Breaking... OVER THE HORIZON book is now available!!

It is with great pleasure that I announce my long overdue book project:
OVER THE HORIZON: Exploring the Edges of a Changing Planet
The book is now available for pre-sale on my new website davidthoreson.com

About the story-

David has sailed over 65,000 nautical miles across the globe including below the Antarctic Circle, three times across the Atlantic, six times over the Arctic Circle, twice through the Northwest Passage and completed a 28,000-mile circumnavigation of the North and South American Continents. During this time, Thoreson has accumulated some 150,000 photographs and over 600 pages of personal journal entries documenting his journeys.

Over The Horizon is an autobiographical photography book. Thoreson has been called “The Accidental Explorer” because he is a sailor from Iowa and ventured to the sea with a “salty” southern Minnesota farmer. In this very personal account of his adventures, David combines story-telling with stunning photography, ultimately arriving at a tipping point of human history in the Arctic waters of the Northwest Passage. 

After all the the years chasing the horizon and following his dream, David became  an eye-witness to a rapidly-changing Arctic and ocean environment.Thoreson’s life has been profoundly impacted by his eye-witness documentation of a changing Arctic environment with less ice. He is now an advocate for ocean and wilderness protection along with a more sustainable future for generations of explorers yet to come. Over the Horizon is his beautiful and compelling life story...

David Thoreson TEDx Vail Talk- Watch Now!

Wow, this is a very nice piece to be able to post on my blog. I am very happy to have you watch my 9-minute TED Talk from the beautiful Vilar Center for the Performing Arts in Beaver Creek, CO. I was one of 9 speakers (I kicked of the event!!) in the 5th year event as part of the TEDx Vail Conference.

How does a small town Iowa boy find his pathway to the sea and polar regions of the planet? Well…  please watch if you are so inclined and share with as many folks as you wish. Thank you for your interest in my work and the very important issue of climate change. Cheers all, David
The Accidental Explorer-DT's TED Talk

TEDx Vail Presentation

Wow, what a great experience in Vail/Beaver Creek with all the other presenters and our terrific hosts. Thank you so much to the never-resting Kat Haber and her side-kick Corinne Hara. I started out the weekend experience with a nice presentation at the Walking Mountains Science Center in Avon. Thank you. Very fun evening. http://www.walkingmountains.org/

Then events shifted to the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek for the main TED presentations on Friday (Jan. 9th) afternoon and night. This was an amazing time and there was a big buzz!!

Nine speakers, folk dancing, classic fun music, piped in TED videos. Spectacular! I kicked off the event as the first speaker and told my story, my big idea, the discovery of rapid climate change while sailing the Arctic's Northwest Passage.

I am going to add to this blog with more personalities and ideas from others and many big thank yous. Keep checking in, more to come...

TEDx Vail Presentation!!

It is with great excitement and honor that I announce I will be doing a TED presentation at the 5th annual TEDx Vail Conference this Friday evening in Beaver Creek, CO. There are unbelievable presenters with topics from slam poetry, healthy recipes to "Frenemies." Please check it out and all of us will be filmed and our presentations will be uploaded to Youtube.

 You can find all the information here- TEDx Vail

Lost Franklin Ship

The search for the Northwest Passage has been a much sought-after goal of explorers for over four centuries dating back to the late sixteenth century. Most of the expeditions into the far north ended in tremendous hardship and quite often the deaths of the entire crew members of the vessels.

 

The Franklin Expedition of 1845-6 was no different than many others. The loss of Sir John Franklin's vessels Erebus and Terror, along with all 129 men, began a flurry of activity that eventually led to the successful navigation of the Passage in 1903-6 by Roald Amundsen.

The ultimate demise of the Franklin expedition is still a bit of a mystery but a big piece was just uncovered this week with the very exciting discovery of one of the two ships in Franklin Strait in Arctic Canada. See photo above from an underwater rover. It is still so new that we do not know which ship it is but that news will emerge and I will post a full account here soon...

My Exhibit at the University of Iowa and the Great Climate March

Hello everyone. I am fresh back from the start of the Great March for Climate Action in Los Angeles which kicked off a 3000-mile, 8-month, human-powered journey to Washington, DC. The goal of the March is to attempt to raise awareness and create action to engage citizens and politicians to engage and address the issue/crisis of Climate Change. More on this to come for sure soon...

First though I want to post a youtube video from the University of Iowa Television about my opening night gallery talk in Iowa City at the Keyes Gallery in the Old Capitol. It was a fantastic night, even though it was so miserably cold (I brought the Arctic weather).

 Please feel free to browse through the video and pass it on to friends. I will be back in Iowa City the week of April 21-25 speaking in schools, Prairie Lights, Iowa Children's Museum and again at the University of Iowa during the evening of the 24th. Hope to see you there. Thank you all.
David Thoreson Gallery Talk YouTube

400 Parts Per Million...and Climbing

It is a sad note today that the long-awaited climate milestone has now come and passed. On May 9th atmospheric CO2 officially passed 400 parts per million of concentration in the atmosphere creating a condition of "loaded dice" as we have now gamed our climate with certain unknown future consequences. We, as human beings, are now in very uncharted waters and speaking of those, well, they are being loaded up with CO2 also and turning our ocean into a very acidic ecosystem. Yes, we are well underway with the big Ponzi scheme on the planet.

One of the most important "real" climate scientists of our time, Michael Mann, recently put it this way, "The last time we're confident that CO2 was sustained at these levels is more than 10 million years ago, during the middle of the Miocene period. This was a time when global temperatures were substantially warmer than today, and there was very little ice around anywhere on the planet."

So where are we going as a people on this planet? Certainly not in the responsible direction.

Presenting at Vail Symposium

I am very excited to be presenting at the Vail Symposium on Jan. 31st, 2013, as part of their Speaker Series. I have an intriguing evening planned with some history and exploration of the Northwest Passage including Sir John Franklin and Roald Amundsen. The evening will include much of my three expeditions to and through the Passage on s/v Cloud Nine and Ocean Watch and conclude with what I hope is a lively discussion of climate change and specifically an altered Arctic environment.
Hope to see a packed house in Vail. More to come soon but please follow the link below for further information on the evening. Thanks, David
Link to David's Vail Symposium Info

Record Ice Loss - NW Passage Wide Open

There has been a tremendous amount of news lately about weather including the approaching Hurricane Isaac churning in the Caribbean Sea and set to arrive in the Gulf soon. 

The summer has been hot with July being the warmest ever on record. A new scientific study indicates the drought in the North American West is/was the worst of the last 800 years with major impacts to the carbon cycle and hints of even drier times ahead (July 29 in Nature-Geoscience).  "This will also would trigger a whole host of significant water resource challenges in a region already subject to frequent water shortages.” 

Scientists are watching the Pacific looking for the developing El Nino which currently seems to be neutral.  

But what the heck has been going on in the Arctic? What is the state of the ice pack this season? Is the infamous Northwest Passage open again? As many of you know this is my main interest having sailed through both directions in 2007 (E-W) and 2009 (W-E). 

I am absolutely astounded by the loss of ice this summer up north. There is literally no ice in all of Baffin Bay all the way north to Thule some 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle. As one crosses Baffin Bay traveling west and enters the Northwest Passage in Lancaster sound the story remains the same, clear sailing all the way to the remote village of Resolute. Again, absolutely NO ice.

***Note- Confirmation has arrived today.  Arctic sea ice coverage  shrank to a record low 4.21 million square kilometers as of Aug. 25, declining below the previous record low of 4.25 million sq. km marked in 2007, this according to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency satellite data.

The red line represents current declining ice coverage in the Arctic trending towards a record sea ice loss. The light blue line represents the record loss of sea ice in 2007, the year we sailed Cloud Nine through the Northwest Passage east to west never touching any ice in 6700 nautical miles. 

A very rare Arctic/polar storm this month has shuffled the entire polar ice cap around and exposed a lot more ice to the melting conditions. Scientists will be studying the combined effects of excessive wind with the warmer infusion of water on the ice pack in the months ahead as the 2012 summer melt season continues to break all known records. 

The loss of our northern polar ice cap should be the biggest news in the history of news cycles but for some reason it just doesn't get much play. Is it just too profound for folks to comprehend or believe? If we were watching another planet's polar ice cap disintegrating before our eyes it would be an unbelievable event in history and yet we continue to have a debate about whether climate change is really real or just a perpetuated "hoax."   

Hottest 12 Months Ever Recorded

These are the warmest 12-month periods on record for the contiguous United States. During the June 2011-June 2012 period, each of the 13 months ranked among the warmest third of their historical distribution for the first time in the 1895-present record. The odds of this occurring randomly is 1 in 1,594,323. 

This is very interesting especially when looking at the ice reports up north. Spring came roughly 3 full weeks early this year and we had record highs in March with temps up near 90 degrees at the end of the month into April. This has now translated to the northern ice pack which just happens to be 3 full weeks ahead of the summer melt season. Coincidence? Hardly. La Nina has been replaced by El Nino. Temperatures are climbing again. Look for record numbers of boats again transitting the infamous Northwest Passage, now very much ice-free. 

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Arctic ice retreated very quickly in June. "The last three Junes (2010-2012) are the three lowest in the satellite record. June 2012 ice extent was 140,000 square kilometers (54,000 square miles) above the 2010 record low. Ice losses were notable in the Kara Sea, and in the Beaufort Sea, where a large polynya has formed. Retreat of ice in the Hudson and Baffin bays also contributed to the low June 2012 extent. The only area of the Arctic where sea ice extent is currently above average is along the eastern Greenland coast."

RECORD TEMPS AND LOSS OF ICE

I've been monitoring the ice in the north this summer for the Northwest Passage season and it looks like it could surpass the 2007 season for loss of ice. Things are going south quickly and Baffin Bay is now open which is just absolutely crazy. The mouth of Lancaster is open so the situation will now develop very quickly and there will probably be an ice-free lane through the traditional passage this summer. I'd say you can put it in the bank.

Again, good for explorers, not so good for the planet... here is the latest ice chart for Baffin Bay. Warm waters flowing north have opened up the entire West coast of Greenland-

Next, let's go into the warm temperatures. I believe there have been a few records happening lately if my mind is clear on this one. Let's see what the science says and if there is some linkage with the above trends and ice charts. More coming for sure.

Wisdom from the Titanic and James Cameron

Famed filmmaker James Cameron has metaphorically summed up what the human race is facing from climate change by his reframing the Titanic story:

"Part of the Titanic parable is of arrogance, of hubris, of the sense that we’re too big to fail. Well, where have we heard that one before?

There was this big machine, this human system, that was pushing forward with so much momentum that it couldn’t turn, it couldn’t stop in time to avert a disaster. And that’s what we have right now.

Within that human system on board that ship, if you want to make it a microcosm of the world, you have different classes, you’ve got first class, second class, third class. In our world right now you’ve got developed nations, undeveloped nations.

You’ve got the starving millions who are going to be the ones most affected by the next iceberg that we hit, which is going to be climate change. We can see that iceberg ahead of us right now, but we can’t turn.

We can’t turn because of the momentum of the system, the political momentum, the business momentum. There are too many people making money out of the system, the way the system works right now, and those people frankly have their hands on the levers of power and aren’t ready to let ‘em go.

Until they do, we will not be able to turn to miss that iceberg, and we’re going to hit it, and when we hit it, the rich are still going to be able to get their access to food, to arable land, to water, and so on. It’s going to be the poor, it’s going to be the steerage that are going to be impacted. It’s the same with the Titanic."

Very well said Mr. Cameron.

NASA Ice Bridge Project

This looks like a great research project to follow-

GREENBELT, Md. -- Researchers and flight crew with NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne mission to study changes in polar ice, began another season of science activity with the start of the 2012 Arctic campaign on March 13. From mid-March through mid-May, a modified P-3 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., will conduct daily missions out of Thule and Kangerlussuaq, Greenland —with one flight to Fairbanks, Alaska and back—to measure sea and land ice. The campaign will also feature instrument tests, continued international collaboration and educational activities.

After NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite's (ICESat) stopped collecting data in 2009, Operation IceBridge began as a way to continue the multi-year record of ice elevation measurements until the launch of ICESat-2 in 2016. IceBridge gathers data during annual campaigns over the Arctic starting in March and Antarctic starting in October.

IceBridge flights will measure both previously surveyed sites, such as Greenland's Jakobshavn Glacier, and unstudied areas of sea ice, such as the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. "The most important sea ice flights are the transits between Thule and Fairbanks," said IceBridge project scientist Michael Studinger.

The P-3 carries an array of instruments for measuring ice surface elevation and thickness and snow depth, and will be joined by other aircraft later in the campaign. The Airborne Topographic Mapper uses lasers to measure changes in surface elevation and uses these readings to create elevation maps. Radar instruments from the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., show snow and ice thickness and allow scientists to see through land ice to the bedrock below. A gravimeter from Sander Geophysics and Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, N.Y., similarly lets researchers determine water depth beneath floating ice.

A Falcon jet from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., carrying a high-altitude laser altimeter, the Land, Vegetation, and Ice Sensor (LVIS) will join the P-3 on April 19. The Falcon flies higher and faster than the P-3, which allows it to cover longer flight lines and enables LVIS to survey a 2-km (1.2 mile) wide swath of ice. The Falcon will play a critical role in surveying near coastal areas of Greenland, and in sea ice flights out of Thule.

IceBridge will also join in efforts to validate and calibrate sea ice measurements by CryoSat-2, the European Space Agency's ice-monitoring satellite. ESA's airborne calibration campaign, CryoVEx, aims to ensure that CryoSat-2's radar readings are accurate. "One of our prime goals in Thule will be to underfly a European CryoSat sea ice track within two hours of its passage over the sea ice north of Greenland," said acting project manager Seelye Martin.

A Look at 2012 Arctic Ice Trends

The 2012 Arctic ice outlook is mixed. Any Arctic vessels looking to transit the Northwest Passage will have a much better chance entering from the Atlantic and Baffin Bay vs the Bering Sea. There will be delays in the shipping season through the Bering and Chukchi Seas as they have had a tremendously challenging winter throughout these areas as the National Snow and Ice Data Center lays out below:

Overall, Arctic sea ice extent remained lower than average in January. However, in the Bering Sea, ice extent was much greater than normal. The heavy ice cover caused problems for fishermen and made for an arduous late-season resupply mission to Nome, Alaska. The Arctic Oscillation, which had been in its positive phase most of the winter so far, switched to a negative mode, bringing cold weather to Europe and changing the direction of sea ice movement.

January 2012 compared to past years-
Arctic sea ice extent for January 2012 was the fourth lowest in the satellite record. Including the year 2012, the linear rate of decline for January ice extent over the satellite record is 3.2% per decade.
Based on the satellite record, before 2005 average January ice extent had never been lower than 14 million square kilometers (5.41 million square miles). January ice extent has now fallen below that mark six out of the last seven years.

900 Record Highs Across the USA

Wow. Record-setting January weather. This reminds me very much of the winter of 2006-7 when lakes all through the upper Midwest did not freeze over the winter. Many of these signs were present as I headed north to attempt the Northwest Passage by sailboat. As we all know, the summer of 2007 turned out to be the record-setting loss of ice year of all-time. I am afraid we are going to see that again this coming summer. I don't understand how anyone can deny what is really happening anymore...

Change in Arctic More than Just Science

I have been following trends in the Arctic for quite some time now but two recent stories have caught my eye as reported in the Arctic Portal, a great source for Arctic news- http://www.arcticportal.org/news

I hear the arguments going on all the time in the lower 48. Skeptics versus scientists and all the "real"
people who live and work in the Arctic get lost and forgotten in this senseless debate. I firmly believe in the struggles of the real people and animals who live and work in the region to tell the story of a changing Arctic in a different but much more effective way than the scientists who produce effective but sometimes confusing data.

The two stories here offer real-life data in real time documenting the on-going future and trends in the
once frozen region:


Climate Change Leading to Starving Dogs 

Lack of ice is hindering hunting in Greenland. Humans are not the only one who rely on hunting in, the dogs in Qaanaaq are starving.

The weather and climate change are causing problems in Greenland. Five years ago the sea ice had frozen in early November, making hunting for dog food easy, hunting both seals and fish.

This year it is unforeseen when the ice will freeze.

Northern Sea Route Closes for the Season

The Northern Sea Route shipping season is now over. New ice forming in the Arctic ocean hinders any more shipping. This is the longest shipping season ever, one month longer then last year.

The Perseverance was both the first and last vessel this year to go the route, the first one was the 29th of June and the last one today. The ship transported stable gas condensate from Murmansk in Russia to China, with the help of a Russian icebreaker. Russia’s Ministry of Transport believes cargo transport through the NSR will increase from 1.8 million tons in 2010 to 64 million tons by 2020.

Need any more proof that the Arctic is now open for business? The sad story from this is that the native peoples of the region will have a harder time sustaining themselves with the on-going
changes to their new environment.

Arctic Ice Reaches Summer Minimum

According the NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center) the Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its lowest extent for the year. The minimum ice extent was the second lowest in the satellite record, after 2007, and continues the decadal trend of rapidly decreasing summer sea ice.

Conditions in context:
The last five years (2007 to 2011) have been the five lowest extents in the continuous satellite record, which extends back to 1979. While the record low year of 2007 was marked by a combination of weather conditions that favored ice loss (including clearer skies, favorable wind patterns, and warm temperatures), this year has shown more typical weather patterns but continued warmth over the Arctic. This supports the idea that the Arctic sea ice cover is continuing to thin. Models and remote sensing data also indicate this is the case.

Arctic Ice Loss in August

August 2011 compared to previous years.
Average Arctic sea ice extent for August 2011 was the second-lowest for August in the satellite data record. Including 2011 the linear trend for August now stands at –9.3% per decade.

The Northern Sea Route and NW Passage are simultaneously open. The door is open for commerce in the north and many countries are taking advantage of this. This new trend should be another sign and confirmation that climate change in rapidly changing the earth's environments.

Massive Change in Greenland Ice

By Ian Johnston msnbc.com 2011-09-01T14:43:21

New photographs taken of a vast glacier in northern Greenland have revealed the astonishing rate of the glacial breakup, with one scientist saying he was rendered "speechless."

"The break-off last year is bigger than anything seen for at least 150 years," glacial researcher Alun Hubbard said.

Taken nearly two years apart, the photos show the extent of the ice loss. The channel is about ten miles wide. Scientists returned in July this year and found the ice had been melting so quickly that some of their research masts stuck into the glacier were no longer in position. Hubbard, who has been working with Jason Box, of Ohio State University, and others, said in a statement issued by the Byrd Polar Research Center that scientists were still trying to work out how fast the glacier was moving and the effect on the ice sheet feeding the glacier.

"Although I knew what to expect in terms of ice loss from satellite imagery, I was still completely unprepared for the gob-smacking scale of the break-up, which rendered me speechless," he said in the statement. "I'm very familiar with the glacier. It's very hard to sort of envisage something so big not being there ... to come back and basically see an ice shelf has disappeared, which is 20 kilometers across (about 12 miles) ... I was speechless and started laughing because I couldn't sort of believe it," Hubbard added, speaking to msnbc.com.

"This region (northern Greenland) is experiencing temperatures which are abnormally warm ... I think the far northwest of Greenland is seeing a kind of new regime of climate," he added.

Northwest Passage Wide Open

The infamous Northwest Passage is wide open again and small boats are pushing through both from the east and the west. I have had reports of 11 documented vessels making the attempt currently with no doubt a few others that will pop up on the radar screen in the weeks to come.

The passage opened early this year year with unprecedented melting through July. The melting slowed briefly but now a large high pressure system is parked over the area and sunny days will no doubt thin any remaining ice. The ice has even disappeared north of Resolute and Lancaster Sound allowing exploring of regions north which have been inaccessible to now.

The only question remaining now is how far and wide will the melt continue this season? The melt season extends through September and there is a very real chance that this year could mark another epic year of ice loss comparable or exceeding the record year of 2007 when we on Cloud Nine made our east-west transit.

I will be watching ice charts and keeping close watch. If you are interested in further details, watch the posting here or contact me personally through the website.