MOSAiC – The International Arctic Drift Expedition

Gunnar Spreen

University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics

The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) is the largest year-round expedition into the central Arctic exploring the Arctic climate system. In September 2019, the German research icebreaker Polarstern was frozen in the Arctic sea ice to spend one complete year drifting through the Arctic Ocean. Designed by an international consortium from 20 countries, led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), MOSAiC aims at a breakthrough in understanding the Arctic climate system and in its representation in global climate models. MOSAiC will provide a more robust scientific basis for policy decisions on climate change mitigation and adaptation and for setting up a framework for managing Arctic development sustainably. Experiments during MOSAiC are truly interdisciplinary and cover the atmosphere, sea ice, ocean, biogeochemistry and ecology. Here impressions after leg 1, the first 3 month of the expedition, will be discussed in the context of the conducted sea ice and remote sensing work.