Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) climatologists remain involuntarily stuck in thick pack ice while two sister ships wait in a fjord at Spitsbergen. Let’s see how long this is going to take.
German icebreaker and research vessel “Polarstern” has been drifting through the central Arctic on a 140 million euro MOSAIC research expedition since the beginning of October 2019.
But the Arctic – they have inconveniently discovered – is strongly frozen at its highest level in the last five years.
Stopped by two-year, thick ice
The climatologists had prematurely abandoned their floe on Saturday, May 16, 2020, to make their way to Spitsbergen by Monday, May 25, but had to stop their engines already on Monday, May 18, because the two-year drift ice was too thick, they reported.
They wish to reach Spitsbergen by Sunday, May 24, 2020, in order to meet up with two sister ships to take on supplies and a new crew.
This is to avoid further evacuations like the one on April 22, when seven participants of expedition leg 3 were flown out by a Twin Otter. They should have been replaced in early April.
Shortly after Easter the vessel had left the drift corridor and drifted southwards in 2- to 3-meter-thick pack ice toward Spitsbergen.
There, ice masses of 4-meter thickness awaited them and thus the biggest and thickest ice surfaces for many years.
The expedition and crew now aim to meet the German research vessels “FS Sonne” and “FS Maria S. Merian” (ice class E3 up to 0.8 meters of ice thickness) in “calm waters” off Spitsbergen and exchange the entire personnel and to resupply.
However, the current drift calculator shows the Polarstern will unlikely reach Spitsbergen on schedule.
The Polarstern had been planned to reach the North Pole, but never reached it.
Read more at No Tricks Zone
“Polarstern” should translate to “cold butt”, because that’s what they have now.
Hey Al Gore look its a ship trapped in the ice Free Arctic now is’nt this so funny yes Gore there was suppost to be NO MORE ICE and oh by the way Glacier National park called to tell you they have removed the signs telling visitors that the area would be Ice Free Sorrt Al but that’s they way it gose
But…but…but…I thought the Arctic was going to be ice free 20, no 10, no 5 years ago? They like to show the calving of the ice into the ocean…so dramatic, yet so routine every year in the spring/summer.