The world’s largest ever polar expedition returned to the German port of Bremerhaven with rafts of essential data about climate change. After being stranded in the Arctic earlier this year due to COVID-19, the Polarstern is heading home for the first time in 389 days. The aim was to spend a full year’s cycle trapped in the Arctic ice, to observe it freezing during winter and then melting again as the summer months approached. The effects of climate change felt more strongly than at our polar caps, so gathering this information is crucial.
“We could see broad stretches of open water reaching nearly to the Pole, surrounded by ice that was riddled with holes produced by massive melting”, he said. “The Arctic ice is disappearing at a dramatic rate.”
The researchers observations have been backed up by US satellite images showing that in 2020, sea ice in the Arctic reached its second-lowest summer minimum on record, after 2012. The Polarstern mission, dubbed MOSAIC, spent 389 days collecting data on the atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and ecosystems to help assess the impact of climate change on the region and the world. To carry out the research, four observational sites were set up on the sea ice in a radius of up to 40 kilometres around the ship.
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