Meereisportal.de

Order the DriftStories booklet free of charge or download the pdf

The amount of snow on the Arctic sea ice is a key factor influencing how quickly the ice grows, and when it begins melting in the spring.

How thick does sea ice have to be for aeroplanes to safely land on it? Questions like this confronted AWI sea-ice expert Christian Haas and his team when they began constructing a landing strip on the MOSAiC floe, in total darkness.

Interview with Torsten Kanzow, oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, and cruise leader of the 3rd leg of the MOSAiC expedition

During the MOSAiC expedition AWI sea-ice physicist Christian Katlein made an exciting discovery: on a routine sweep under the MOSAiC floe with the AWI’s ROV, he observed a phenomenon previously only found in the Antarctic.

"The thickness of Arctic sea ice depends not only on how much seawater freezes into ice during the winter. Another, increasingly important factor: how frequently the ice shakes and breaks up, floes collide and stack up to form ridges."

Satellite observation is the only way to effectively monitor the Arctic sea ice on a broad scale. Yet this approach still has its fair share of weaknesses. Unparalleled control measurements gathered during the MOSAiC expedition will now help to overcome them.

How AWI sea-ice physicist Thomas Krumpen is tracing the fate of the MOSAiC ice floes back to their roots

"Four months into the MOSAiC drift campaign, the North Pole is less than 160 kilometres away."