Tom Arnbom of WWF Sweden is spending some time with the team on the Northeast Passage expedition. He will be blogging regularly for the Arctic Programme’s Sending the Signal blog while he is there. Here is his update from the fifth and sixth day of the expedition.
DAY 5
Watch a video on the website of Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet of Tom and the Explorer team’s close encounter with the bear
After another beautiful night with the midnight sun, I get a few hours sleep before it is time for breakfast. BUT what a breakfast! While having muesli I see two different polar bears – that is luxury above all means. One of them, is like frozen to the ground, not moving a single bit, just beside a breathing hole for a seal. The white bear is hunting ringed seals. I see the seal coming up in an alternative breathing hole 15 metres from the large predator. But the polar does not move. After 15 minutes, the bear gives up and linger off. Not bad for breakfast time.

It is getting colder, and the long johns are on all the time. A cold northerly cuts through all our clothing. We are heading south to get away from the bad weather which is forecasted. Hannibal does not care about the chill, and makes a dive north of the 80th latitude.
DAY 5 – LATE NIGHT
Close to Hinlopen, we force the bow into the sea ice and stay put. At a small distance away, a polar bear is lying on its back with all four paws in the air and scratching its back. It seems not to care less about us.
Suddenly, the bear changes its behaviour. It stands up, sniffs and looks at the boat Explorer of Sweden. Slowly it walks in a zig-zag track towards us. It comes closer and closer – a hundred metres turns into fifty metres, twenty metres. We are all on alert and barely breathing – only whispers. Both Ola and Per-Magnus bring out their weapons and other protective gear – such as sound blasters, both are ready just in case …
The polar bear gets more and more curious and it makes its way all the way to our sailing vessel. It is a bit nervy and the adrenalin is flowing. When it puts the paws on the bow it was close to the limit where we felt safe – the polar bear is incredibly fast and strong so you need margins!
The bear went away from the boat but came back again, this time with higher speed. Ola honked the boat horn – the sound blast is very loud – but the bear barely flinched. So Per-Magnus threw a sound blaster in font of the bear – the high bang surprised the bear – which stops within a metre.

In less than a second the bear runs off away from these ”unfriendly” humans who do not want to get a close contact. The bear stopped after a hundred metres and turned around, gave us a long look and then slowly wandered off to the glacier at the horizon. An encounter to remember – both for us and the bear.

The wind picked up, blowing half storm and the seawater temperature is now below zero degrees. Freezing.
DAY 6
After the close encounter with the polar bear we steam south. The wind is now really strong, storm and the water temperature is now the unbelievable minus 1.4 degrees. Not my cup of tea for a swim. It is very very cold and we do not go outside voluntarily.
We sail by an endless glacier front. The colour is ice blue. I just read that during the last five years the Arctic sea ice has lost around 15 cm per year in thickness, that is unbelievably fast. It is going much quicker than anybody has foreseen. This means that the annual ice is dominating the Arctic, and the sea ice can therefore melt off very quickly if the ”right” conditions come. When the white sea ice melts away the sea is opening up and the dark blue water will be warmed up by the sun. The sea will in its turn melt off more sea ice, a process which might not be halted. But we can halt the climate changes if we want.
A first step is a very good climate agreement in Copenhagen in December this year.

This summer, WWF is helping support two expeditions that will take on some of the world’s most difficult waters, to see first-hand the effects of Arctic climate change. One expedition is sailing across the top of Russia, a journey of 6000 nautical miles through the Northeast Passage, while another is attempting a west to east transit of the Northwest Passage, also by sailing boat, a journey of about 7,000 nautical miles.
Tom Arnbom of Sweden was on the ‘Explorer of Sweden’ though the Northeast Passage, as was WWF Arctic Programme Director Neil Hamilton for much of the trip, replaced near the end by WWF polar bear coordinator Geoff York. On the ‘Silent Sound’ Cameron Dueck of the Open Passage Expedition is filing regular stories from the Northwest passage. Come back for photos and stories throughout the summer, and follow the progress of the boats as they follow in the wake of some of history’s most intrepid explorers.
I am sharing the dogwatch with Anders, the captain of Explorer of Sweden. The dogwatch is between midnight and four in the morning. We head northward along the west coast of Svalbard, and because we are north of the polar circle the midnight sun is shining. We are now getting closer to where we might see polar bears.
Suddenly, at distance we observe a small polar bear on the beach – it looks like it is gnawing on something. It does not take long before the next bear turns up – it is stretched out on a large ice floe.
The weather is fantastic so we survey one more bay – and a third large polar bear turns up, swimming. Incredible: in only a few hours – three polar bears, the largest landliving predator, have been in sight. We keep at distance so as not to disturb it. Outside on some ice flows I see both ringed seals and a bearded seal.
DAY 3
The Arctic is fantastic – but is it a vanishing world I am observing? In a generation, the Arctic might look totally different. New species will arrive and some might even be gone. The driving force is climate change.
At Ny-Ålesund I meet Geir Wing Gabrielsen, a scientist from Norway.

He tells us that in addition to the climate change directly affecting the escalating melting of sea ice, pollutants are having a larger effect on animals as a result climate change. The reason is that many of the top predators have a large storage of body fat, and in non-degradable pollutants are stored in the fat.
When the animals have difficulty find their preferred food, such as polar bears and ivory gulls, the pollutants find their way out in the organs, when the stored fat is all used up. The scientists in Ny-Ålesund have seen changes in some species already due to this heavier pollutant burden.
In addition to climate change, more pollutants are expected to come with currents, both in the air and in the water.
DAY 4
Walrus galore. Today we have been lucky to see some walrus ashore but also on a small ice floe. The Atlantic walrus was heavily hunted for several hundred years before it was protected. Today, they are slowly coming back in numbers, especially in Svalbard.


In eastern Russia and in Alaska, the Pacific walrus population is having problems. The main one is that the arctic sea water is warmer than before, which causes the summer sea ice to melt. Walruses usually rest on the sea ice between feeding dives, but when the sea ice is gone, walruses come ashore in large colonies to rest. The haul-outs can be far away from the feeding areas, and when many animals come together – there is a risk that they might stamp each other to death. This has happened during the last few years, and several thousand walruses have died.