Here is an English language transcript of the Audio logbook podcast (otherwise only in German) that was made by the expedition leader Torsten Kanzow during the journey from the MOSAiC floe to Svalbard. The recording was made on Monday 25. May, but it wasn't published on the MOSAiC website till Friday 29th May and of course it has now been overtaken by events as the Polarstern arrived in Svalbard on Thursday 4th June. What it does reveal, very politely and politically correctly phrased, is that there appears to have been quite a lot of friction between the shore base and people on the Polarstern about how best to deal both with the disintegrating floe and the consequences of the pandemic.
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Commentator: Arctic Drift - the audio logbook.
Torsten Kanzow: in the meantime we know that our female and male colleagues, the scientists belonging to the next leg of the expedition, and of course the crew of the Polarstern who will be on the ship during the next leg, have arrived in Spitzbergen, together with the research vessels Sonne and Merian, and that they are, in principle, waiting for us. However, there’s not the remotest possibility of us being able arrive there in the next few days.
Commentator: on the 16 May, after a delay of a week, the Polarstern was finally able to leave the Mosaic ice floe to complete the handover to the next team in the Norwegian Spitzbergen group of islands. But the journey South has proved to be tough and arduous. The research icebreaker has had to fight its way through thick arctic ice and continues to test the patience and endurance of the crew to the limit. The delayed departure turned out to be rather different from the one that those responsible for it had originally planned. This was the result of drastic changes in the floe, as Torsten Kanzow, who is the leader of the third leg of the expedition, explains.
Torsten Kanzow: we had certainly intended to bring some of the equipment on board to protect it from any possible kind of damage and had made a plan. Then we were warned that a storm was approaching that was very, very well forecast, so that we were able to make a great effort to get all the planned pieces of equipment on board before it arrived. That effort succeeded very well. But then as the storm subsided we were able to see that the floe was disintegrating far more extensively than beforehand. We had already seen that some areas of the floe had split off from it and collided resulting in ice pressure ridges being formed, but then after the storm had ebbed, and we were able to see what had happened, it was quite clear that we would have to bring a lot more equipment on board to protect it and to make sure it could be used by the participants of the next leg of the expedition. That meant that we had to take two additional days to rescue the tents, such as, for example, those of Balloon town in Ocean City. We had to witness the fact some areas had now become inaccessible. In the light of this development it was clear that the decision to salvage much of the equipment had been a good one. Especially when we saw that a monitoring station, that had been located in the area of the city, was destroyed by the formation of a pressure ridge the day before its planned salvage. In addition, a tent that the Sea ice group had used for investigating the underside of the ice with a remote-controlled submarine also fell victim to the ice. Some of the instruments that were anchored in the ice could not be rescued either, simply because they couldn’t be located in the newly formed ice ridges. So that is what happened in the last few days that we spent there. I think that the decision that was made about them was a good one. We were able to salvage much more equipment than the original plan had foreseen. As a result, the prospects for the team of the next leg using this equipment to get off to a flying start are now quite good.
Commentator: in the weeks beforehand the leads and tears in the central observatory, were becoming daily more numerous. When Kanzow and his team bid the floe farewell they left behind a completely fissured landscape that didn’t bear comparison with the extensive solid floe with which they were confronted when they started the third leg of the expedition at the beginning of March.
Torsten Kanzow: the floe is unrecognizable. The state it was in when we took it over gave the impression that it was large, easily accessible area, on which one could work without any problems. That changed relatively soon, and we were already clearly able to see that the radius of action for our daily work was becoming limited as a result of the ice movements. However, what we saw then was nothing in comparison to what happened at the end of our stay: that was a completely different category of floe disintegration. I think that it has fallen apart in such a way now that you can’t really talk about a MOSAiC floe anymore. It’s just a patchwork carpet of ice that you can’t work on in any meaningful way.
Commentator: even if most of the instrumentation that was deployed on the MOSAiC floe could be salvaged and brought on board, the researchers still had to leave some measuring devices behind that may be of use to the next leg’s team.
Torsten Kanzow: for sure, some instruments were left behind. Ones that measure the drift, the dispersion of the ice by the winds and currents. We also left equipment behind that was embedded in the floe itself and measures the internal temperature of the ice as well some that monitors ocean water parameters. Some of this equipment was left behind, in part, because it would have been impractical to salvage it. In particular, salvaging some of the instrumentation for oceanographic monitoring out of two metre thick ice would have been very, very challenging and labour intensive and could only have been carried out by a few appropriately qualified people, so that in the end we weren’t able to salvage everything that would have liked to. But naturally, the measurements that these instruments will make, if they survive, will be very valuable. That’s because the continuity of the data they produce will be maintained. Time series will now continue to be recorded during the transition to spring and summer that we are currently so strongly experiencing, with temperatures in the meantime now around freezing point. We will be able to continue with these measurements during this important phase until our colleagues are on site and can resume the recordings in the snow and ice.
Commentator: After being in action for 79 days, the protracted return journey has given the leader of the third leg a little time to reflect not only about the preliminary scientific findings, but also about personal experiences and highlights during the last three intensive months.
Torsten Kanzow: naturally, there were some things that were dramatic. It was very often, let me put it this way, the dynamic power that the ice embodied during this period of the year that we, or at least I personally, hadn’t quite expected. When one discussed this with colleagues there was the assumption that, during this part of the year, we would be able to work on ice that would be solid and quiescent. However, that was far from being the case. I think that that, in itself, is a very interesting finding. We could observe some big changes just because we were there for such a long time. For instance, the change from the record lowest temperature on the ice that was measured during the expedition. This was, if I remember rightly, minus 42. And now, towards the end of the leg, we are experiencing temperatures around zero. This range of conditions and the change in the ice and snow itself that was already a highlight. We also saw big changes in the Ocean: we saw that the extent of the water layer that formed immediately under the ice became extremely deep during our leg. The values we measured were very large and it will be very interesting to analyse them further, especially in conjunction with other large changes that we observed in the ice and the atmosphere.
Torsten Kanzow: what personal impressions have I taken away? I think that this journey was accompanied by a lot of high and low points, both with respect to living together with the team and also with how the world outside the ship was viewed, that we had to and did live through. One thing that, let’s say, perhaps demanded the most from me and that I perceived as a big challenge is communication. Communication about the ship and about the situation that we were experiencing and the different perspectives about it that people had who were faced with the challenge of performing their own scientific work under extreme conditions, but who were then faced with another set of conditions and uncertainties from outside the expedition that had nothing to do with their work. And then there was communication between the ship and the scientific and logistic groups that were involved with MOSAiC. That was also an enormous challenge: to describe our observations and the conditions in which we found ourselves in such a way as to make it understandable. The way that actually happened - I’ve never lived through anything like that before. There’s a big range of impressions about this and its not just black and white. There were many positive moments, for example, because we were able to see that despite having lots of different viewpoints, we were always able to motivate ourselves to work together well and we all pulled together. Naturally it was greatly satisfying to see that measurements continued to be made successfully, despite the very rapidly changing external factors (Ed.- the pandemic) and the consequent uncertainties in the planning that arose with respect to the changeover between the legs and despite all the dynamic changes that we were experiencing on the ice. That we were able to remain productive and to continue deal with each other in a friendly manner under this pressure was an enormous achievement.
Commentator: The demoralizingly long return journey of the Polarstern may be testing the patience of a lot the crew. However, both the scientists and the crew can are quite clear about what their next big goal is.
Torsten Kanzow: Our mission now is to reach Spitsbergen as soon as possible. We should have arrived there 2 days ago, if the original plan had been adhered to or if our ideas had been listened to. In the meantime, we know that our female and male colleagues from the next leg and of course the exchange crew of the Polarstern have already arrived in Spitsbergen (Ed. this podcast was recorded on Monday 25. May and broadcast Friday 29. May) on the research vessels Merian and Sonne and in principle they are waiting for us. But there’s not the remotest possibility of us arriving in the next few days. We have now covered 40 miles from the floe in a southerly direction. That’s during the 9 days we have been travelling so far and we are still about 100 or 120 miles away from the border between sea ice and open water. After we have reached open water then perhaps it will take another day for us to reach Spitsbergen. The effort of travelling through the ice is extremely demanding: of course we spend a lot of time looking at satellite observations and how the ice to the south of us is changing, but, as of now, it doesn’t look as if it’s going to change much in the next few days. That means progress is going to continue to be very slow and looked at soberly it means that we are going to have to continue to be very patient and not harbour the illusion that we are going to arrive in Spitsbergen in a day or two. (Ed. it took them another 10 days!)
Commentator: When they have arrived in Spitsbergen, Kanzow will handover command to the well-known AWI (Ed. Alfred Wegener Institute) Project leader Markus Rex, who was already in command on the Polarstern during the first leg of the expedition at the end of September. By drawing on the experience of the team from the current leg, he (Rex) will be able to prepare himself in advance for the new situation in the field
Torsten Kanzow: of course I’m already in communication with the leader of the next leg, with Markus Rex, and he can see, just as I can, how slow our journey to Spitsbergen is. Naturally he always got updates from us about how dynamic the ice was and how difficult the situation there was and is. I believe the best advice I can give him is that one should always have plans, but then be prepared to alter them and that you have to expect changes in the conditions on the ice to occur and to have to cope with them. It’s also important to know that the situation on the ice must be well described and well communicated to the women and men scientists who are still working in their labs and that you have to trust the people who are on the ship to make the right decisions, because only they can judge what the conditions on the ice are really like. I believe that that’s exactly what they are going to do on the next leg, so they probably don’t need any tips from me. But what I do believe is really needed is to be a bit relaxed and to trust each other, if you are going to get good work done. That may be a commonplace that holds anywhere in the world, but it particularly applies to those working on the floe. The next leg faces a big, a very big, challenge, because they will have to review the situation and will have to discussed how work can be continued during the coming months. Should the original floe be returned to? Are good conditions for working expected there? How will it be possible to achieve that in an ice-system that is probably going to remain very dynamic as the summer melt sets in, where the question of how power can be supplied to the equipment is very different from what it was in the beginning and where fog will have to be contended with – in other words poor visibility. How is it possible to create a good workplace environment for everyone on board, especially the women and men scientists? These are issues that we already had to struggle with during our leg. These are quite difficult questions and the next team will have to confront them too, but of course my female and male colleagues know that as well.
Commentator: there is still a long journey in front of Torsten Kanzow and his team before they can leave the ice behind them and return, hopefully safe and sound, to their homes. But the Oceanographer doesn’t have to think long about the answering the question about what he will enjoying doing most when he gets there.
Torsten Kanzow: of course, what I’ll be happiest about when I return is to see my family, my wife and my two children, and to have them in my arms. That‘s the most wonderful thing one can imagine.