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Faced with a declining summer sea ice extent, enhanced warming relative to the rest of the globe, altered ecosystem dynamics, shifts in circulation and hydrological patterns, amplifying feedbacks, and potential looming tipping points, the Arctic system is in a transitional state that is at the epicenter of global climate change. As the Arctic transforms, we are challenged to understand the processes involved and to construct the tools and models that will help us predict and manage those changes as they continue to evolve in coming decades. It is upon this backdrop of rapid change that the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC 2019–2020) expedition ventured into the central Arctic sea ice (Shupe et al., 2020). It was an expedition to collect sorely needed observations and to examine the changing Arctic in a new way, with an unprecedented level of detail.
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The MOSAiC Expedition: A Year Drifting with the Arctic Sea Ice
The Arctic sea ice has a story to tell. It is a story of change and transformation on daily, seasonal, and decadal scales. It is a story of complex interactions and feedbacks, of processes that link the ice in myriad ways with the Arctic and global systems. It is a story that has been difficult to represent with numerical models. To better understand this story has been one of the primary objectives of the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC). MOSAiC is a scientific odyssey centered on a yearlong expedition into the heart of the Arctic, to explore the story of the changing sea ice, to unravel the interdependent processes involved, and to reveal the implications of this change.
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- PAR ID:
- 10210612
- Editor(s):
- Thoman, R. L.; Richter-Menge, J.; Druckenmiller, M. L.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Arctic report card
- ISSN:
- 2153-5272
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.25923/9g3v-xh92
