The mist-shrouded wilderness of Dartmoor is helping a UK polar explorer prepare for a pioneering £3 million scientific expedition aimed at helping plot the future of the Arctic icecap.
Polar veteran Pen Hadow is leading the three-strong Catlin Arctic Survey team which will in February use specially-built radar to take 10 million measurements of the remaining Arctic Ocean ice cap.
The project's findings will be made available to next year's United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen.
The data will help scientists calculate how long the dwindling ice cap could last - current estimates put its year-round presence at between five and 100 years.
Dartmoor-based Hadow is currently training on the wild terrain and tors of the wilderness with team members Ann Daniels and photographer Martin Hartley.
They have been building up physical and psychological stamina by dragging heavy car tyres over the awkward terrain and clambering over the granite tors with heavy packs.
"We are using Dartmoor to help replicate the icescape that we will travel across," said Hadow, adding: "The tors are as good as gyms."
The team is also toughening up with mentally and physically punishing sessions at the Commando Training Centre at Lympstone in East Devon.
"We are going to be on the sea ice for about 100 days, covering 1,500km, measuring the thickness of the ice and snow in temperatures as low as -50c. Up to 12 hours a day pulling sledges of up to 100kg requires a huge physical effort," said Hadow.
And the science the team will have to do each day would be a "massive extra workload", he said.