Horrified Polarstern researchers: “We saw the ice die”

Arctic researchers return in horror: “We saw the ice die”

The German icebreaker “Polarstern” was on the road for over a year. In the central Arctic it was adrift along with a large iceberg. The research ship will return to Bremerhaven on Monday. Also included: valuable facts and memories of a great adventure.

When the German research vessel “Polarstern” returns to its home port of Bremerhaven on Monday (October 12) after a year in the Arctic, expedition leader Markus Rex will also be on board. The atmospheric physicist accompanied three of the five stages of the “Mosaic” expedition and was therefore one of the longest on board. Behind him and his team is one of the most adventurous journeys in Arctic research history, which began in Norway on September 20, 2019 and was temporarily on the brink of the corona pandemic.

For ten months, the “Polarstern” traversed the Arctic, docked on a huge ice floe. To observe, measure and document the entire ice cycle from freezing to melting, scientists were able to do this for the first time. They hope that the data obtained will provide important information about the Arctic Ocean and about climate change. Hardly any other region in the world can feel it as clearly as the Arctic.

“We saw the ice die”

After the iceberg broke in the Arctic summer at the end of July, the last stage drove the motorized “Polarstern” once more towards the North Pole. What Rex saw there surprised him: “The ice at the North Pole completely melted and there were areas of open water until just before the pole.” Where normally there was thick ice for several years, the “Polarstern” passed in record time. “We watched the ice die,” Rex says.

It is one of the experiences that he and his team will remember from a journey of superlatives. With a budget of 140 million euros, it was the most expensive and logistically complex expedition to the central Arctic to date.

Snow researcher Schneebeli and other Swiss

Almost 500 people from all corners of the world went on board in stages. About 70 scientists from 17 countries worked in shifts for two months each, then were replaced by colleagues. Swiss snow researcher Martin Schneebeli was also present.

Three Swiss teams also participated in the expedition: in addition to Martin Schneebeli’s, scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) working with Julia Schmale examined atmospheric gases that play an important role in cloud formation. Colleagues Schneebelis from the WSL Institute in Davos, led by Mike Schwank and Reza Naderpour, analyzed the extent to which the microwaves reflected by snow provide information about their properties.

The projects were co-financed by the Swiss Polar Institute (SPI), which contributed to the high logistical costs of the scientific work of Swiss groups in the polar regions. In addition to other donors, the Swiss Commission for Polar and Altitude Research (SKPH) provided ideal support.

Award Winning Bear Photo

German Markus Rex, who works for the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), is happy that the trip ended without major injuries. The worst was the broken leg of a colleague from the beginning on board. Additionally, some of the participants suffered minor frostbite burns, nothing unusual at temperatures as low as -42 degrees. “But they healed without any problem,” Rex says.

Many things may have happened. There were many encounters with polar bears on the iceberg. The guards permanently secured the clod so that the scientists could carry out their work in peace. Most of the time, the noise drove away the four-legged guests.

On the night of October 10, 2019, AWI photographer Esther Horvath was on board for such a visit. From the prow of the Polarstern, he photographed a mother polar bear and her cub exploring the research field. “At that moment I had the feeling that it would be an important photo,” he says. In fact, the image won the prestigious “World Press Photo Award” in the “Environment” category.

The cheeky cable fox

Other animals also came to visit us. Second stage chief scientist Christian Haas recalls: “A cute arctic fox would have derailed most of the project because it liked to nibble on power and data cables in the ice and didn’t want to be chased away.”

Photographer Horvath was even more impressed by the polar night than by the animals. “This deep black fascinated me again every day, it was magical,” he says. Since the middle of October last year it was continuously dark. “On the iceberg they worked in the light of the ‘Polarstern’ and the headlights. I always felt like I was in a movie theater. “

For Haas, the onset of “nautical twilight” in March was impressive: “Because this pale light near the North Pole rotates around the entire horizon around us in one day, you can guess that the Earth is a sphere.”

When you meet again for the first time …

Christian Pilz, an atmospheric physicist at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research in Leipzig, experienced the opposite of night: the polar day. It was on board for two months in the summer and had good working conditions due to constant brightness and temperatures around zero degrees. “It was too hot in our red safety suits.” Pilz and his colleagues had a tethered balloon the size of a public bus soar as high as 1,000 meters to measure atmospheric parameters such as turbulence, radiation and concentrations of fine dust.

Pilz should have been on board two months earlier. But with the onset of the corona pandemic, it was initially unclear whether the “Mosaic” expedition could continue. Due to travel restrictions, the planned exchange of onboard equipment by plane was not possible. Instead, two research ships with scientists eventually left Bremerhaven. The “Polarstern” stopped its drift, the crews could be exchanged at Spitzbergen. The Polarstern returned to its iceberg and continued to drift.

Director Markus Rex is more than satisfied with the way the expedition went. “Not even Corona has diverted us from the course,” he emphasizes. “During the absence of the ‘Polarstern’, important measuring instruments continued to work autonomously on the iceberg.” Innumerable ice, snow, water and air samples and data were collected throughout the year. “They will keep future generations of scientists busy.” (sda / dpa)