Coast Guard icebreaker reaches North Pole unaccompanied, a US first
The Arctic research expedition set sail Aug. 9
today at 7:00 am
Coast Guard icebreaker reaches North Pole unaccompanied, a US first
U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Cory J. Mendenhall
By Kamala Kelkar
Arctic Newswire
ARCTIC-- At 7:47 a.m. Saturday, after 28 days at sea, a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker reached the North Pole, making it the first U.S. surface ship to traverse it on a solo exhibition.
It was 21 degrees outside and the crew on the bridge started cheering. The Healy, a medium-duty icebreaker, was there on a National Science Foundation-funded research expedition to document trace elements in every ocean on Earth as part of an international series called GEOTRACES. The ship left Dutch Harbor on Aug. 9 with about 145 people on board, including about 50 scientists from all over the world sampling the Arctic Ocean for the first time.
The seawater, sediment and air samples from the Arctic Ocean will help scientists piece together marine ecosystem cycles and their relationships to climate. Even though it only constitutes 3 percent of the world’s ocean coverage, GEOTRACES scientists consider it to be the epicenter of climate change. Sampling the North Pole was part of its initial plan from 2006, so it’s an accomplishment shared by the researchers and the U.S. government
http://www.military1.com/boats/article/1540080014-coast-guard-icebreaker-reaches-north-pole-unaccompanied-a-us-first
