A thin crack cuts through footprints across the ice adjacent to a meteorological tower being prepared for installation.A wider crack runs past a met tower at Met City, a research station where meteorological instruments are operating on the ice. The near miss could have dragged the tower down.Dave Costa, an engineer from Shupe’s atmosphere research team, works on an atmospheric surface flux station located 15 kilometers (about 9 miles) away from the icebreaker R/V Polarstern. These stations are designed to provide information on spatial variability of the surface energy budget.A blizzard sweeps across Met City.The moon shines above the Polarstern and the ARM instruments on the icebreaker.
MOSAiC is an international arctic research expedition led by the Alfred Wegener Institute with U.S. contributions from the U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA.