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Trapped: why 300 scientists are locking themselves in Arctic ice
For one year, a research ship will drift while frozen in sea ice — and give scientists their closest look at the rapid changes gripping the polar north.for the next 12 months, there will be a regular fixture on the polar horizon.
... for the next 12 months, there will be a regular fixture on the polar horizon.
In an extraordinary expedition that sets off on 20 September, scientists will freeze Germany’s biggest research vessel,Polarstern, into Arctic sea ice, where it will stay trapped for the next year. The ship will host a rotating crew of some 300 scientists from 17 countries and serve as a drifting polar-research laboratory — one that will give researchers their closest ever look at how the polar climate, and its fragile ecosystems, are changing...
The €140-million (US$154-million) research project, called MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate), is one of the biggest research missions ever to go to the Arctic and has been years in the planning. Led by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, the expedition commemorates Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen’s legendary, but ill-fated, attempt in 1893 to reach the North Pole in a three-masted wooden schooner trapped in drifting sea ice. But unlike Nansen and his men, whose strenuous journey on theFram lasted three years, the MOSAiC team will rely on a superbly equipped research ship and on logistical support by Russian, Swedish and Chinese icebreakers...After a first leg in whichPolarstern will sail polewards in the open ocean, the vessel will freeze into the sea ice at a latitude of about 85 degrees north, probably in October. The team will then set up a network of camps on the thick ice surrounding the ship. Nearby research stations will be accessible at any time. Those further away — up to 50 kilometres — will be served by helicopters that will transport crew and equipment. WherePolarstern will end up in 12 months’ time is uncertain. Statistical calculations of sea-ice drift suggest possible end points near the North Pole or in the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard (see ‘Uncertain destination’). “We will go and do science wherever the ice might carry us,” says chief scientist Markus Rex, an atmospheric scientist at the AWI.
Ice explorers
A number of Serreze’s colleagues from the University of Colorado will be onPolarstern, along with scientists from countries including China, Russia and Japan. Participants will each spend about 10 weeks on the ship.
Scientists, food and supplies will be ferried to and from the vessel by one of four icebreakers.
