The image illustrates the dangerous ice conditions that lay along the
original Arctic Arc expedition route to the Greenland coast. Thin ice and open water
conditions are visible as dark areas in the radar image and are prominent in
the danger zone highlighted in red. The expedition was rerouted to the east
through the 'safe' zone highlighted in green and characterised by thicker and
more stable ice conditions. The yellow arrows in the image are ice drift
velocities derived from a temporal series of Envisat ASAR radar images.