Scientists launch massive polar investigation

The biggest scientific investigation of the north and south poles in half a century has been launched to find out whether the ice caps could end up melting away due to global warming.

David Carlson, director of the International Polar Year programme said:

“They first measured the thickness of the Antarctic ice sheet. Now we know those sheets are changing, so we want to get in there and understand change.”

Some 50,000 thousand researchers from all over the world are taking part in the project to monitor the health of the polar regions using icebreakers, satellites and submarines.

The 1.5 billion euro venture ends in March 2009.

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