Black Ice at the Pole

This morning at 0930 UTC+1 we arrived at the Geographic North Pole. During the night, north of 89N ice greater than 4m thick was reported but we did not observe this.

At the pole we had 10/10 coverage, of which 9/10+ was multiyear. This was heavily weathered and hummocked genuine multiyear and definitely not 2nd year ice. Thickness was not as great as expected and most was around 150cm thick.

Melt was 2/10, frequently-linked ponds with open tops and no thaw holes.

Interestingly, some of the old ice was very dirty as can been seen in the picture. This appeared to be dust/dirt and not algae, and it was clearly present through most of the thickness of the ice and not just on the surface.

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