How anchoring a ship to an ice floe will help fight climate change

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/apr/13/mosaic-measure-climate-change-expedition-anchor-research-ship-arctic-ocean-ice-floe

How anchoring a ship to an ice floe will help fight climate change

Robin McKie

Sat 13 Apr 2019 16.00 BST

In September, the giant German polar research vessel Polarstern will set off from Tromsø in Norway on a remarkable voyage. It will sail across the Arctic Ocean and after a few weeks reach a point off the Siberian coast, around 85 deg N 120 deg E, where it will attach itself to the biggest, strongest-looking ice floe its crew can find. And then, for the next year, the Polarstern will remain moored to this giant slab of frozen water as it slides, with other polar pack ice, round the Arctic Ocean.

For a year, teams of researchers from the ship will study conditions on the ice floe – which will be at least 2 sq km in area to satisfy researchers’ requirements. There they will set up instruments to study the atmosphere above them, the seabed below, the chemistry of the water around them, the Arctic Ocean’s sealife, and the behaviour of wildlife on the surface, including the occasional visiting polar bear.

This is Mosaic – the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate, the biggest international expedition ever launched in the Arctic. Its aim is to transform our knowledge of the north polar region, a place more affected by climate change than any other sector of our planet and which is expected to play a crucial role in determining how global warming impacts on the rest of the Earth.
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Backed by an international consortium led by the institute, Mosaic will cost more than £100m to complete. At any one time, around 50 scientists will be working on its prime vessel or on the ice to which it is moored. Regular visits by icebreakers from China, Russia and Sweden will keep the Polarstern supplied and recrewed so that by late 2020, when the project ends, more than 300 researchers from at least 17 nations will have taken turns to work there.
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