Sea ice and snow cover experts support global climate study
Dartmouth College
HANOVER, N.H. – September 20, 2019 – Dartmouth experts on Arctic sea ice and snow cover are taking part in what is billed as the “largest polar expedition in history.” The year-long, multinational Arctic expedition began today when a German icebreaker, the Polarstern, set sail from Tromsø, Norway.
Beyond simply cruising across the Arctic over the next year, the Polarstern will intentionally lock itself into the Arctic ice. Once frozen into the ice, the icebreaker will drift with the floe as it tracks across the ocean to study the health of the high Arctic.
The “Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate” (MOSAiC) expedition marks the first time a modern research icebreaker will be set to drift in the Arctic for an entire year. The path of the drift is expected to allow scientists to comprehensively investigate the region, including by observing the Arctic winter in the vicinity of the North Pole.
“The threats posed to the planet from global climate change are real and they are coming on fast,” said Donald Perovich, a professor at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and the expedition’s co-lead for sea ice research. “Hopefully, this study will be historic not only for its scale, but for its ability to allow us to understand the causes and consequences of changes in the Arctic.”
Focused planning for the MOSAiC expedition began about a decade ago. Climate processes in the central Arctic that will be studied in the research form a missing piece in the puzzle that is needed to better understand global climate change.
“After over ten years of planning, this research mission could not come at a more important time. The impacts of climate change are amplified in the Arctic, so this could be our best shot to explore the region while there is still time to assess and respond to change,” said Perovich, a member of the expedition’s project board.
MOSAiC is led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). According to the organizer, the expedition’s rotating crews of researchers and support teams will gather data on the Arctic atmosphere, sea ice, ocean, ecosystems and biogeochemistry “in order to gain insights into the interactions that shape the Arctic climate and life in the Arctic Ocean.”
During the year-long expedition, nearly 300 researchers from 17 countries will rotate aboard the Polarstern. The project will deploy an international fleet of four icebreakers as well as helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to support the research. In total, the expedition will include 600 international participants and cost about $155 million.
“The uncertainties in our climate models are nowhere bigger than in the Arctic,” said Markus Rex, head of MOSAiC and an atmospheric physics expert from the Alfred Wegener Institute. “There aren’t any reliable prognoses of how the Arctic climate will develop further or what that will mean for our weather. Our mission is to change that.”
Dartmouth researchers participating in MOSAiC include Perovich, Thayer graduate students Ian Raphael and David Clemens-Sewall, as well as Christopher Polashenski, an adjunct assistant professor at Thayer and a research geophysicist at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL).
“Due to logistical and scientific constraints there is much we don’t know about processes in the Arctic,” said Clemens-Sewall. “The multidisciplinary approach and superior logistical support will enable us to learn more about the Arctic and help us predict future climate change.”
Perovich, Clemens-Sewall and Polashenski will sail on later legs of the expedition. Raphael will join the Polarstern for a second time in August 2020 for the expedition’s final leg.
“MOSAiC is so critical because the sheer volume of data that we will collect simply isn’t feasible any other way,” said Raphael, who will research ice growth and the melting of sea ice. “We already know that the climate is rapidly changing, and we have enough data to understand why. We desperately need structural change, and that starts with evidence that can’t be ignored.”
###
In addition to the Dartmouth team, countries represented in the expedition include Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The ship-based teams will be supported on land by researchers from Austria and South Korea.
For more information on the MOSAiC Arctic expedition: https://www.mosaic-expedition.org/
The MOSAiC web app tracks the Polarstern’s drift route live: follow.mosaic-expedition.org
Follow MOSAiC and the Dartmouth researchers on social media:
Twitter: @MOSAiCArctic (#MOSAiCexpedition #Arctic #icedrift)
Instagram: @mosaic_expedition (#MOSAiCexpedition)
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I’m just going out, I may be some time.
Farewell, Captain.
Don’t worry, this story will be repeated every 16 days.
Nothing like adding some sensationalism to try to spice up a totally unnecessary “expedition”.
And iffen one includes the salaries and entitlements of those 600 international participants the total cost of that charade will be about $250 million.
If you couple ……. totally unnecessary “expedition” with totally unnecessary “expenditure” ….. you get what government entities do best, …… frivolously spend taxpayer monies.
A quote attributed to Captain Lawrence Edward Grace “Titus” Oates in Scott’s diary.
Captain Oates died during the Terra Nova Expedition to the Antarctic (1910-1913).
Oates was afflicted with gangrene and frostbite and walked out of his tent into a blizzard.
His death was an act of self sacrifice as his ill health was seen as compromising his companions’ chances of survival.
Instead he chose certain death.
Sly but amusing historical analogy, Jones.
We all knew that Herbert.
At $425,000 a day, this is huge operation predicated on detecting climate change. I bet they come up with some really harebrained conclusions. 300 rotating researchers and 600 participants. There’s going to be a daily shuttle service, which makes a joke out of being in a remote place. Why such a huge entourage and so many scientists? It sounds more like a PR event for anybody who goes to the ship and spends a day “frozen the Arctic ice.” Everybody wants that “badge of courage.”
Who would have thought that the science was settled years ago? It’s all about money.
They haven’t quite reached critical OPM yet. Once they reach critical OPM, the reaction is self perpetuating however, the reaction is eventually controlled through “resistance” so as not to lead to a runaway “effect” where the source of OPM becomes depleted and the masses become revolting. In such a case, those who sucked on OPM loose their heads.
I am pretty sure this has not happened before.
They will all write papers citing each other and the consensus will be increased.
and that ship and the in/outgoing others planes etc are all throwing heat into the area not normally there… making it rather farcical
I reckon the money could be far better spent
Just the heat released from the cooling water of the ship’s generators and engines will be enough to perturb the local environment. On the other hand it might be a good place to study the UHI generated by the ship in an otherwise pristine environment. :<)
There wouldn’t be any “carbon footprint” would there?
Carbon footprints are offset by smiley faces on the daily tracker chart.
“We desperately need structural change, and that starts with evidence that can’t be ignored.”
Snort! What?
These clowns can’t even speak English, let alone do science.
Yeah, maybe they could start by refusing aid from fossil fuel powered helicopters, planes, icebrakers, etc. and stay the whole year without rotation of staff on the ship since the weather there is so pleasant.
And rely on their own emissions greenhouse effect for heating.
So they are not going out to do objective scientific observations, they know we “need structural change ” ( to society ? ) and they are going out to get the evidence to ensure that this “can’t be ignored”.
Anything countering the predetermined narrative will be filed under “evidence that CAN be ignored.”
deluge of rotten ice reports in 3 … 2….1
Aye, Greg, Scissor and Bruce!
“there is much we don’t know”</b?,
“enable us to learn more about the Arctic”,
“help us predict future climate change.”..
Obviously, they do not intend to conduct science.
They’ll stay on the ship, mouth exclamatory nonsense for every unprecedented datum collected; then send press releases to compliant news services regarding how Earth is doomed.
“After over ten years of planning, this research mission” Sounds like they spent ten years prewriting climate alarums and dooms.
Dartmouth plans to waste a great deal of college and Federal funds.
They waited 10 years for the Arctic to be ice free in summer. They’ve finally realised that they better get out there, let the boat get stuck, and hope the ice carries them to the North Pole, before the Climate Scam falls on its face.
Because soon people won’t be willing to blow Millions of dollars on this kind of
Arctic CruiseScience Expedition.~¿~
More like “evidence that needs to corrected”.
Gawd, I thought the same thing…I’m like, what?
Bruce, can you speak Swedish? Science is some sort of English language exclusive?
Try to focus on arguments…
Being intelligent and talented gets in the way of a career in climastrology.
Excellent observation.
(…) allow scientists to comprehensively investigate the Arctic winter in the vicinity of the North Pole,
Armed with the forgone mandate and conclusion about “(…) threats posed to the planet from global climate change” (…) to “understand the causes and consequences of changes in the Arctic” (…) to “form a missing piece in the puzzle that is needed to better understand global climate change (…) while there is still time to assess and respond to change”
https://www.awi.de/en/search.html?q=anthropogen&id=14&L=1
155 results in 4 milliseconds.
https://www.awi.de/fileadmin/user_upload/AWI/Ueber_uns/Organisation/Leitung/Dateien/AWI_Annual_Report_2017_EN.pdf
1000+ employees with a budget og €145-180 million. No match on source of funding.
Feel free to look up scientific staff, board members and such to track their belief systems and political affiliations.
Märkel in Germany and Europe is in dire need of more propaganda to force-feed its population before it all collapses.
Oddgeir
” “We already know that the climate is rapidly changing, and we have enough data to understand why. We desperately need structural change, and that starts with evidence that can’t be ignored.”
Code for … we will make sure that our data supports the CAGW agenda to assist in the push for “structural change” …. ie., policy etc of the green agenda … that can’t be ignored. AND since no deniers or real scientists will be aboard, we will be free to “create” all the data we need for this purpose.
What a crock.
If these guys want my respect, I would advise them to make sure there are scientists on board with an alternative agenda …. ya know, the guys who admit “we don’t know why”, and who suspect a different cause ….. then compare notes.
I doubt that they will find any ’causes’ in the artic…
They could look for the cause of the melting which was far faster than climate models predicted. They could look for the reason that this years sea ice minimum is indistinguishable for 2007, despite ever growing emissions and atmospheric CO2.
They could discover the heat lost from open water by evaporation LWIR emissions 24/7 which have countered the naive assumption of more sun getting absorbed by open water leading to run away melting as was expected but failed to happen since 2007.
They could look at pCO2 in open water and under the ice to discover why the Arctic has the largest CO2 annual swing of anywhere on the planet.
But I doubt they will.
If they had historical observations, er… Let me rephrase:If they had historical observations they trusted; they could measure modern humidity levels.
Thus testing the question whether El Ninos pump extra water vapor into the atmosphere, reaching even the Arctic and Antarctic.
Providing another possibility that other atmospheric components could be masking the effects of CO₂.
Though, exactly how a ship icebound and at the mercy of Arctic Ocean Currents, can collect measurements and samples as they drift with the pack.
Not that the ship’s passengers are currently showing greater intelligence than the pack ice.
Basically, they are collecting the same information that an ocean buoy collects.
Hopefully, they know enough not to treat frozen sea ice as a play ground.
Maybe they’ll find out that the Arctic isn’t ice free like Al said it should be?
That’s the Big One from Big Al. We ignored him and look what happened. Ice still there. Had we listened, who knows?
Maybe it will be millions of degrees beneath the ice?
You mean: people with real jobs.
What if there’s no ice?
All using fossil fuels products, diesel to keep warm, plastic overed foods, helicopters flying in food and more diesel, But lets save the planet 😐 why not use the 155 million on energy solutions, new fuel ideas?? If they are so sure the world is ending, why not find ways to save it, rather then spent 155+ million on finding the same conclusion they had years ago?!
During the year-long expedition, nearly 300 researchers from 17 countries will rotate aboard the Polarstern. The project will deploy an international fleet of four icebreakers as well as helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to support the research. In total, the expedition will include 600 international participants and cost about $155 million.
BINGO
Well now, we’re not sure how they plan to rotate the researchers. I’m sure they will be using dogsleds and foot power to move about on the ice floes.
j/k
$155 million dollars !?!
600 international participants
That’s more than a quarter million per international participant!! Is this boondoggle for science or global wealth redistribution? I cringe to think how much funding for MOSAiC is from US taxes.
Oh No!
This is not being funded completely by some billionaire environmental kook like Tom Steyer. One of the big three sponsors of MOSAiC is CIRES which is a NOAA and Colorado University at Boulder partnership.
That means that at least $50 million funding for this probably comes from US and Colorado tax dollars 😢
Intentional Ship of Fools? What’s not to like about this venture? Who has nothing better to do than spend a winter in the high arctic, where the sun does not shine, so to speak, drifting at very slow speed trapped in an ice flow? This is crazy on so many levels.
…and being paid for it…
“The uncertainties in our climate models are nowhere bigger than in the Arctic”
da? how about the entire made up model?
“We already know that the climate is rapidly changing, and we have enough data to understand why. We desperately need structural change, and that starts with evidence that can’t be ignored.”
No, “We” do not know, “We” lie seeking money, power and control.
So they watch ice form and melt for a period of time then announce they have ‘proof’ it is caused by Climate Change? I can only hope those that paid for this understand that their money could have been used to help human kind, not just a select group of rent seekers.
I just listened to the interview on Markus Rex in a big audience channel in my country and he said exactly this:
*****************
“We will be able, for the first time, to observe the main climate processes in the central Arctic over the course of a year, and this observation is the basis for our understanding. We need to understand them to realistically insert them into our climate models. So far, all climate models have somehow tried to guess how these processes work in the center of the Arctic. Now, come on, look at them and get more consistent weather forecasts.”
Markus Rex
*****************
At least, we heard someone that admits that the knowledge is not settled, the Arctic processes are rather unknown, poorly represented in the models and they will try to improve that.
That’s a start…
Kudos to the mission. I’ll be paying attention.
Yes getting data is a good start. I have wondered what the DMI 80degree N Latitude temp chart represents in terms of accuracy. It will get cold where this ship floats. Should be fun December 25.
So they will study it for one whole year and extrapolate that for the next 1000 years….
What kind of crack piping smoke are they inhaling and calling it science?
They have not observed the processes,yet; but they are committed to inserting their understanding of central Arctic’s main climate processes.
At least those they can observe from an icebound ship.
The failure of the climate models are incorrect assumptions, causing the models to run hot. Not because they need to rewrite initiating Arctic weather processes.
Nor is grandstanding, overweening pride and hubris a solid start to this Arctic expedition.
We do not know is a great start.
We are going to learn about what we do not know, is a great start.
We are going to fix climate models with what we do not know is a really bad start.
Looks like Josh gets a lot of inspiration ….. we get a lot of laughs .
😉
Wasn’t the Arctic supposed to be ice-free by now?
“Hopefully, this study will be historic not only for its scale, but for its ability to allow us to understand the causes and consequences of changes in the Arctic.”
It won’t ‘…allow you to understand’ anything.
It may (perhaps) help you to understand;
but for that to happen, you will need an open mind…
Where is evidence for polar amplification theory?
In what ways is climate changing rapidly?
Where is a benefit:cost analysis for that $155 million?
Where the story says crews will rotate, will they also reciprocate in inevitable sex acts?
Nice money if you can get it. All based on unverified models and unproven hypotheses. Geoff S
I don’t recall having heard anything about uncertainties before. It is that Arctic sea ice was melting much faster than models anticipated. That is called getting it WRONG, not having a pre-declared “uncertainty”.
So post-1990 melting was much faster than models predicted and now since the OMG low of 2007 it is still at the same level. You did not get that bit right either did you?
Well if you understand why, why did Arctic sea ice melt much faster than anticipated and why is it now exactly the same as it was 12 years ago despite ever rising emissions.
If you have enough data why the $115 million expenditure ?
Maybe in their time up there they will be able to measure the heat flow in and out of unfrozen ocean, compared it to heat flow through the ice and work out whether open water is a negative or a positive feedback to melting.
I already know the answer to that one by looking at the satellite period. But I guess they’ll need to work things out for themselves.
You nailed it. According to them, they already believe the climate is changing rapidly, so this investment wilm just confirm that.
Yes. I suppose plonking a dirty big drifting Heat Island in the middle of their observations will confirm all their preconceived notions.
Well I’m glad they’re going up there with an open mind, looking to let the data lead them to a conclusion instead of carrying their preconceived notions with them.
In unrelated news, does anyone know the ASCII for an eye roll?
@ur momisugly@
42.
There have been numerous research islands in the arctic for nearly a hundred years which were set on ice floes and drifted with the ice.
https://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre/history/history_drifting.html
Not sure what is different with this latest venture apart from the scale
Tonyb
Tonyb. 155 million… and a year of free food a roof over your head, and a wage at the end of the month. Who wouldn’t want to go…
A wage at the end of the month – and nowhere to spend it!
Too cold for me, though.
Publicity.
Deja vu all over again.
Carl Weyprecht is smiling somewhere.
Does anyone know whether SS Malmo escaped from ice above Svalbard?
I love how most of these studies begin with “experts on this” or “that”. To me it’s become a code word, “I’m an authoritative person of the new global world order” –> nothing more than virtue signaling.
If they were what they claim they are there would be no need to say it.
Lets see: 300 scientists gathering data such as: location, air temperature, atmospheric gas composition, wind velocity, barometric pressure, water temperature, water chemistry, , solar and cosmic radiation levels, magnetic field strength and motion and what-not. Since much of the instrumentation is automated, there will undoubtedly be ample time to learn the finer points of various card games. Not to forget the guys with the guns, tasked with thwarting nosy polar bears in order to save them from themselves.
On the outer barcoo…. I thought all the polar bears were dead?
The Barcoo population is doomed. Functionally Extinct I believe is the term.
Just a year long party at tax payer expense. Probably be lots of drinking and sex. I hope they get trampled by a herd of angry yaks or that a whole lot of hungry polar bears find them. Maybe they will find Santa Claus’ hidden work shop at the North Pole and write it up in their learned journals.
Consider this:
A resupply mission –
In the middle of the winter –
In the middle of the Arctic night –
It is really dark and really cold, and that is not going to change anytime soon.
Your ship really is locked hard into the ice.
You are one helicopter crash away from disaster.
Have a nice trip.
I’m guessing that re-supply will be pretty routine and done by fixed wing aircraft. In my experience, it would take a few missed supply flights before having to worry about disaster. ie. you take the possibility of unforeseen events into account and you sure don’t let your supplies get anywhere near zero.
And the Dominos delivery person gets a huge tip.
You do realise who’s planning this operation? Climate Scientists…. I’d say the chances of a major failure are better than 100%.
I expect the ship’s Captain has final ruling on how the ship is provisioned.
Once they’re stuck in the ice, it’s just a floating hotel.
With several hundred missions over the arctic in the 55 Weather recon squadron I can tell you that the weather over the ice is zero, up to maybe 10,000 feet. We routinely flew anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 and being the Navigator I had to fix the aircraft (no Nav aids) every hour and I used celestial but would have to climb over 10,000 feet to get out of the blinding snow storms. It was very rare we flew when it was sunny with no wind. I know helos don’t do well in that environment. Fixed wing can do supply drops but it is over 50 below and even in artic gear you get cold.
My experience is within the Canadian archipelago. What snow you see is mostly wind driven rather than actual precipitation. We were able to operate our helicopters almost every day, mostly during the spring, when there was sufficient light and before the ice got so thin that supply flights couldn’t land.
Even without blowing snow, an overcast day would create whiteout conditions where you couldn’t tell the ice from the sky. Sometime in the mid 1970s, a Canadian Government leased helicopter plowed into the ice because of that. Fortunately the pilot and crew member survived. I saw the pictures. The Bell Jet Ranger 206 was spread literally over acres.
Around the same time, the Canadian Government issued an edict stating that having to put down on the ice and ‘camp out’ over night is not considered to be an emergency. In other words, if you’re caught in a whiteout, land and stay landed until conditions improve.
“rotating in and out” This may be a great deal more difficult – and risky – that they think. The weather – think visibility – up there can be pretty nasty fro long periods of time. Is there any assurance the ice near the ship will remain flat for a runway? Helicopters have very limited range/payload capabilities especially when carrying human payloads.
Re-supply will almost certainly be by fixed wing aircraft. Most people aren’t aware that the people who operate in the arctic are extremely competent. The folks who aren’t competent are the ‘adventurers’ who think it might be a good idea to ride their motorcycles to the north pole.
You can do this with a buoy. I am pretty sure this was done before with buoy and it also had a webcam attached. What else are they going to investigate? That it is a cold and dark place? What a bunch of clowns. Who pays for this stuff? I hope no goverment money is wasted on this.
My guess is that it’s only government money involved.
The government doesn’t have any money. The government hands out our money.
How much fossil fuel will their trip require? HYPOCRITES!
If they are so worried about the melting of Sea ice, why do they keep sending “Icebreakers” ? D’OH !
They might just be doing this so they can say they got stuck in the ice ON PURPOSE. At least this time…
[Catastrophic Anthropogenic] Climate change, huh. So the crew will return in 30 years and check if the scientists are still viable? Three trimesters to gestate a belief in a hypothetical climate model.