MOSAiC - Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate

Further map and data products around sea ice during the MOSAiC expedition can be found here.
 

Data products and information around sea ice during the MOSAiC expedition.

It could be the largest-scale Arctic research expedition of all time: in September 2019 the German research icebreaker Polarstern will depart from Tromsø, Norway and, once it has reached its destination, will spend the next year drifting through the Arctic Ocean, trapped in the ice. A total of 600 people from 19 countries, who will be supplied by other icebreakers and aircraft, will participate in the expedition – and several times that number of researchers will subsequently use the data gathered to take climate and ecosystem research to the next level. The mission will be spearheaded by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). More information about the expedtion here.

 

Current sea ice maps for Arctic and Antarctic

more maps are availble here...
 

 

Latest Articles

Find older news in our archive....

DriftStories from the 2019/2020 MOSAiC expedition through the Central Arctic

With the DriftStories, once a month we’ll introduce a member of the ICE Team and share insights into the background of their research area. Together with the weekly Sea Ice Ticker, these stories will present the sea-ice-related work being done on site in more detail, and help readers understand the role of sea-ice research within the context of the MOSAiC expedition as a whole. We hope you enjoy reading them!

Read here DriftStories – 02: For a clearer view from space

Sea Ice Ticker

Dear sea ice fans!

Since beginning of 2020 the meereisportal.de reports in its regular Sea Ice Ticker from the MOSAiC expedition. The Sea Ice Ticker will continue to chiefly focus on sea-ice-related activities, but will also address other topics when there are exciting events or findings to report from the MOSAiC drift experiment. The Ticker will be released on a weekly basis. We hope you enjoy reading the new posts and the exclusive updates on the expedition’s progress!

Your meereisportal.de team

Read here about the Sea Ice Ticker No 28: 3 April 2020 Sea-ice volume in the Arctic – an important parameter describing the sea ice situation

Winter 2019/2020: Low sea-ice volume in the Arctic

3 April 2020
Combining satellite observations of sea-ice area and thickness allows us to compute the total amount of sea ice in the Arctic. In recent years, changes in sea-ice volume have typically ranged from 5,000 cubic kilometres for the minimum extent in October, to 20,000 for the maximum extent in April. The sea-ice volume computed from the CryoSat-2/SMOS observations for January 2020 shows the second-lowest volume since the beginning of the time series. Read more ...

 

Moderate Ice Conditions in the Arctic and Antarctic

10 March 2020
February / March and September are the months of the year in which Arctic and Antarctic sea ice reaches its minimum and maximum extent, respectively. While the summer minimum was reached in the Antarctic on 19 February 2020 (at 2.68 million km²), in the Arctic the extent has been growing steadily since the end of February, and hasn’t yet reached its winter maximum. Read more…

The 2019 tundra wildfires – the atmosphere hasn’t forgotten

6 March 2020
Though the devastating wildfires that raged in Canada, Alaska and Russia in the summer of 2019 have long-since become old news, in the Arctic stratosphere their impacts can still be clearly seen. The stratosphere is the part of our atmosphere beginning at an altitude of ca. 10 km. : “It’s too soon to quantify the effects of this unusual stratospheric aerosol concentration on the sea-ice formation this winter. But this is an area of research that is being investigated – by the ATMOSPHERE team on the MOSAiC expedition, and in the form of extensive measurements and probe work done both on the MOSAiC floe and at land-based stations like AWIPEV – so that it can be more accurately reflected in future climate models. Read more…

DriftStories from the 2019/2020 MOSAiC expedition through the Central Arctic

24.02.2020
With the DriftStories, once a month we’ll introduce a member of the ICE Team and share insights into the background of their research area. Together with the weekly Sea Ice Ticker, these stories will present the sea-ice-related work being done on site in more detail, and help readers understand the role of sea-ice research within the context of the MOSAiC expedition as a whole. We hope you enjoy reading them! Read more here…

Real time course plot R.V. Polarstern
Where is Polarstern?



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