Photo Gallery Exploring the Warming Arctic
On Sept. 20, the Polarstern, a German research vessel, is leaving from Tromso, Norway, on the biggest Arctic expedition of all time. It involves about 600 researchers and organizations from 19 countries.
Scientists collecting an ice sample in the Arctic in 2014. The project's measurements are meant to help scientists understand the complex melting process that is taking place at the North Pole.
The northern lights as seen from the deck of the Polarstern. the Polarstern crew will penetrate the pack ice north of central Siberia and drop anchor at a large floe, allowing themselves to be frozen in over the winter. Firmly surrounded by ice, the ship will then drift with the maelstrom first toward the North Pole then westward, before being released by the ice next summer in the Fram Strait, somewhere between Greenland and Svalbard.
A beluga whale under the ice. The species depends on Arctic cod for its subsistence, but the latter species is in danger of collapsing due to the changing temperature dynamics in the far north.
Markus Rex, a polar researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute, from Germany. Eight years ago, he and a colleague decided to take a closer look at the polar night and came up with plans for an ambitious research mission. The idea gradually grew into a megaproject, and will now set out into the Arctic.
