Locked into ice: My scientific journey across the Arctic

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What does it feel like to be locked in ice, drifting across the Central Arctic Ocean in the middle of the polar night? Why is it both fascinating and challenging to do scientific research from a frozen icebreaker? How do you build an ice camp on a moving Arctic floe? What mysteries does the Central Arctic Ocean hold, and in what way are Arctic researchers helping to solve them?

Dr Markus Frey, on the MOSAiC expedition in the Arctic in 2020. Credit: Markus Frey

 Join the British Embassy Moscow and UK Science and Innovation Network in Russia (SIN Russia) for a live-link with Dr Markus Frey from British Antarctic Survey who has just returned from the MOSAiC expedition, the largest year-round multinational expedition in the Central Arctic Ocean. Get an insider view into the life and work of an Arctic researcher! The live-link is part of the ‘Different Ever After’ Digital Festival organised by British Embassy Moscow. (Link to the Russian-language Festival website is here: https://dea.theoryandpractice.ru/)

UK in the Arctic 

The Multi-Disciplinary drifting Observatory for the study of Arctic Climate programme (MOSAiC) is the first year-round expedition to study the Arctic climate system from within the central Arctic Ocean. Led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, in close cooperation with the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in Russia, 7 UK research teams have joined the international effort to understand climate change in the Arctic, and how it might affect us all.  

With funding from Natural Environment Research Council and Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, UK projects range from looking at the role of sea ice microbiology in the sulphur cycle (MOSAiC – SIMbRICS) to observing Arctic sea ice breakup and floe size (MOSAiCFSD) and are supported by the NERC Arctic Office. Dr Markus Frey is Principal Investigator for the MOSAIC – SSAASI-CLIM project, which investigates the interaction between sea ice and atmospheric particles with a purposebuilt container laboratory on board the MOSAiC expedition ship RV Polarstern 

Dr Markus Frey 

Atmospheric and ice chemist Dr Markus Frey joined British Antarctic Survey in 2008. Dr Frey investigates snow-ice-atmosphere interactions, enabling an understanding of air quality above snow covered surfaces, reconstruction of past climate and improved predictions for how the polar regions will respond to future climate change.  

Dr Frey is a seasoned field scientist, having led 15 field projects in Antarctica, the Arctic and the Bolivian Andes to carry out atmospheric measurements and collect snow and ice samples. His most recent expedition took place this year from January – June 2020, where Dr Frey joined the international MOSAiC team on board RV Polarstern in the central Arctic Ocean to operate the SSAASI-CLIM laboratory during a field season disrupted by COVID-19. 

In his international research career, Dr Frey obtained an MSc in Hydrology from the University of Freiburg, Germany (1999) followed by a PhD in Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences from University of Arizona, USA (2005) and worked in a French polar research laboratory of the National Centre for Scientific Research (2006-08) prior to joining British Antarctic Survey.  

How to join

Join the event live online, 23 October 2020, 17:00-18:00 UK time at the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85010418004?pwd=T3NZNStCL0doNlRKcU5vdjU3dzNCQT09 

Hosted in collaboration with British Antarctic Survey and NERC Arctic Office.