Halfway the trip… halfway our luck?

It warmed up in the Arctic today and we noticed!
For the first time I did not have frost inside my jacket or clumps of ice hanging from the fur in my hood.
The inner soles of my Baffin boots were not frozen neither were the zippers of my outside pockets.
All this to a great start this morning.
I was able to ski without a ski mask and didn’t have to breathe through neoprene to prevent getting frostbites on my face.
We left our hand warmers behind and our skis slid smoothly over the surface.

At lunch the cheese tasted like cheese again and nuts tasted salty.
So far all good, but we noticed the wind is coming from the west and south so that is why the air is warmer.
We think it is -26C instead of -36C a big jump in temperatures and the Arctic is already reacting.

Every night we report we haven’t seen any leads, that everything is frozen solid but the threshold of this cold arctic  has almost been reached.
Much warmer then -25C and the ice will start to melt.

I was thinking about  this when the Arctic was 25 degrees too warm in November and how the ice was unable to form due to the extreme warm ocean temperatures coming from the Atlantic.
Small increases in temperature can cause huge reactions.
Like the thermostat at home: 21 degrees is comfortable but 23 degrees is too warm.

Here in the Arctic it is like that too: -30C keeps everything solid and the ice can grow in thickness and extend.
Anything less in the Arctic will respond and start to melt.

Today we noticed the leads are changing color: from light blue to light grey.
The next thing will be a thin layer of mush on top and then eventually water and the lead will open and turn liquid.
Lets hope the freezer box will stay on for a while longer - for the sake of the Arctic.

We reached a new milestone today: 89 degrees and skied our first degree of latitude.
We are now half way our trip.

Location of camp:
lat=89.00632
lon=148.88740