By Tom Metcalfe – Live Science Contributor 3 days ago Planet Earth
It’s studying the interactions between the Arctic and the global climate.
The RV Polarstern will soon set sail and deliberately trap itself in Arctic sea ice. Hundreds of scientists from 17 countries will study the ice, oceans, and atmosphere during the expedition across the Arctic Ocean.
(Image credit: Stefan Hendricks/Alfred Wegener Institute)
The German icebreaker RV Polarstern will spend about a year adrift in the Arctic Ocean, surrounded by thick floating sea ice.
The Polarstern is the most advanced research icebreaker in the world, and the expedition leaders calculate it will be unharmed by being stuck in the Arctic sea ice.
(Image credit: Mario Hoppmann/Alfred Wegener Institute)
One of the world’s most indestructible ships will depart Norway in a few weeks, bound for the Arctic Ocean, where it will spend the winter deliberately trapped in sea ice, drifting wherever the winds take it.
The powerful icebreaker, called the RV Polarstern, has an ambitious goal: to determine how climate change is reshaping the Arctic. The 13-month-long, $130 million expedition, called Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAIC), has been planned for years and will require more than 600 scientists and technical staff.
The ship sets sail Sept. 20 from Tromsø, in northern Norway, and it will head eastward along the coast of Russia. Expedition leader Markus Rex, of the Alfred-Wegener Institute (which operates the Polarstern), said the ship will likely enter floating sea ice in mid-October, and then will drift across the Arctic, surrounded by ice, until next summer, before returning to its home port in Bremerhaven, Germany, in the fall.
Getting stuck in floating sea ice would spell the end for most ships, but Rex said the Polarstern is tough enough to handle it.
Related: Images of Melt: Earth’s Vanishing Ice
“Our ship is one of the most powerful and most capable research icebreakers that exist,” Rex told Live Science.”There could be huge pressure from the ice … but we know the strength of our vessel. We are not in danger of losing our ship.”
HT/Yooper
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I saw nothing on who decided to underwrite the $130M cost of the expedition. Did I miss something? I do see that 17 countries are “sponsoring” the expedition. But, to what degree? And, to what end value equation?
Ever since Arctic ice loss levelled off almost a month ago
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
the sea ice pages have been frozen here at WUWT at around August 12:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
LOL !
If the risk was accepted what is the Lloyds of London insurance premium on this?. No sane underwriter would accept the risk. I hazard a guess that this voyage is uninsured.
And if it sinks won’t that pollute the Arctic Ocean?
This trip by the Polarstern is just another publicity stunt disguised as ‘science’. I look forward to it being crushed by a savage ice build up over winter and seeing the crew being forced to walk home over the ice.
They will soon find out if their modelling to do with the strength of the ship is correct. I suspect the sustained cold could make the steel hull brittle. The predictions would then be as accurate as the climate predictions based on the models- totally and catastrophically inaccurate.
The vessel, as is to be expected from an icebreaker, is built to ‘Ice Class’ and incorporates very ductile steels in its hull, precisely because of the recognised phenomenon of low-temperature embrittlement.
NO practical navigable vessel can be built to withstand the crushing pressure of accumulated pack ice, but the crew would be perfectly aware of this and break up the ice around the vessel as required. This is standard practice.
Barring misadventure, it is highly likely that this expedition is well-planned, adequately resourced and will last the distance. The ultimate usefulness of the research is another matter.
Before you can determine how something has changed, don’t you have to first determine what conditions were like before?
“leaders calculate it will be unharmed by being stuck in the Arctic sea ice.”
I’m predicting another very cold winter this year in Canada like we have had the last two years. Hey we’ve had a cool summer and now the coldest early September in years is upon us. At a cottage eastern Ontario in early August it was dipping down 10-12C (10C is 50F) for the week. The Fram took along a load of timbers to brace the hull. I would take some steel beams along. These guys don’t use error bars in their calculations!
To see how the climate is changing is easy
take a boat with . . . .
lots of warm people on board
lots of hot meals every day
lots of hot water every day
lots of space heating every day
lots of electrical power every day
I guess they even have an ice cube maker in the galley
My uneducated guess is the micro climate of the air and the water around the ship will be warmer than before,the cry of `the arctic is warming` should be followed by `and our boat did most of it !
they should be prosecuted for intentional damage to such an apparently incredibly delicate ecosystem hovering on the edge of a tipping point or two.
But but, Do they have enough bananas and peanut butter?
Or a blender that survives 650,000 banana and peanut butter blendings.
Bet they throw their trash overboard, including empty Jiff peanut butter jars.
There is also the sewage disposal to consider. Arctic pollution is a bad thing, yes?
Having lived in Germany, I guarantee they don’t.
The top-most photo is very hard-rock, IMO. Maybe they’ll get a few more like that to make the trip worthwhile. 😉
Sounds like fun.
They must have lost out on that grant, the one that funded the study to determine how bikini coverage has evolved since climate change started.
It is very possible for all of them to burn through that much money, time and effort and produce nothing but useless conjecture.
“A massive icebreaker will trap itself deliberately in Arctic ice. Here’s why”- To determine how Climate Change is reshaping the Arctic. Brilliant!
Of course they cannot do this with satellite imagery, they need to deliberately get a multi million dollar icebreaker stuck in the sea ice along with millions of other dollars to do this.
Perhaps the only thing they will determine is whether their ship will survive the sea ice.
Apparently icebreakers remain safe by breaking up the ice around them and not getting stuck. Ice is weak in shear strength but enormously strong in compression. Let’s see who wins this battle
The real reason is ‘the ship’ can have social media team on board and internet connections.
Satellites cant have the immediacy and social connection that apparently is required these days for serious science
Why waste $130 million? (Sept 4, 2019)
https://maritimebulletin.net/2019/09/04/ship-with-climate-change-warriors-caught-in-ice-warriors-evacuated/?fbclid=IwAR2z5g4BvRupA1twRE5rnlZV9aKq80btokh9XkZfNg50ySRcHxP97kKAYfs
FWIW: As I remember from my marine architecture course from many, many years ago, icebreaker hulls are, or were, designed to ride up over the ice if they were stuck in pack ice. That’s why they have the rounded hulls. So, how does that work if the water intakes are now above water, Hmmm….
I recall that one of the ships frozen in, had a specially built rounded bottom,
so as the ice thickened it “”Rode “” up and was quite safe. No pressure
on the hull.
MJE VK5ELL
Don’t they teach scientists about hubris anymore?
Can we vote for the 600 who get to spend all year on a metal boat stuck in ice?
A friend once described showering on a boat in winter as burning hot water hitting your head, while standing in ice water.
Based upon their description and planned length of stay, it does sound like they plan to be within easy flight distance of Norway so that they can receive plentiful shipments of morale boosting vodka and Aquavit.
And to send AGW scientists bordering psychotic back to Norway for months of spa treatments. Not that it will change their psychoses.
600 people makes that “massive” icebreaker a very very small ship and would turn nasty in a short time. Infections in confined areas, food poisoning etc etc. Food, water, cleaning and the waste of 600 people, how is that going to be managed? Daily air lifts? How will a tiny ship handle billions of tonnes of moving ice?
Crazy!
“Our ship is one of the most powerful and most capable research icebreakers that exist,” Rex told Live Science.”There could be huge pressure from the ice … but we know the strength of our vessel. We are not in danger of losing our ship.”
We’ll see.
Something say, submarine designers, have never dealt with before, right?
Have you checked out the design differences of a surface vessel and submarine?
Submarines face static pressure evenly around the hull and they can and are tested to a safe depth. Crush depth is greater. This vessel?
Artic pack ice is nothing like that as it’s largely wind driven. Think of the difference between the differences on waves on a beach and a tsunami.
My point exactly. Two different vessels for two different applications.
If you are on a ship that weighs say 100,000 tonnes and trapped in a mass of ice that weighs millions and blown in random directions by the wind, what do you think will survive? We do have actual historical records of ships being lost to ice.
I say before that happens there will be icebreakers available to break it free, so, they won’t lose the ship not because of the ship but because it will be broken free.
Ships survived before, stranded in ice. And without epidemies neither famine.
https://www.mosaic-expedition.org/
“The heritage for MOSAiC is Fridtjof Nansen’s famous Fram expedition during 1893-1896, which demonstrated the feasibility of letting a research vessel drift across the polar cap, driven by the natural drift of the sea ice. While Nansen has demonstrated the basic concept of such an expedition, the scientific measurements at that time were extremely limited.
The backbone of MOSAiC will be the year round operation of RV Polarstern, drifting with the sea ice across the central Arctic during the years 2019 to 2020. During the set-up phase RV Polarstern will enter the Siberian sector of the Arctic in thin sea ice conditions in late summer. A distributed regional network of observational sites will be set up on the sea ice in an area of up to ~50km distance from RV Polarstern. The ship and the surrounding network will drift with the natural ice drift across the polar cap towards the Atlantic, while the sea ice thickens during winter (red dotted line in Figure 3).
Large scale research facilities addressing key aspects of the coupled Arctic climate system will be set up on board of RV Polarstern and on the sea ice next to it. The distributed regional network further around the central observatory will be comprised of autonomous and remotely-operated sensors, characterizing the heterogeneity of key processes in an area representing a typical grid box of modern climate models and providing invaluable data for the development of parametrizations for sub-grid-scale processes in climate models. The German research aircrafts Polar 5 and Polar 6, as well as the HALO research aircraft, will be operated to complement the measurements at the central MOSAiC site. Research and supply cruises by icebreakers from MOSAiC partners will further extend the geographical coverage of the observations and will link the measurements to the larger scales of the Arctic climate system and explore global feedbacks.
I love the Negativity here!!!, sounds like an old folks home!
While a group of brave, and yes maybe stupid, folks trap themselves in the ice to collect new data
old and dying skeptics sit in their chairs and hope for a failure.
These old guys have all the data they need to decide the arctic question. Heck they saw a photo
of a submarine surfacing at the north pole. All the data you need!
These old guys have no curiousity for how the arctic works… its all natural, nothing to see, move on.
It’s all happened before, nothing new under the sun, move on. It moves in cycles, nothing to
understand. what goes up, must come down… blah blah blah
These old dying guys have their own version of “settled science” it’s called No.
No more data needed, We will never understand everything.! why try?
These are the same old dying skeptics that criticized climate scientists for NOT doing feild research.
These old dying skeptics dont need new data because their minds are made up.
These old dying skeptics never think about educating the young. They hope some young people
will carry on their fight against bad climate science? with what tools? old charts and graphs!
Anyway, years from now, when the Greta’s of the world grow up, maybe they will visit you in your
old folks home.
They will tell you everything they learned
https://www.mosaic-expedition.org/education.html
For once I am mostly in agreement. A recurring theme is that today’s science relies too much on modelling, yet when somebody decides to go out there and get data they’re branded fools on publicity stunt.
I have little doubt that this campaign will produce a lot of social media fluff together with the science, and there’s reasonable doubt that the conclusions are in part preordained.
Still, I hope for a successful mission and useful data.
Thanks.
I Used to come to WUWT because of a broad spectrum of opinion..
all tested in the rough and tumble of online debate.
very few readers even dug into the back ground material before spouting off
Every time I look at the arctic I think, there has to be a way to get more data..
even if it means risking a few laughs,, or worse a few lives
Or possibly an entire research vessel. They will travel up mostly through first year ice (unless that is too thick) and then purposely strand themselves in the ice for a year. This will almost guarantee that when they try to leave, that will be attempting to depart from multiyear ice instead. I wonder if they have a Russian Nuclear Ice Breaker lined up to plow them out of the ice when their term is over
Fine. But do it without starting out from the assumption that carbon done it.
Mosher: “Anyway, years from now, when the Greta’s of the world grow up, maybe they will visit you in your old folks home.”
There you’re wrong. If the Gretas of the world have their way, old skeptics will be in internment camps. Toghether with whoever is not pure enough in their environmental doomsday religion.
Internment camps? Only if they don’t decide to reduce the population by eliminating the oldies as useless carbon producers.
Some of us are younger than you Steve.
I’ll make a point of visiting your grave.
If the sun-scorched sand-blasted climate permits it of course.
Climate Youth brown-shirt science says we’re all going to die, it’s official, even insects extinct in 100 years. (Yea-Right)
And we’re supposed to be the gloomy negative ones?
Well you’re staying true to post-modern logic at least.
The point is simple Phil.
1. There is a long history of skeptics complaining that scientists dont do field work.
2. Here you have some guys, following in the footsteps of nansen to do feild work.
3. Folks here are basically negative about the idea, or any new data as far as that goes.
4. These guys WILL educate the young, they will rule the future.
IF you want to combat the coming policies you better get to work on some better science.
**2. Here you have some guys, following in the footsteps of nansen to do feild work.**
We hope they are doing field work.
However, some of the result has already been stated when they said they are going to study climate change:
{{{The powerful icebreaker, called the RV Polarstern, has an ambitious goal: to determine how climate change is reshaping the Arctic.}}}
So they already have decided that climate change is reshaping the Arctic. How do they know the changes are not normal Arctic cycles.
Yes, and I find your comments funny too.
All they will do is try to put a rubber stamp on their ready made conclusions.
Just like David Barber said a few years ago “the ice is rotten” Well the rotten ice is still there are causing even ice breakers to turn back.
And you wonder why we are pessimistic.
Check the mirror.
**1. There is a long history of skeptics complaining that scientists dont do field work.**
And they are CORRECT!
**3. Folks here are basically negative about the idea, or any new data as far as that goes.**
NO, folks are not negative about new DATA, just new climate change excuses for any event under the sun.
**4. These guys WILL educate the young, they will rule the future.**
If you are speaking about the voyage, then I am pessimistic. They may MISeducate the young, if all they come back with are assumptions.
Look how miss greta has been miseducated and brain washed.
The future is grim.
Live long and prosper Steve!
science focus. not for anti science types
https://youtu.be/fTr-ANTj1i0?t=346
Nope, Warmist pseudoscience. Great for greenie koolade types.
If there are any women on that ship, there will be a lot of competition for their services. 🙂
Whilst I wish absolutely no harm to the foolhardy “scientists” embarking on the epic waste of time and money (not to mention the likely loss of the vessel) I look forward to the distress calls as the hull is split and crushed.
I will have to update my song with the new circumstances…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B84O9k1ZX4g
An astonishing display of ignorance and spite in the comments above.
You’d almost think people didn’t want science done on the state of the ice…
…which is at third lowest in extent and area for the satellite record, maybe could still see second lowest, with weeks before the annual minimum. The ice is fractured, there is less thick and old multi year ice than ever, the volume is at second lowest for the record.
The record low years are now going to be 2012, 2016, 2019… no sign of a recovery there, is there?
The ice has already recovered Ms Griff. There is more ice now than the average of the past 9000 years. Imagine how many lives could be saved with 130 million dollars! Instead, it will simply line the pockets of selfish ice obsessed people who do not care for poor brown people.
What were your predictions, along with Tony McCleod, about ice in 2017/2018? I do recall Mr. McCleod lost his bet.
**…which is at third lowest in extent and area for the satellite record, maybe could still see second lowest, with weeks before the annual minimum. The ice is fractured, there is less thick and old multi year ice than ever, the volume is at second lowest for the record.**
Total lies, The satellite record as shown in the 1990 IPCC report was lower but you are going along with the lie started after that when they cut off the satellite records before 1979.
Your reference to less thick and multi year ice is also a lie.
No, no. In a way, he is correct, sea ice this year was lower than previously recorded for many days this spring and summer.
But, from mid-August through the next year in mid-April, more heat is lost from the newly exposed Arctic Ocean over the winter than is gained in the short four months from mid-April to mid-August when the Arctic sun is shining. For twelve years now, 2007-2019, 1/3 of the entire satellite record since 1979, the September minimum sea ice levels have NOT DECREASED at all!
Fortunately, there are those of us who haven’t drunk the koolade who can see the difference between true science, and the climate hysteria-based, agenda-driven pseudoscience which is the mainstay of this “expedition”. For True Believers and those being funded by the Climatist Industry, we are just “old”, which is just one of many of their uses of irrational Ad Hominem arguments, among a slew of other illogical arguments. Believers and Climatists are truly a sad and pathetic lot.