Text 27804, 72 rader
Skriven 2007-03-13 05:34:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Global Warming
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This is hysterical.  These are not smart people....

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070312/ap_on_sc/polar_trek_1

Frostbite ends Bancroft-Arnesen trek Frostbite ends Bancroft-Arnesen 
trek 

By PATRICK CONDON, Associated Press Writer 
Mon Mar 12, 5:28 PM ET
 


MINNEAPOLIS - A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global 
warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite. The 
explorers, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, on Saturday called off what was 
intended to be a 530-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean after Arnesen 
suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures 
drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment. 

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"Ann said losing toes and going forward at all costs was never part of 
the journey," said Ann Atwood, who helped organize the expedition.

On Monday, the pair was at Canada's Ward Hunt Island, awaiting a plane 
to take them to Resolute, Canada, where they were to return to 
Minneapolis later this week.

Bancroft, 51, became the first woman to cross the North Pole on a 1986 
expedition. She and Arnesen, 53, of Oslo, Norway, were the first women 
to ski across Antarctica in 2001.

But the latest trek got off to a bad start. The day they set off from 
Ward Hunt Island, a plane landing near the women hit their gear, 
punching a hole in Bancroft's sled and damaging one of Arnesen's 
snowshoes.

They repaired the snowshoe with binding from a ski, but Atwood said the 
patch job created pressure on Arnesen's left foot, which led to blisters 
that then turned into frostbite.

Then there was the cold — quite a bit colder, Atwood said, then Bancroft 
and Arnesen had expected. One night they measured the temperature inside 
their tent at 58 degrees below zero, and outside temperatures were 
exceeding 100 below zero at times, Atwood said.

"My first reaction when they called to say there were calling it off was 
that they just sounded really, really cold," Atwood said.

She said Bancroft and Arnesen were applying hot water bottles to 
Arnesen's foot every night, but had to wake up periodically because the 
bottles froze.

The explorers had planned to call in regular updates to school groups by 
satellite phone, and had planned online posts with photographic evidence 
of global warming. In contrast to Bancroft's 1986 trek across the Arctic 
with fellow Minnesota explorer Will Steger, this time she and Arnesen 
were prepared to don body suits and swim through areas where polar ice 
has melted.

Atwood said there was some irony that a trip to call attention to global 
warming was scuttled in part by extreme cold temperatures.

"They were experiencing temperatures that weren't expected with global 
warming," Atwood said. "But one of the things we see with global warming 
is unpredictability."


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