The MOSAiC Project is the largest polar expedition in his-tory. In September 2019, the German research icebreaker POLARSTERN has set sail from Tromsø, Norway, to spend a year drifting through the Arctic Ocean – trapped in ice. The goal of the MOSAiC expedition is to take the closest look ever at the Arctic as the epicenter of global warming and to gain fundamental insights that are key to better under-stand global climate change.
After successfully completing the first half of its more-than-a-year-long drift the international expedition sud-denly faced unforeseen challenges, posed by the coro-navirus pandemic. The massive restrictions on global travel hindered the third team exchange, which had been planned as an aerial transfer in early April, using the Spitsbergen archipelago as a base of operations. The international icebreakers that were originally meant to resupply the expedition were prohibited from making any staff transfers. That is why – in the span of just a few weeks – the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Cen-tre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the MOSAiC
Coordination Office and the funding bodies and opera-tors of the German Research Fleet Coordination Centre at Hamburg University developed a completely new al-ternative plan to solve the situation.
In May 2020 more than 100 members of staff and scien-tists were transported to R/V POLARSTERN waiting in Spits-bergen with the help of the research vessels R/V SONNE and R/V MARIA S. MERIAN. Before this unique operation started all participants – crew and scientists – had to pass a long quarantine period in hotels in Bremerhaven. This pe-riod included 7 days in a single cabin without being allowed to leave it, another additional 9 days in the hotel without permission to leave as well as three Covid-19 tests for each participant. A second crew meanwhile brought the vessels from Emden to Bremerhaven and handed over the vessels to the tested persons. Only after this strict preparation period the operation was able to start. Briese Research is happy being able to support that special science project during these special times.