Russian Researchers Rescued As Arctic Ice Camp Melts

Moscow, Russia (AHN) - Russian scientists cut short their research in the Arctic this year because the ice floe they were camped on melted more than a month earlier than usual this year.

"The 20 polar researchers and their two dogs climbed on board the 'Mikhail Somov'" research ship late Sunday, Sergei Bolyasnikov, a spokesman for Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Institute, told Agency France Press. "All scientific programs at the station have been stopped."

Researchers, their dogs, winterized huts and equipment had to be rescued from their floating, shrinking ice floe in the western Arctic Ocean on Sunday by a research ship.

North Pole-35 station was established in early September on a 1.2- by 2.5-mile ice floe near the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. The scientists were scheduled to stay on the floe doing research until late August.

But the floe shrank to only 1,000 by 2,000 feet as it drifted westward more than 1,550 miles from near the Wrangel Island west across the North Pole. It was melting so rapidly that it was becoming too small to hold the researchers.