On thin ice: the brutal cold of Canada’s Arctic was once a defence, but a warming climate has changed that | Arctic

IIn early February, during the depths of the winter, dual -Army fox foxes flew over the western extension of the West North Pole Looking for marine ice. Below, white leaves extended beyond the horizon.

But the pilots, who were looking for a suitable location for landing in the Hercules transport plane 34 tons (76,000 pounds) after a month, needed a 1.5 -meter snow (5 feet).

They could not find any. The teams looked 10 possible other sites, extending to the far west in the Arctic Hershel IslandFive miles from Yukon’s coast in Canada.

In the end, no site has been installed suitable for the landing area in marine ice. The north, apparently, was very warm.

However, in the same month, during the same task, the cold was planning to capture soldiers through tundra. The transportation of the helicopter was on the transportation. Snow carts and other equipment, sometimes, have lived. It seems that the north was very cold for the equipment that the army handed over to Tandra.

Over the course of generations, the severe cold in the Arctic was a military defense basin in the north. But the rapid variable climate, which is determined by severe temperature shifts in both directions, threatens to cancel this defense, replaces the land and the sea more volatile and less predictable.

In February and March, hundreds of soldiers from several countries A gathering in the northwestern pole in Canada for the Nanuk operationA military exercise aims to show that allied countries, including the United States, Finland, Sweden, Belgium and the United Kingdom can “maintain power” in the region, and test advanced equipment in the unforgettable tundra.

In recent months, political leaders have revived long -term fears Canada He only has a weak contract on its northern border. Despite the ghost of hostile countries that crawl on the invisible borders, the biggest threat facing the forces is frozen temperatures.

“In the kinetic battle or civil response, the main enemy is the cold,” says Magor Matthew Hefner, who runs the American Army Research and Engineering Laboratory in New Hampshire. “Whether the bullets are flying or not, this is the thing that will eat people alive.”

The American, who was leading a team of military scientists, ancient warriors and specialists in the Arctic, was in the village of Tuktoyaktuk on Coast of the Devotion ArcticAs part of the community celebration on the occasion of the Nanuk process. Members of the International Cooperative Participation Program in Hefner for Polar Research brought cold weather equipment to show the local population.

The event is also a few miles away from which the teams cut the triple holes in the marine ice so that the Belgian marine divers can decrease in emerald water. The vision extends to the fullest extent that your arm and cold water can spoil even experienced divers at amazing speed.

For those new in the natural scene, the veterans of the Arctic say that awareness of the coldness of the cold on decomposition and clarity is one of the greatest dangers. It makes the plastic fragile like glass. It confuses the complex mechanism of modern military aircraft.

In most deadly, it unites those who travel in the deepest arrival from reality. The open skin can carry permanent damage within minutes; Confusion is rapidly with low body temperature.

The ENTEN EN ENT is pushed at home the external borders of the human border, and finding a pattern of pace in the landscape that, to strangers, is an unbearable opponent.

This knowledge is the lifeblood of the Arctic Forces that have long recognized that Tundra is one of the most hostile theaters of the war that can be imagined because of its ability to make high -tech equipment uninterrupted.

During the Nanook process, Hefner has gone through periods of obscurity on the communications imposed on the cold with the closure of radio and satellite devices, as a result of the “smart” Li -Ion batteries that will not charge the freight in the cold.

“Most of the equipment is metal, and if you do not touch it without a glove, your hands are poor. But even if you do not take off your glove, they will become wet because everything is covered with snow. Then they really become cold.

“So everything is slower here,” says Hefner. “I have some players who complain that we are not doing a lot of tactical things – you cannot do tactics until staying alive is the second nature.”

But the cold, despite its strength for deterioration, is also a strong natural defense. In the summer, the western north pole is a swamp swamp, which raises the anger of the lands full of landscapes such as spaghetti. You will find the enemy forces on the attack that it is impossible to move. In winter, travel methods open with a few natural barriers.

It was long ago the cold, its power to break the machine and the mind, which was a major deterrent. This winter, however, the Inuvik community saw the rain in December for the first time in nearly half a century. The spray came in the second half of the year that witnessed a Punish the thermal wave settles over the cityWith 35C temperatures (95F) over 125 miles over the Arctic circle.

this year , More snow carts drowned across icy roads – Transportation corridors based on frozen rivers – more than ever. Hefner also lost two snow carts when they fell into the ice.

“I have not tested this warm fluctuations in one year,” says Justin Pascal, who lives in Enovic and a member of the Canadian Rangers, a paramilitary force of the northern reserve soldiers derived from indigenous communities.

“This year was jumping between -8C and -40 ° C, to -8C and then up to 0 ° C at the beginning of the year. He called it what you want, but it is different from anything you went through.”

These changes have always been predicted and The next melting has expanded earlier in the year, traveling through the northwestern corridor For goods and tourist ships.

But they also have profound effects on the scene. The melting of the ice is frosty soil and the subsequent collapse of the Earth in the ocean means that societies such as Tukatotuk disappear.

“There is open water where there was traditional ice,” said Lieutenant Colonel Darren Turner, commander of the land forces in the Nanok operation, for Canadian Reservance. “Regardless of your opinion on the phenomenon of global warming, you will have your average opinion when you go there.”

The uncertainty surrounding these transformations has confused the local population and the military units that test their capabilities in the north.

After a series of reconnaissance trips failed to find a suitable marine ice, the army chose to build a landing area on a frozen lake – the first time that Hercules fell on fresh water. The landing was framed as “enhancing operational flexibility” by giving the plane access to areas that cannot be accessed in another way.

But the challenge, and failure, in finding thick marine ice enough in the depths of the winter highlights that the military leaders who had to start planning a seriousness.

“The first defense level leaves us,” says Turner.