ministerial declaration the Arctic Council adopted in Reykjavík its first-ever strategic plan for the Council's work for the next ten years, marking the end of the two-year Icelandic Chairmanship and beginning of the Russian Chairmanship. // Scientists of the Norwegian Polar Institute and the University of Bergen research the world’s largest creatures, blue whales and fin whales, and their exposure to a wide variety of chemicals during their cycles of movement across ocean basins. // Recently, the 2.000 square kilometre-large iceberg D-28, which calved from Amery ice shelf in September 2019, impacted ice shelves in the Queen Maud Land area of Antarctica creating 5 new icebergs.

      MARIO IS BACK

      Listeners who have been following Curiously Polar for a long time have missed him, but after a well-deserved break, Mario Acquarone is back in front of the microphone. The three of us now regularly dive into the vastness of the polar regions again. In this episode we will introduce you to Mario in more detail and talk about what to expect in the coming weeks.

      This is an episode of the Curiously Polar podcast

      with

      Chris Marquardt https://chrismarquardt.com/
      Henry Páll Wulff: https://henrypall.com/
      Mario Acquarone

      Listen to all podcast episodes at https://curiouslypolar.com

      All video episodes at https://tfttf.com/curiouslypolarvideo

      Find us here:

      Web: https://curiouslypolar.com
      Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiouslypolar
      Instagram: https://instagram.com/curiouslypolar

      27 min
    • 132 Polar Explorers, pt. 1: The Woman Who Tamed The Arctic

      Watch this on video | Buy us a coffee: Chris / Henry

      POLAR NEWSREEL

      20-24°C hotter than average but truly mind-boggling for this time of year, a ferocious heatwave has reached large parts of the Russian Arctic with +30°C (86.5°F). The workhorse of Antarctic field operations, the Twin Otter DHC-6, had its 1st flight 56 yrs ago in 1965 - Happy Birthday! Global warming has unlocked hundreds of Viking artifacts from the ice of the Norwegian mountains in recent years. The new heavyweight champion in the league of icebergs is A-76, a hunk of ice that measures 1,670 square miles (4,320 square kilometers) and broke of the Ronne Ice Shelf on May 13. An a new study shows that those giant icebergs may be playing a larger role in carbon sequestration and Earth’s global carbon cycle than previously thought.

      THE WOMAN WHO TAMED THE ARCTIC

      The first part of the Polar Explorers mini series introduces the woman who tamed the Arctic. As a true explorer, Louise Arner Boyd has contributed greatly to our understanding of the Arctic today, particularly our understanding of the coasts of Greenland.

      Born in 1887 into a wealthy family in San Rafael, California, her intense interest in the Arctic grew after the first sight of the pack ice while touring Svalbard in her late thirties. Boyd would dedicate the rest of her life and fortune to learning more about the Arctic through science and the lens of her camera.

      Louise Arner Boyd led seven self-financed Arctic expeditions, published three books of photographs through the American Geographical Society, chartered the first private flyover of the North Pole, and was honoured with numerous awards and medals from myriad organisations and governments.

      Boyd's 1931 and 1933 expeditions to the northeast coast of Greenland provided the basis for her book The Fiord Region of East Greenland, which included 350 photographs. For these trips, Boyd chartered the Veslekari, a large ship, and brought along surveyors, geologists, and botanists. Boyd served as leader of the expedition and the only photographer, having invested in some very high-end equipment and learned the principles of photogrammetry, the science of taking and interpreting photographs to create models or maps. Her excellent photographs led to the accurate mapping of a remote area of eastern Greenland that was relatively unknown. Subsequently, Denmark named this area “Louise Boyd Land."

      This is an episode of the Curiously Polar podcast

      with

      Chris Marquardt https://chrismarquardt.com/
      Henry Páll Wulff: https://henrypall.com/

      Listen to all podcast episodes at https://curiouslypolar.com

      All video episodes at https://tfttf.com/curiouslypolarvideo

      Find us here:

      Web: https://curiouslypolar.com
      Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiouslypolar
      Instagram: https://instagram.com/curiouslypolar

      33 min
    • 131 Scramble for the North Pole

      Watch this on video | Buy us a coffee: Chris / Henry

      POLAR NEWSREEL: A new batch of new satellites brings broadband connectivity services to some of the world’s hardest to reach places. German start-up Rocket Factory Augsburg has signed a contract with Norway's Andøya Space for a 2022 maiden flight of the company’s RFA One small-satellite launch vehicle. The Nunavut community of Iqaluit has declared a state of emergency in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. And the [Icelandic volcano spits lava fountains up to 300 metres](https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/arctic-2050-mapping-future-arctic ) into the sky.

      SCRAMBLE FOR THE NORTH POLE: Just a few weeks back media outlets around the globe where alarmed when Russia submitted an extension to its claim in the Arctic Ocean, quoting Canada’s Foreign Minister: “You cannot claim any more.” Diving into that raises the question who actually owns the North Pole and why is it important?

      Beginning in 1925 numerous countries have claimed parts of the Arctic based on the so-called Sector Principle, which extends the territorial claim along the longitudes of its land-territory towards the North Pole. Canada was the first country to do so, followed by the Soviet Union and Norway. Later those claims have been based on scientific evidence in the legal framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) finding a peak in 2007 when Russia planted a flag at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. Under current international law, the North Pole and the region of the Arctic Ocean surrounding it are not owned by any country. As of now, three nations have submitted claims for the seabed below the Arctic Ocean, Russia, Canada and Denmark (Greenland) but none of the claims have been accepted yet and it might take years. So eventually, all three nations will need to sit down and start negotiations on the final delimitations of their Arctic territory, including their competing claims to the pole, and that’s a truly exciting chapter of human history.

      One might ask, what all the fuzz is actually about. It’s an estimated 90 billion barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas that are thought to lie under the polar oceans, although the central North Pole region is not thought to be especially rich in fossil fuels.

      Claiming the North Pole and thus ownership over it has to do with its symbolic importance rather than access to natural resources. This plays into the narrative of Arctic sovereignty, protecting your Arctic territory, and upholding your Arctic presence. Being able to extract the estimated 90 billion barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas from the seafloor in the middle of the Central Arctic Ocean, is technologically a long ways off. The North Pole is more of a symbolic prize in all this.

      Episode 56: The Whiskey War

      This is an episode of the Curiously Polar podcast

      with

      Chris Marquardt https://chrismarquardt.com/
      Henry Páll Wulff: https://henrypall.com/

      Listen to all podcast episodes at https://curiouslypolar.com

      All video episodes at https://tfttf.com/curiouslypolarvideo

      Find us here:

      Web: https://curiouslypolar.com
      Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiouslypolar
      Instagram: https://instagram.com/curiouslypolar

      51 min
    • 130 Drifting North

      Watch this on video | Buy us a coffee: Chris / Henry

      POLAR NEWSREEL

      Our long-time friend and most favourite of all icebergs, A-68A, is gone. Russia starts its work on a fiber optic cable to connect the Asian part of the Russian Arctic. And in Greenland a new government has taken over with the youngest prime minister in the country’s history.

      DRIFTING NORTH

      A largely unknown episode of polar research tried to cast some light onto scientific observations in the Central Arctic Basin, the first since Fridtjof Nansen’s famous Fram Expedition from 1893-96. Based on observation from the First Soviet High-Latitude Expedition onboard the icebreaking steamer Sadko, the Soviet Union deployed four researchers under Expedition Leader Ivan Papanin onto the Arctic sea ice close to the North Pole. The drift ice station North Pole-1 continued for 274 days, during which the station travelled more than 2600 km. The success but also the observations of this expedition led to a series of 31 drift ice expeditions where 88 polar crews occupied the ice floes for a total of 29,726 drift days, while drifting a distance of 169,654 km. The research program of the "North Pole" drifting stations is unequalled in the 20th century by duration, variety of observational material, importance of scientific discoveries, and number of resolved problems. After the end of the Soviet Union, Russia has picked up the programme in spring 2003 but since the mid-2000s it became more and more difficult due to global warming to find a suitable ice floe to station camp on and several stations had to be evacuated prematurely because of unexpectedly fast thawing of the ice. In December 2020 the ice-resistant self-propelled research platform Severnyy Polyus (eng. North Pole) has been launched. The most unusually egg-shaped floating platform is supposed to replace the previous ice-based drift expeditions and intended for multi-year drifting deployments in very high latitudes.

      This is an episode of the Curiously Polar podcast

      with

      Chris Marquardt https://chrismarquardt.com/
      Henry Páll Wulff: https://henrypall.com/

      Listen to all podcast episodes at https://curiouslypolar.com

      All video episodes at https://tfttf.com/curiouslypolarvideo

      Find us here:

      Web: https://curiouslypolar.com
      Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiouslypolar
      Instagram: https://instagram.com/curiouslypolar

      42 min
    • 129 Jeanette: The Mother of Modern Arctic Exploration

      Watch this on video | Buy us a coffee: Chris / Henry

      Polar Newsreel

      As the planet continues to heat up, a third of all Antarctic ice shelves risk to collapse, a new study founds. At the same time, Russia orchestrates a complex Arctic military exercise, letting three nuclear submarines surfacing simultaneously through the ice close to the North Pole. It remains to be seen whether this should underpin Russia’s new, extended claim for a larger piece of the Arctic. In Iceland, however, the ongoing volcanic eruption draws a lot of tourism and brings a large number of contenders for this year’s Darwin Award.

      The Mother of Modern Arctic Exploration

      Thanks to Mia Bennett and Antoine Vanner, today’s episode looks into the question how one one ill-fated expedition could impact so many future expeditions in the Arctic.

      Following a long-standing theory of an ice-free North Pole and at a time when the United States just recently bought Alaska and started to wonder what lies beyond their new northern-most territory, James Gordon Bennett Jr., the publisher of the most popular and profitable daily newspaper of the time, The New York Herald, set up the USS Jeannette to sail up the Bering Strait, following the hypothesised temperate ocean current, the Kuro Siwo, all the way to the North Pole.

      Shortly after the expedition, led by US Navy Lieutenant Commander George Washington De Long, entered the Chukchi sea they charted a new group of Islands north of the New Siberian Islands but very soon got caught in ice and locked up for the next 21 months. After almost two years in the ice, the pressure of the ice crushes the Jeannette and the ship sinks. The 33 men make their way towards the Lena Delta not without carrying the comprehensive ship’s log containing a number of valuable information.

      And it’s the ship’s log that make the biggest treasure of that failed expedition. Those records, along with similar data housed in many other archives, are being fed into the 20th Century Reanalysis, a sophisticated weather reconstruction database developed by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration that allows scientists to characterise floods, droughts, storms, and other extreme events from history - and use the violent weather of the past to understand the present.

      But further, when in June 1884 wreckage of the ship was found near Julianehåb, todays Qaqortoq, in south-west Greenland, the theory was born that an ocean current flowed from east to west across the polar sea. It gave the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen the idea for his famous Fram expedition that later led to the modern-day MOSAiC expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institut.

      So posthumous the so miserably failed expedition became a great success long after its time turning it into the Mother of modern Arctic Exploration.

      This is an episode of the Curiously Polar podcast

      with

      Chris Marquardt https://chrismarquardt.com/
      Henry Páll Wulff: https://henrypall.com/

      Listen to all podcast episodes at https://curiouslypolar.com

      All video episodes at https://tfttf.com/curiouslypolarvideo

      Find us here:

      Web: https://curiouslypolar.com
      Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiouslypolar
      Instagram: https://instagram.com/curiouslypolar

      36 min

    About Curiously Polar

    From the publisher's feed

    The Arctic and the Antarctic are privileged locations for observers interested in understanding how our world is shaped by the forces of nature and the workings of history. These areas have inspired…