Test field campaign in Sembrancher
Last January, the EERL team has for the first time deployed its brand new helikite in Sembrancher (VS) for a field test campaign. The goal of the campaign was to test the functionality of the helikite and the MoMuCAMS payload. What is the aim of MoMuCAMS? MoMuCAMS is designed to be a flexible platform able (…)
Helikite training in very British weather
On August 18th, the team members of the Extreme Environments Research Laboratory (EERL), participated in a helikite training in the UK. The helikite is part of the MoMuCAMS research project and will be used during field campaigns in polar regions for aerosol and trace gas vertical measurements. MoMuCAMS (Modular Multiplatform Compatible Measurement System) is the (…)
Déjà vu? Not quite.
The journey south was anticipated to be quick, a couple of days only. But due to southerly winds, pressure on the ice was so high that breaking through was difficult. In the end it took two and a half weeks to our rendezvous point near Longyearbyen…
It’s an expedition after all!
This year, things seem to happen differently. It is true, globally, for all the changes induced by the corona pandemic. And it was also true for our leg 3 of MOSAiC, where moods of nature and covid-19 created confounding effects…
Busy, busy, busy …
April was a very busy month on the MOSAiC floe. After a turbulent time in March, something like a routine settled in and science activities were in full swing. The weather was generally benign, allowing us to spend much time on the ice. We experienced our first warm air mass intrusions from the south and melt. But the quiet beginning of April was treacherous, after two weeks lots of action was required again to keep things running on the ice …
Extreme cold, leads and storms
What a welcome by the winter Arctic! Not enough that temperatures plummeted to below -40 °C with a wind chill of -60°C during the first week of March when we arrived at the MOSAiC central observatory (CO). Exactly six days after we had taken over for leg 3, the CO suffered several major cracks that soon opened into leads…
Into the dark
A long journey through the winter Arctic that required lots of patience but was rewarded by two Arctic records…
What do you actually do during a multi-week transit?
Current Position: 87.1 °N, 89.23 °E That’s a question that I get asked a lot. Now it has been almost three and a half weeks that we spent on the Kapitan Dranitsyn traveling from Tromsö to Polarstern. Short answer first: there is a lot to do. The transit is the perfect time for team building, (…)
A winter sea of ice
It is not as easy as it sounds: Get an icebreaker, go up to 88 °N in winter, exchange scientists, crew and cargo and return. Job done. Actually, going through the Arctic winter ice in February that far north is rather unusual. This means that there are also not many icebreakers, which are equipped to (…)
Waiting in the Fjord
Strong winds make us wait in the fjord near Tromsö before crossing open water to the sea ice edge.