AKIPRESS.COM - About 150 explorers from 26 countries, including 17 young Indians, are sailing to Antarctica on Sunday on a 13-day expedition to study the impact of climate change due to global warming, reports IANS.

"The largest group of 150 men and women, including 17 from India, will cruise in a ship from Ushuaia, the world's southernmost town in Argentina, to the Antarctica Peninsula for exploring the icy continent around the South Pole," expedition coordinator Samantha Van Ruiten told IANS.

The eight women and nine men from India are students, techies, researchers, executives and members of non-government organisations (NGOs), with a common cause to save the planet from ill-effects of greenhouse emissions, urbanisation, over consumption and changing lifestyle.

"Antarctica provides an ideal setting for the expedition to know first-hand the fallout of climate change and feel how temperature rises on its icy landscape due to greenhouse gases and other emissions from chimneys, highways, fossil fuels and waste in developed and developing countries across other continents," Samantha said ahead of the mission under the "Leadership on the Edge" programme.

Though there was an overwhelming response to the 2041 Foundation's call to embark on the ecological mission, only 150 were selected keeping in view logistics and resources, health and environmental concerns over the flora and fauna of the 14 million km uninhabited and ice-covered landmass below South America.

The first expedition in 2003 had just 42 adventurers from 18 countries and the 2015 expedition 110 members from 22 countries worldwide.

Hyderabad-based Aarti Rao, 25, a member of the Third Pole Foundation Swan mentored in 2013 at Leh as part of the Global Himalayan Expedition, is upbeat on flying across three continents to reach the planet's edge for a lifetime adventure.

"I was inspired to join the expedition by Swan and other explorers like Robert Scott to be the change we want to bring about in families, companies, communities and countries. It's time for action in policy development, sustainable business and designing future technologies," Rao, an engineering graduate, told IANS.