MOSAiC Blog: Last preparations in Tromsø

18 September, 2019

The BAS SSAASI-CLIM team arrived in Tromsø a few days ago to set up equipment onboard of RV Polarstern. On Friday 20 Sep 2019 the German ice breaker will embark on the largest scientific polar expedition of our time to the remote Central Arctic Ocean for an entire year: MOSAiC – The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate. Research scientist Amélie Kirchgaessner, engineer Jonathan Witherstone & project PI Markus Frey are keeping very busy to set up the new BAS container lab on the ship, which has been newly built and deployed for the first time to measure small atmospheric particles and their chemical composition above sea ice.

Markus Frey opens the new BAS atmospheric container lab on board RV Polarstern lab after its journey of more than 3200 km from Cambridge to Tromsø, North of the Arctic Circle: what a relief, the instruments are still intact & nothing has moved during transit!!!

Jonathan Witherstone connecting power to the new BAS Lab Container on board RV Polarstern in Tromsø.
RV Polarstern in port of Tromsø in the far North of Norway. More than 200 scientists work on and around the ship to set up their equipment and labs for an entire year frozen into the Arctic pack ice.
Jonathan working hard to set up a delicate and expensive instrument to measure cloud droplets on the Crows Nest of RV Polarstern.