Arctic Survey

In less than a month's time, a really important expedition to the Arctic will begin, to survey the ice there to try to work out how long we have before it melts away entirely.

This is possibly the most important survey on climate change ever and not just for the information it will produce, but because of the credibility it will finally give to climate change models.

No one but those on the extreme fringes now denies climate change. But on the other extreme, the somewhat hysterical warnings by the Green movement and even some scientists who should know better have lacked credibility and alienated people. That's because, for all the academic research they've produced, it's all been based on models, and models require subjective hypotheses to produce results. Those hypotheses are well-intentioned but unreliable because we have very little information upon what will be the critical driver of extreme climate change: the melting of polar ice.

Why is the Arctic so important? Four reasons. First of all, because it is the largest mass of ice on the planet - and ice acts as a mirror, bouncing solar rays back into space rather than heating the planet. As this mass gets smaller, less will be bounced back. And that will speed up climate change.

Second, because the floating ice represents millions of tonnes of water that, when melted, will raise sea-levels catastrophically. That will have a critical impact on islands like ours, as well as millions of people in low-lying countries like Bangladesh and throughout the Pacific.

Third, the Arctic acts as a tidal pump for the world's seas: warm water from the mid Atlantic pushes north, hits the colder and saline-heavy Arctic water and is pushed below it where it too cools. This phenomenon is why Britain benefits from warmer weather than our geographic position merits - we are on the same line of latitude as Montreal and Moscow, yet never get the same severity of weather. That's due to the Gulf Stream, and the Gulf Stream is channelled towards us by this pump mechanism. In short, no Arctic will probably mean the gulf stream channelling far further south, and instead of warming, Britain will freeze.

And fourth, the Arctic is the catalyst for the massive acceleration in global warming. I've already mentioned that without the ice, less solar rays will be bounced back into space. That will increase global warming. In turn, there are huge frozen reserves of greenhouse gasses trapped in frozen peat around the northern rim of the world: throughtout Siberia and Alaska in particular. When these thaw, amounts of these gasses that will dwarf any carbon reductions we can make in our own ways of life, will escape.

So let's be clear: there is a genuine urgency to climate change. What people like me want from climate change experts is not model-driven hypothesis, but fact-based honesty. And that's why this expedition is so important.

So good luck to Pen Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley who'll be braving the sub-zero temperatures (including actually having to swim in the Arctic Ocean carrying equipment-laden sleds), alien environments and the occasional Polar Bear, to obtain the most comprehensive data ever compiled on the depth of Arctic ice and how the Arctic Ocean is being affected by climate change.

You can find out more about the survey and keep track of the expedition's progress at http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/ (I recommend watching the short video on the site). It sets off in 21 days.