by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC I like clouds. I’m here, in part, to study clouds. And there is certainly no shortage of clouds in this area or in the Arctic summer in general. Fogs, overcast, grey…. These things abound.  But occasionally out here you get one of these spectacular clear sky… Read More

by Radiance Calmer, a CIRES postdoctoral researcher  If you think about the weather in the Arctic and the previous MOSAiC legs, you might describe the extreme temperatures, -30°C, and strong winds during storms. The current conditions during Leg 4 are very different! We are fully in the melting season; temperatures are around -1 to +1… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC The GFS [a U.S. national weather model] is crushing it out here in the Arctic. In the past weeks we’ve had a couple of key operational days when the models diverged in their weather forecasts. Will it be socked in with overcast clouds and fog, or… Read More

by Radiance Calmer, a CIRES postdoctoral researcher  That’s it! Our copter now has a name: The HELiX!  Unless you have already been in polar regions, you might not think about transportation on the ice and the challenges of pulling everything on a pulka (a type of sled), and more particularly a TAROT X6 from DJI…… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC It’s getting hard to keep track as there have been so many bears lately. Visits in the evening-to-early-morning going into last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Then here again last night (Monday). And this morning at 4:30 am. They mostly have come during our non-on-ice periods when… Read More

by Radiance Calmer, a CIRES postdoctoral researcher  “The batteries are fully charged and already in the pulka. Toolbox, antennas, transmitter, bungee, ground station… and the Datahawk! I think we have everything for tomorrow’s flights.” It’s the evening. Jonathan (Hamilton) is going through all the materials that we take on the ice for our drone operations,… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC The ice around us has recently been spacious. Lots of open water around. Gaps between floes. And all of the floes move relative to each other. Not far away from our main floe have been others from the MOSAiC timeline: The Old Central Observatory floe, the… Read More

by Radiance Calmer, a CIRES postdoctoral researcher  It’s 3:30 pm. I join Jonathan (Hamilton) in the Red Salon of the Polarstern and collapse in the armchair beside him. We are both exhausted and looking with envy to our first piece of cake for the entire week. Harold, one of the helicopter pilots, joins us. He… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC We are about half way through our leg of MOSAiC. And in Polarstern tradition this means that there is a party. Some gluhwein on the ice and another barbeque in the wet lab and on the working deck. The real highlight of the evening for me… Read More

by Matthew Shupe, CIRES/NOAA scientist and co-coordinator of MOSAiC Today is not Sunday. Nor was yesterday. But we’ve spent both mornings onboard the ship like on a typical Sunday because we’ve had a polar bear around the area. First thing yesterday morning there was an announcement over the intercom about a bear on the port… Read More