The Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) was the largest Arctic expedition in our times and took place from September 2019 until October 2020. After years of planning under the umbrella of IASC and more than 80 institutions from 20 nations involved, the expedition was a big success and scientists collected terabytes of data and thousands of samples during the year of expedition. Now, one year after the expedition ended, MOSAiC has organized a big meeting to present and discuss the scientific results.
In a nutshell, the event:
- Very intensive exchange of participants and projects, especially across teams and different legs
- Formation of new thematic groups working together on topics and issues from different points of view: e.g., an albedo group that links radiation and albedo measurements with other observations (e.g., aerial photos and snow properties); a coordinate system group that tries to process as many measurements as possible from different groups in such a way that the points of the measurements on the always drifting floe can be superimposed (e.g. helicopter measurements with ground and satellite data) - Very intensive exchange on special issues, especially also in hybrid format using small digital meeting points
- Transition to cross-linked and crosscutting data analysis
- There is altogether an impressive amount of data sets, publications, results, which became very obvious and was compiled in Potsdam
- Many practical issues were discussed and implemented: e.g., data archiving, integration of new colleagues into existing MOSAiC groups and teams, planning of further workshops
- Once again, the strong link between observations and numerical simulations became clear and ways to further intensify this in the future were discussed
- It was a very strong social event, as it was the first in-persona meeting for the vast majority of participants since the pandemic began. To some participants and team leaders this is the most important aspect overall for the continued success of the entire projects (even if it is not strictly scientific)
Highlights:
1. Refined and further developed MOSAiC scientific exploitation strategy
2. Discussion of ongoing and future publications
3. Great progress towards crosscutting analysis