Expedition to the North Pole: French Oil Giant to Measure Arctic Melt - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

Expedition to the North Pole: French Oil Giant to Measure Arctic Melt - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

How much truth is there to the dire warnings of melting polar ice caps? A team now plans to embark on a spectacular trip to find out just how thin the ice in the Arctic really is. The group is an odd alliance consisting of a French adventurer, a German scientist and a multinational oil corporation.

Every Frenchman knows Etienne, their short, wiry Arctic hero, more famous in France than even mountain-climbing legend Reinhold Messner is in Germany. When Etienne embarks on an expedition, it's front-page news in the French papers.