A 1999 Aiken High student is about as far from Aiken as one can get without falling off the edge of the earth.
Joshua Markland Jones is aboard the Coast Guard Icebreaker Healy in the Northern Chukchi Sea, heading toward the Beaufort Sea where other researchers are collecting ice data.
Jones is the son of Chip and Jennifer Madeen Jones, grandson of the late Cliff Jones and Sue Markland Jones Ellis, and the late Murray Madeen and Doree Madeen, who all live in Aiken.
Jones is using radar to track ice to show the Coast Guard which way the ice is moving. Even though this program is still in the test phase, they like what they see so far.
Jones received a Bachelor of Science in environmental science from the University of Alaska Southeast in 2009, a Master of Science in geophysics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2013 with a focus on sea ice geophysics, and is now employed by the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
He and his crew were recently interviewed by David Abel of the Boston Globe newspaper in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city of this continent. They were there to learn more about the uncommonly rapid melt of the Arctic Ocean and the impact it has on the rest of the world.
In previous years, when Jones and his crew made this trip to set up their equipment, the temperatures had been so raw that Jones' eyelashes froze. This time, as Abel reported, it was a balmy 41 in July. The equipment - a wind turbine for instance - was collapsing in the melting ice. The all-terrain vehicle had stalled in a knee-deep pool of slush.
According to Abel's story, the signs are quite serious: The Arctic Ocean is melting faster than at any time on record.
"This February, the sea ice that stretches from North America to Russia reached its lowest-known winter extent and began melting 15 days earlier than usual," Abel writes.
Arctic ice melt could affect ocean currents, weather patterns and temperatures across the planet.
"Scientists have attributed Boston's historic cold spell and snowfall last winter to shifts in the polar jet stream," Abel reported.
Abel also learned that the frozen Arctic Ocean has long served as a sort of heat vent for the rest of the planet, its millions of square miles of snow-covered ice reflecting sunlight back into space.
"But the receding ice has meant more energy is being absorbed by the ocean, a self-reinforcing cycle that has increased sea and land temperatures, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado," Abel writes.
Jones told the reporter many stories of past snow and ice adventures. One particular story was about having to use pliers to break the ice off a colleague's mustache in order to help him breathe. But those stories are becoming rare. Jones will be back in Nome, Alaska, and then on to Fairbanks.