Jenrick CPI would like to congratulate the Catlin Arctic Survey team
Jenrick CPI would like to congratulate the Catlin Arctic Survey team on the successful completion of this feat of human endurance and scientific discovery that has the potential to change to way we view our planet forever.
If the Ice Team imagined they’d be arriving home for some instant R&R, they soon realised it wasn’t going to be the case. From the moment they were greeted at Heathrow Airport by a welcoming group of more than a dozen family, friends and colleagues - their feet hardly touched the ground.
Looking remarkably fit and well, Pen Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley returned to the CAS Operation Headquarters in Leadenhall Street in the City to applause from the gathered guests and a bucks fizz reception.
The media circus then kicked off. Amid the hubbub of the reception, the three were individually and collectively shepherded into quiet corners of the office for newspaper and magazine interviews. The following morning, they appeared on BBC Breakfast TV and radio programmes across the whole country.
They have now returned home for a couple of days before more interviews at the end of the week.
Each member of the Catlin Arctic Survey team (Pen Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley), have specific skills as well as experience of Arctic expeditions that enable them to do the job they’re doing.
But everyday skills - of the type we all learned in school - are nonetheless important. The Ice Team says, for example, they use maths in almost everything they do.
“Simple maths starts long before the expedition itself,” says Daniels. “We have to work out how much weight each member can physically pull on their sledge and then make sure we can divide the food, equipment and fuel we need to carry between the three sledges”.
Given the team is currently rationing food supplies to take account of the fact that a scheduled re-supply flight is delayed because of bad weather, calculations of this type are particularly necessary at the moment.
But in the planning stages, Daniels, who’s in charge of food supplies and cooking, calculated that each person should carry no more than one kg of food per daily ration. But given the cold and energy they’re expending, the team need to eat more than 5000 calories each per day. That meant working out the types of food that were compatible with the circumstances.
“One morning’s porridge and one de-hydrated meal = 347g / 1600 calories”, says Daniels. That left 653g weight left over to accommodate the remaining 3400 calories we’re due each day”.
The team packed very high calorie food such as chocolate and nuts for their
day bags. (All the team’s chocolate is in the form of chocolate buttons, because frozen bars would be impossible to break).
The amount of food the team were able to carry still left them short of calories in relation to energy, so they all had to put on a substantial amount of weight prior to departure.
But with a month left of the expedition, the maths goes on. “We’re endlessly calculating how many days we have left and how many miles we’re aiming to travel”, says Daniels. “After a re-supply when our sledges ourheavy, we can’t go as fast, so we work out how to make up the distance when the sledges are lighter. Fuel usage is carefully calculated and if we use too much one day, to dry our clothes perhaps, we need to use less another day. These aren’t random estimates but critical calculations. If we get it wrong, we’ll be left without food or fuel”.
Daniels concludes by explaining how maths comes into the team’s scientific programme as well.
“Although we’re not analysing results here, we need to weigh and measure the snow and work out its volume”, she says. “We calculate how many hours we have in the day to do experiments and still cover the distance we want to cover. I’ve heard young people say that some of the work they do at school doesn’t seem relevant to daily life. In my line of work, it’s quite the opposite!”.
Tags: Ann Daniels, cas, Catlin Arctic Survey, Martin Hartley, Pen Hadow
