Gina Moseley

British polar explorer and climate change scientist Gina Moseley is preparing to lead an expedition to the planet’s northernmost caves in Greenland. While the expedition will explore several caves, there is one giant cave in particular that Moseley is captivated by.

She first found out about it through a chance encounter with fellow caver Charlie Self, who described the cave and gave Moseley a folder containing an intriguing article that related how, during the Cold War, a US reconnaissance aircraft looking for emergency ice-free landing sites spotted a giant cave set high in a cliff above a lake in Wulff Land on the tip of northern Greenland. And there the story was frozen for 60 years.

Moseley’s six-member team hope to explore the giant cave which, despite much interest and speculation, has never been visited, because of what she describes as its “remote location, difficult logistics and the very high cost of an expedition to north Greenland”.

The “substantial funding provided by Rolex for exploration is a unique opportunity to achieve this,” she says. Most organisations, she says, require proof of concept before giving out funding.

Rolex, however, recognises the value of exploration teamed with science and is committed to supporting such ventures. Without Rolex’s support, she adds, scientific questions in her research about climate change “are unlikely to be answered for many decades”.