More from alarmists trying to convince us that the world is overheating

Whilst in an evolutionary sense the body (as usual) gets it right in wanting to maintain the core organs, in the extreme cold that Pen, Ann and Martin are enduring, losing the use of hands or feet is not good news from a survival perspective!

So the team are fighting a battle to maintain their core temperature. Their only weapon is the heat they are able to generate through exercise and metabolism, their only fuel food. The clothing and footwear the team use reduces the heat loss as far as modern material science allows, but it does not generate any heat itself.

The fact that the Team can’t now feel their fingers and toes demonstrates not only just how extreme the cold is ( -34ºC… just try to imagine! your freezer at home is –18º or so) but also the amazing lengths the body will go to survive.

In future articles, we’ll have a look at what happens if the body’s mechanisms begin to fail - hypothermia and frostbite

And more from the alarmists: Utterly utterly miserable

Given the recent light hearted website entries highlighting Pen’s talk to DfID and the use of underwear for navigational purposes, it is easy for us here in civilisation to assume that life on the ice is comfortable, or at least bearable. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Every living moment currently hurts for the Ice Team. I believe it was Robert Swan who once said, “Antarctica wants you dead,” and the same is most definitely true of the Arctic. There is a reason that nothing lives far out on the floating sea ice. The conditions are simply too torturous.

For Ann, Martin and Pen, body temperatures are currently bordering on hypothermic, exposed skin freezes in seconds, sledges weigh over one and a half times their own bodyweight and the terrain underfoot each day resembles a frozen rockfall. Even the tent offers little sanctuary, since the team’s breath freezes to the tent inner overnight and they wake up entombed in a cavern of ice crystals, whilst their low temperature-rated sleeping bags struggle to offer even a modicum of warmth during the bitter Arctic nights.