- The journey through the ice went better and faster than expected. In this regard, the expedition benefited from the region’s unusually low sea-ice concentration.
- After reaching the selected ice floe, the team began mapping their surroundings to aid in planning the setup for the ice camp.
- The goal for the next several weeks: to gather the first complete datasets before the Polar Night falls.
The voyage through the sea ice
After sailing to the north of the Russian archipelago Severnaya Zemlya, Tara Polar Station encountered the first ice floes on 1 September. Proceeding to the ice margin, it initially followed it east, to roughly 150° E, before pushing further northward. Passing along leads and patches of open water, it completed this first leg of the journey through the sea ice under its own power. In this regard, the expedition benefited – as hoped for during the planning phase – from the late-summer ice conditions (Figure 1). This year’s minimum sea-ice extent, at 4.66 million km², was reached on 11 September. In addition, the sea-ice concentration was particularly low in this region of the Arctic; as such, the voyage through the ice was much easier than anticipated and the station was able to take advantage of broad expanses of open water. As a result, Tara Polar Station was able to advance farther north under its own power than originally planned.
During the trek through the sea ice, the expedition team drew on satellite data to identify potential floes in the target region. The floe ultimately selected was at roughly 82.5° N and 155° E, placing it further to the east and south than the starting point of the MOSAiC drift in 2019 (at 85.1° N and 134.9° E). The hope for the Polaris 1 expedition is that this starting position will allow a longer drift, so that Tara Polar Station can also remain in the sea ice as long as possible in the coming summer.
Figure 1: Tara Polar Station’s track and drift route. The different colours along the route represent the transit on its own (yellow), the journey together with the Xue Long 2 (orange), and the drift (red). In the background, the minimum sea-ice concentration on 11 September 2026 is shown. (Figure: M. Nicolaus/AWI, data source: meereisportal.de)
Figure 2: Tara Polar Station’s track and drift route. The different colours along the route represent the transit on its own (yellow), the journey together with the Xue Long 2 (orange), and the drift (red). In the background, the sea-ice concentration on 19 September 2026 is shown. (Figure: M. Nicolaus/AWI, data source: meereisportal.de)
Tara Polar Station completed the last leg before its starting point with the aid of the Chinese research icebreaker Xue Long 2 (Figure 2). The two ships rendezvoused on 8 September before continuing to the selected floe together, with Tara Polar Station following in the wake of the Chinese icebreaker at a safe distance. Before leaving the region to pursue its own research, the Xue Long 2 broke a small channel in the floe (Figure 3). This will serve as a small harbour of sorts where the ship will be as sheltered as possible (Figure 4). In the next step, the crew of the Xue Long 2 will deploy a number of autonomous monitoring stations in the region; the stations’ observations will later be used to complement the readings taken during Polaris 1.
Figure 3: Tara Polar Station in its final docking position on the ice floe on 14 September. The channel visible here was broken in the ice to facilitate mooring. The photo is a single image from the composite in Figure 4. (Photo: J. Regnery/AWI)
Figure 4: Composite of drone images of the floe near Tara Polar Station on 14 September. (Figure: J. Regnery/AWI)
Arrival at the ice floe
At 10:00 a.m. on 9 September, Tara Polar Station reached 82.4° N, 155.05° E, the coordinates of the floe with which it will drift through the Central Arctic for the next several months. The floe measures 23.0 × 25.2 kilometres, which gives it a surface area of approximately 431 km², roughly the same as the island Usedom (Figure 5). Viewed from space, it looks a bit like a fish with the station moored at its “mouth” (see Figure 5). Initial ice-drift analyses indicated that the floe had already drifted through the Laptev Sea for at least a year and might be as much as two years old. Further analyses of the ice’s history and provenance will follow, so as to put the readings gathered on-site in their historical context.
Once assorted logistical tasks and the general planning for the ice camp had been completed, Tara Polar Station assumed its final docking position on the floe and moored there on 13 September. Now there was no turning back: from that point on, the ship would increasingly be frozen into the ice. Upon arrival, the team immediately set to work exploring their new home: on foot on the ice, with a drone from the air, and with an ROV from below the ocean’s surface. The data from these initial surveys then provided the basis for a concept defining where on the floe the measuring sites and structures were to be set up, and therefore the layout of the ice camp.
Above all, the aerial photo from the first drone flyover on 14 September shows the ship’s position and the ice structures in its immediate vicinity (Figure 6). “I’m very pleased that the weather cooperated, which allowed us to capture such a great photo mosaic of the ship’s surroundings,” says Marcel Nicolaus from the Alfred Wegener Institute. “This will provide a valuable basis for the further planning of the ice camp. Our camp will include both old sea ice and areas where new ice forms in the course of the winter. In this way, we’ll have the chance to investigate both types of ice.” As Julia Regnery (AWI) adds from on board the Tara Polaris 1 mission: “We’re pleased that we can now set up the ice camp and can finally start the painstakingly prepared research programmes. This is where the expedition’s actual scientific work begins.”
Figure 5: TerraSAR-X (StripMap mode) image of the Polaris 1 ice floe from 12 September. (Figure: M. Nicolaus/AWI. The TerraSAR-X image was provided by the German Aerospace Center (DLR).)
Figure 6: Tara Polar Station in the ice on the evening of 18 September 2026. (Photo: J. Regnery/AWI)
Transition to the Polar Night
The ship’s arrival at the ice floe almost perfectly coincided with the transition from melting to freezing conditions. A comparison of the sea-ice concentration maps from 11 and 19 September (Figures 1 and 2) shows how the concentration rose substantially in just a handful of days, as patches of open water increasingly froze over. While the ice camp is being set up, the Arctic days are growing shorter. 23 September marks the equinox, and by mid-October the Polar Night will have fallen in the region: from 15 October, the sun will no longer rise at 82.5° N.
Consequently, the team’s goal is to rapidly install the scientific equipment and structures on, in and below the sea ice, and to start the recurring observation programmes – so as to ideally gather the first complete datasets before the Polar Night falls. Afterwards, the darkness and increasingly wintry conditions will make working on the ice far more difficult.
Graphics
