By Damien Ringeisen | (Last blogpost from PS115.2 expedition to the Arctic after Polarstern's arrival in Bremerhaven) Is there a more iconic picture than a polar bear stranded on a piece of ice to illustrate climate change? As everybody surely knows, the artic sea ice is melting away. ...[Read more]
Some words about geology and the Polarstern…
By Myriam Caron | 81°N 128°E. As an ArcTrain PhD Student studying geology in the polar regions, it is with great excitement that I came on board the R/V Polarstern, with the Arctic Ocean as a destination. After several years spent studying the Arctic, what a joy to finally be able to go ...[Read more]
A visit to the crow’s nest
By Charles Bruntte | 82N, 143E. We wake up to a radiant Sun and a calm sea. This is a very pleasant surprise after a few days of high waves that challenged everyone's tolerance to motion sickness. Today the wind is low and the air is not too cold. Samira and I take this opportunity to pay a ...[Read more]
Have you ever been in the belly of a giant whale?
By Sergei Freiman | Over the last three days, every inhabitant of the Polarstern could feel the beat of the seismic airguns that shake the entire vessel 4 times per minute. The shots sound like the heartbeat of an immense and calm animal. But how big has to be this incredible animal with such a ...[Read more]
ArcTrain Students: Watch Keepers
By Charles Brunette (McGill University) | 81N, 145E. It has now been two weeks since the expedition PS115/2 started. What have the ArcTrain students been doing so far? Apart from just being excited about being in the middle of the Arctic Ocean on the icebreaker Polarstern and taking loads of ...[Read more]
Being prepared
By Anouk Vlug | It is 4 days ago that I boarded the RV Polarstern. The sea is currently calm, which gave me the courage to start writing this blog post. I am Anouk Vlug, one of the ArcTrain PhD students that joint PS 115.2 expedition into the Arctic as a part of the ArcTrain Floating ...[Read more]
Box Coring – One Muddy Playground for Scientists
By Anastasia Zhuravleva Is it surprising that our modern society is highly affected by climatic instabilities and rapid environmental shifts? Apparently, not! Meanwhile, dramatic changes have been observed in the Arctic during the past few thousand years, which are expressed as temperature ...[Read more]
Shaking Nights and Blue Fingers
By Raul Scarlat I know what a CTD is, I just had trouble remembering what the acronym stands for. Apparently it's "Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth" as Kerstin explains it to me. Kerstin is one of my ArcTrain colleagues. Matter of fact she had participated in CTD sampling the day before and ...[Read more]
Floating University – ArcTrain students on board RV Polarstern
By Annegret Krandick, Kerstin Kretschmer, Laura Gillard, Tilia Breckenfelder ArcTrain, an international research group, allows the opportunity for students to study the processes that affect our climate in the past, present and future scenarios with a focus on the North Atlantic Ocean and the ...[Read more]