Final Steps: MOSAiC Journey About to Begin

 
Published: 20 September 2019
On a cloudy September day in Tromsø, Norway, instrument loading takes place on the icebreaker R/V Polarstern ahead of the Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) field campaign.

In mere hours, the German icebreaker R/V Polarstern will head out of Tromsø, Norway, to begin the Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) field campaign.

MOSAiC, which will involve 600 scientists, technicians, and logicians from 19 countries, is being billed as the largest research expedition in the central Arctic. The region is experiencing dramatic changes, including surface temperature increases that are twice the rate of the global average.

Soon, the Polarstern will freeze into an arctic ice floe and start drifting for a full year. It will serve as the main observatory for researchers to measure conditions in the ocean, sea ice, biosphere, and atmosphere.

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility is providing more than 50 instruments for MOSAiC, including the first scanning radars to operate in the arctic ice pack.

ARM technicians, instrument mentors, site operations personnel, and management are in Norway preparing for the MOSAiC kickoff. Heath Powers, facility operations manager for the second ARM Mobile Facility (AMF2), which is going on the Polarstern, provided an installation update September 18.

“We completed the dockside installation, packed everything up, and currently have nearly everything loaded onto the ship,” he said.

See photos from the final preparations below and in the ARM MOSAiC photo album on Flickr.

During the campaign, check back on the ARM website for updates.

Matthew Shupe and colleague
Matthew Shupe, a co-coordinating scientist for MOSAiC, points something out to a colleague while working dockside.
ARM and ASR leadership
From left to right, ARM Technical Director Jim Mather, Atmospheric System Research (ASR) Program Manager Shaima Nasiri, and ARM Program Manager Sally McFarlane pause for a photo.
ARM technicians and Nicki Hickmon, ARM associate director for operations
From left to right, ARM technicians Vagner Castro and Paul Ortega stand with Nicki Hickmon, ARM associate director for operations, on the Polarstern.
Looking at radar data
Mather (left) looks at radar images with Joseph Hardin, an associate instrument mentor for ARM’s scanning cloud radars.
Looking at instruments on the R/V Polarstern
From left to right, McFarlane, Heath Powers, facility operations manager for the second ARM Mobile Facility (AMF2), and Nasiri discuss ARM instrumentation.
The R/V Polarstern sits in a Norwegian port.
The Polarstern (blue hull) is heading out of Tromsø on September 20 to start the MOSAiC field campaign.