by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC As we wait here…. For an excruciatingly long time to rendezvous with Polarstern, there has been some moderately good news. The sea-ice melt season has started out at the MOSAiC floe. I wish we were there with the full arsenal of observations and samples. That’s the… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC I’m not much of a sailor. This feeling is setting in a little more strongly now as the waves are getting bigger and the ship bounces around more. The waves are not much by most standards, and this ship is actually quite stable with limited roll.… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC We’ve had a minor success. Chris [Cox, a NOAA scientist] onboard is such a skillful problem solver. He left one of our atmospheric flux stations on the ice to make measurements through this crucial seasonal transition as the ship is gone. The problem is that our… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC The sun always goes down on time. A few simple calculations using your position on the global and you know when the sun will set. Reliable. Always on time. And so it was calculated that last night would be our last sunset for the foreseeable future.… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC The vastness is remarkable. Heading through the North Sea and out into the North Atlantic. Norwegian mountains on the horizon. A modest swell. For a land-locked Coloradoan, the ocean is such an immense open space. And oddly this is where we have come to have less… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC Since the beginning, MOSAiC has been designed with some basic principles in mind. “A full continuous year in the ice.”  “Following an ice floe to track its changes.”  “Use the same ice to examine processes from season to season…”   “The occurrence of a lead would… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC As of today, Met City is no more. Our largest installation on the ice, reduced to rubble. Fortunately, most equipment installed on the surface had already been removed. Brought back to the ship for its 3-week journey to the ice edge and back. Those instruments will… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC The word from the field today is that the ice is active again and Met City is at risk. We had planned to leave our met tower standing and collecting data as the Polarstern left the ice to pick up this new group of scientists. All… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC The group of people assembled here for Leg 4 is now starting to get to know each other. One detail that strikes me is the youth. We have many PhD students and post-docs, here representing a great breadth of science. Many people have not been to… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC “Negative” usually carries a bad connotation. But not in this case. We’ve just received the great news that all members of the MOSAiC Leg 4 science party have tested negative for COVID-19. This is tremendous news and is the first step towards getting us successfully to… Read More