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Af Af redaktionen 03-09 2008 - 10:09

Two Greenlandic men are part of an exploration team sailing around the Arctic Ocean, which has reported that the Northwest and Northeast Passages are simultaneously ice-free for the first time in 100,000 years.

This confirms the results of images of the area from the NASA Aqua satellite in late August.

The Polar Passage 2000 explorers set out eight years ago from Copenhagen with the aim of sailing around the perimeter of the Arctic Ocean in an open boat, powered only with outboard engines.

Ingeniøren newspaper contacted the men at their stop at the Kap Tjeleuskin Russian weather station, about 1400 kilometres from the pole.

'There’s no sea ice where we are now. There are big waves, two to three metres high, which is something the locals have never seen before. The Russian station leader told us that it’s a sign there’s a lot of open water all around us,' said Anders Bilgram, the head of the expedition.

The four-man team is currently stranded by bad weather and dangerous sea conditions.

'We hope the wind lets up in a few days so we can continue. A couple of days ago our boat was tossed around and almost capsized. But with the help of the five Russian border police who live here, we got it on an even keel again.'

They are covering the distance in yearly stages in a six metre long boat and have seen the effects of climate change first hand.

'A couple of days ago we saw a polar bear on an island with only vegetation and possibly a lemming to eat. This is certainly not bear food, but without the ice, they can't hunt seals. The bears are also coming to the weather station. The station leader found two of them among the houses the other day. They are hungry and very dangerous, and we won't go outside unarmed,' said Bilgram.

The team consists of Dane Anders Bilgram, Ole Jørgen Hammeken and Frederik Solberg Lynge from Greenland and Russian Sergey Epishkin. They still have 2500 kilometres to go before they have circumnavigated the North Pole.