Scientists to join Arctic research ship ’drifting’ past North Pole

UCL scientists are taking part in what could be the largest-scale Arctic research expedition ever planned when the German research ship, RV Polarstern , is deliberately lodged into sea ice to drift past the North Pole. Professor Julienne Stroeve who is leading this project and Dr Michel Tsamados (both UCL Earth Sciences) will join five other UK researchers on the 120m-long ice-breaker as it moves with the current in the ice across the central Arctic Ocean from September 2019 to September 2020. They will be on board for two months, working alongside up to 600 international scientists and crew from 17 countries as part of this major international effort to better understand the fastest changing environment on the planet. From the ship, Professor Stroeve and Dr Michel Tsamados will investigate the depth and density of the layer of snow which covers arctic sea ice to see if the radar technology used by satellites, such as the European Space Agency (ESA)'s CryoSat-2, is accurately measuring sea ice thickness from space. Understanding how far the radar actually penetrates into the overlying snow cover will improve data on sea ice thickness and density, which currently relies on information collected in the 1980s. Since then, the total area in the sea ice cover has declined and there is now a larger proportion of first-year sea ice in the Arctic Basin. Newer ice contains more salt than ice compacted over many years and may affect the radar signal returned to the satellite.