News
MOSAiC-Expedition
Time to Say Goodbye
After exactly 300 days of drifting with the MOSAiC floe, the international team around Expedition Leader Markus Rex on Wednesday, 29 July 2020, started the dismantling of the research camp and evacuation of the floe. Just one day later the floe finally broke into several fragments. After accompanying the floe on its journey for ten months, the team will now shift its focus to the last remaining puzzle piece in the annual cycle of Arctic sea ice: the start of the ice formation process.
Bivalve ice with pebbles
The latest findings on the MOSAiC floe
The New Siberian Islands were the birthplace of the MOSAiC floe: the sea ice in which the research vessel Polarstern is now drifting through the Arctic was formed off the coast of the archipelago, which separates the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea to the north of Siberia, in December 2018. Sediments, and even small pebbles and bivalves, were incorporated into the ice during the freezing process, which the on-going melting process has brought to light on the surface of the MOSAiC floe.
MOSAiC Expedition
Polarstern returns to MOSAiC floe
After a month’s absence, on 17 June the German research icebreaker Polarstern rendezvoused with the MOSAiC floe at 82.2 ° North and 8.4 ° East, after having left it on 19 May 2020 to exchange personnel and bunker supplies near Svalbard. Full of energy, the research team for the fourth leg of the expedition, which consists of experts from 19 countries, is looking forward to continuing the one-year-long MOSAiC expedition and its research on the ocean, ice and atmosphere in the Arctic. Earlier this week, their predecessors from Leg 3 returned to Bremerhaven on board the research vessels Sonne and Maria S. Merian.
Blog
Polarstern-Blog
A successful ROV day
In the morning the alarm goes off. Breakfast is served from 7.30 to 8.30 am. Only half awake, I stumble into the breakfast hall, where you always receive a warm welcome from the friendly stewardesses. The breakfast menu offers everything the heart desires: from pancakes to scrambled eggs, to freshly baked rolls. And when you […]
Author: Polarstern Fahrtleiter
Polarstern-Blog
One Ice Floe – Many Priorities
How we’re keeping our footprint in the Arctic to a minimum By Marcel Nicolaus Our standards concerning the precision of our measurements and the overall scale of observations of the atmosphere, ice and ocean are naturally quite different from those 125 years ago, when Nansen first set out to study and explore the Arctic Ocean […]
Author: Polarstern Fahrtleiter
Polarstern-Blog
Mapping floes
From on board, 10 October 2019, by Stefan Hendricks for the ICE and Remote Sensing Teams | How we found the right floe for the ice drift through the Arctic Ocean First of all, the floe had to reflect the typical conditions in our region; this aspect is indispensable to arriving at representative conclusions. Secondly, […]
Author: Polarstern Fahrtleiter
Where is polarstern?
Figures and facts
| Port of registry | Bremerhaven |
|---|---|
| Length | 118 metres |
| Width | 25 metres |
| Max. draught | 11.20 metres |
| Max. displacement | 17,277 tons |
| Empty weight | 12,012 tons |
| Commissioning AWI | 1982 |
| Engine | 4 x KHD RBV 8M540 |
| Engine power | 19,198 PS (four engines) |
| Range | 19,000 nautical miles / 80 days |
| Max. speed | 16 knots |
| Operation area | Everywhere including pack ice zone |
| Crew | 44 |
| Days on sea per year (2013) | 310 |
| Shipyard | Nobiskrug, Rendsburg and Howaldswerke - Deutsche Werft Kiel AG, Germany |
| Scientists per day / long term sailing | none / 53 |
More Information
Polarstern is not only a research vessel but also a gigantic measuring instrument. Data are constantly collected aboard, some of them are also sent consecutively to different receivers. Further information about Polarstern can be found on the following pages:
AWI
Cruise Reports (data overview)
Extern