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A28 SCIENCE
Friday 5 July 2019

Arctic mission will trap scientists in ice to study climate

By FRANK JORDANS cause the space station is
Associated Press in an orbit only 400 to 500
BREMERHAVEN, Germany kilometers high,” Rex said.
(AP) — Cranes hoist cargo Once the Polarstern is car-
onto the deck, power tools ried into the depth of the
scream out and workers Arctic night, far off the
bustle through the maze coast of northern Green-
of passageways inside the land, the scientists will be
German icebreaker RV Po- on their own, making any
larstern, preparations for emergency evacuation al-
a yearlong voyage that most impossible.
organizers say is unprec- “We’ll be isolated,” Rex
edented in scale and am- said. “No other ice breaker
bition. can then reach us because
In a couple of months, the the ice will be too thick.”
hulking ship will set out for While the ship has a fully
the Arctic packed with equipped medical station,
supplies and scientific the aim is to avoid any ca-
equipment for a mission to lamity on board, said Vere-
explore the planet’s frigid na Mohaupt, a logistics ex-
far north. The icebreaker pert who has spent months
will be the base for scien- preparing safety measures
tists from 17 nations study- The German Arctic research vessel Polarstern is docked for maintenance in Bremerhaven, for the mission.
ing the impact of climate Germany, Wednesday, July 3, 2019. This includes creating a pe-
change on the Arctic and Associated Press rimeter fence on the ice
how it could affect the rest wouldn’t be possible at National Oceanic and At- around global warming - that will sound a loud alarm
of the world. other times of the year or mospheric Administration, means there’s no time for if a polar bear approach-
“So far we have always by satellite sensing. and NASA. national rivalry, said Rex. es. “We’re going to have
been locked out of that “We can do a lot with ro- By combining measure- “The different geopolitical to experiment and hope it
region and we lack even botics and other things but ments on the ice with data interests don’t play a role in works,” said Mohaupt.
the basic observations of in the end the visual, the collected from satellites, our research community,” The MOSAiC mission, which
the climate processes in manual observation and scientists hope to improve he said. stands for Multidisciplinary
the central Arctic from also the measurement, the increasingly sophisti- The mission’s international drifting Observatory for the
winter,” said Markus Rex of that’s still what we need,” cated computer models collaboration and scope Study of Arctic Climate,
Germany’s Alfred Wegener Marcel Nicolaus, a Ger- they use to predict weath- have drawn compari- comes about 125 years
Institute, who will lead the man sea ice physicist who er and climate. sons with the International after Norwegian explorer
140-million euro ($158 mil- will be part of the interna- The interdisciplinary work Space Station, the most Fridtjof Nansen first man-
lion) expedition. tional mission, said. “We spans several fields of sci- expensive and remote out- aged to seal his wooden
“We are going to change need to go out, establish ence, including physics, post mankind has yet cre- expedition ship, Fram, into
that for the first time,” Rex that ice camp.” chemistry and biology. ated. the ice during a three-year
told The Associated Press Dozens of scientists from the Its overarching purpose - “Actually, we’ll be farther expedition to the North
in an interview Wednesday United States, China, Russia to answer key questions away from civilization be- Pole.q
aboard the Polarstern at its and other countries will be
dock in Bremerhaven, Ger- on board the Polarstern at
many. any one time, rotating ev- New study suggests seaweed influx will
Scientists plan to sail the ery two months as other
ship into the Arctic Ocean, icebreakers bring fresh sup- continue in Florida
anchor it to a large piece plies and a new batch of
of sea ice and allow the eager researchers.
water to freeze around The mission is considered a MIAMI (AP) — The clumps of brown seaweed that smell like rotten eggs and are causing
them, effectively trapping once-in-a-lifetime oppor- disruptions along Florida’s Atlantic beaches won’t be going away anytime soon, a new
themselves in the vast sheet tunity for many scientists, study released Thursday has found.
of white that forms over the even those who are veter- The University of South Florida report suggests the pungent, slimy seaweed, known as
North Pole each winter. ans of multiple Arctic expe- sargassum, is on track to continue to be just as bad for coastal regions as in the past.
As temperatures drop and ditions. The university’s team, which includes Mengqiu Wang, discovered in satellite images that
the days get shorter, they’ll It is receiving substantial areas of this type of seaweed stretched across surface waters from West Africa to the
race against time to build funding from U.S. institu- Gulf of Mexico. They estimated that it weighed more than 20 million tons.
temporary winter research tions such as the National “The oceans are connected across the regions and we are going to see more sargas-
camps on the ice, allowing Science Foundation, the sum coming to the Florida coast,” Wang said. “It is not fatal, it is not poisoning tides; it is
them to perform tests that Department of Energy, the more of a public nuisance and can cause some public health concerns.”
The study says sargassum, which turns clear sea water brown, has been an issue since
2011. Apart from 2013, each year the seaweed returned in larger quantities on beaches
throughout the Caribbean and Mexico. Some places, such as Miami Beach, have had
so much sargassum at times that swimmers are blocked from entering the water.
The thick seaweed also releases hydrogen sulfide gas that smells like rotten eggs, which
can cause problems for those with respiratory issues.
Donald Johnson, a senior research scientist on ocean circulation at the University of
Southern Mississippi, said satellite usage is one of the only ways to capture the enormous
scale of sargassum.
Wang said that climate change also played a role. Rising seawaters and an increase in
nutrients from river sources, such as the Amazon River, make its way to the sea, causing
the sargassum to increase in growth.q