GFI / BCCR scientists at MOSAiC Workshop at Arctic Science Summit Week 2017

MOSAiC is a paramount international effort among the Arctic science community to enable a year-around drift across the North Pole from 2019 to 2020 (http://mosaic-expedition.org/) to collect data to help further improve our understand of the coupled Arctic Climate System with the ultimate goal to improve our modeling capabilities. Lead by the Alfred-Wegener Institute (AWI) in Germany (https://www.awi.de/) and initiated through the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC, http://iasc.info/), MOSAiC’s science and implementation plan have advanced significantly over the last years.

To further shape the implementation plan of this international effort, IASC organized a workshop at the Arctic Science Summit Week 2017 in Prague on 4 and 5 April. The lead organizers of the workshop were Thomas Spengler, in his role as chair of the IASC Atmosphere Workshop Group, together with Klaus Dethloff, Markus Rex and Anja Sommerfeld at AWI. The scientists Ilker Fer, Mehmet Ilicak, and Pierre Rampal gave three of the thirteen keynote presentations during the first day, focusing on small scale processes in the ocean via observations and modeling as well as sea ice modeling. The presence and high international visibility at the workshop gave the group of GFI / BCCR scientists new contacts into the MOSAiC community, which already lead to follow-up discussions about possibilities to engage further in the coming months and years as we progress closer to the year-long drift.