A pair of researchers went missing in the Arctic on April 29, 2015, and haven’t been seen or heard from since.
The two-man team was nearing the end of a month-long probe of the pole to determine its meltdown status, when all but their dog vanished in thin air.
Rescuers scoured the last known location of Dutch polar trekkers Marc Cornelissen and Philip de Roo by air, but only sighted their solitary canine and, after days of fruitless searching, now presume the researchers drowned.
Due to global warming, days are unnaturally warm in the Arctic this time of year -- contributing to the region’s epic melting and deadly slush -- but the nights are nevertheless bitterly inhospitable, especially for those who may be stranded, tired, or underequipped.
It was day 23 of the expedition when the two explorers lost contact with the outside world, leaving less than a week remaining until their research project was to have been completed.
The team’s final voicemail update, called in by Cornelissen, was ominous in retrospect as it concerned a “detour” they intended to take in order to inspect a deteriorating ice mass.
“We think we see thin ice in front of us, which is quite interesting,” he said, “and we’re going to research some of that if we can."
The next day Royal Canadian Mounted Police received a distress message from them, and shortly after that a plane spied some of their equipment in an area of mostly open water; one sled dog standing on a floating slab.
Unlike the Antarctic, there is only frigid seawater beneath the Arctic’s icy landscape, and that fast-dwindling terrain has now become more and more brittle with every passing spring.
As a consequence, the search-and-rescue mission for the two researchers missing in the Arctic melt for nearly two weeks already, has become a recovery mission instead.
