In Spring 2009, the first Catlin Arctic Survey took to the ice.

It sought to answer an important environmental question: how long will the Arctic Ocean's sea ice cover remain a year-round surface feature of our planet?

Beginning on 1st March 2009, the expedition was led by highly experienced polar explorer Pen Hadow, the first and only person to have trekked solo, without resupply by aircraft, from Canada to the North Pole, and the only Briton to have trekked without resupply to both the North and South Poles.

He was accompanied by Ann Daniels, a world-class polar explorer, and Martin Hartley, the UK’s foremost expedition and adventure-travel photographer.

Together they spent 73 days on the floating sea ice of the Arctic Ocean, covering a distance of 435 kilometers.

Surface measurements were obtained by the Catlin Arctic Survey of the thickness of the sea ice cover in the northernmost Beaufort Sea area, near the North Pole. The Survey’s findings, taken in the context of decades of existing measurements by submarines, satellites and buoys, led scientists from the Polar Ocean Physics Group (University of Cambridge), to suggest there is a significant probability that by around 2020 only 20% of the Arctic Ocean basin will have sea ice cover in the late summer; and that by 2030-40, there is a significant probability that the North Pole region's sea ice cover, one of our planet's defining year-round surface features as viewed from space, will be transformed into an ice-free, open ocean in summertimes, thereby making it a purely seasonal feature.

Within the sea ice-related scientific community, it should be noted that a range of conclusions have been drawn regarding the timeframe for ice-free summers. Nevertheless there is a broad consensus that such ice-free summers are a distinct probability, entailing a significant environmental state-change to the North Pole region.