In this first episode, we have a wonderful conversation with Thomas Wunderlich and Felix Lauber - Captain and First Officer of Germany’s Polar Research Vessel, “Polarstern”. Thomas and Felix take us inside the Polarstern revealing her history, operations, and importance for scientific research in the Arctic and Antarctic.
“I try to move everyone to the ice regions, because if you have seen it once then you understand life in another way”
(Thomas Wunderlich)
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Captain Thomas shares his personal account of the Polarstern’s most ambitious voyage yet - the largest polar expedition in history - MOSAiC. The Polarstern and the hundreds of crew and scientists onboard, spent an entire year drifting through the Arctic Ocean - trapped in the ice - in order to gain vital data on global climate change. As we hear, executing an expedition of this scale took a huge effort and was not always smooth sailing, especially with the arrival of a global pandemic.
After visiting the same regions each year for over a decade, Thomas and Felix give us a glimpse of the polar world from their unique viewpoint, including the dramatic changes in sea-ice they have witnessed and how this has affected them and their outlook of the planet.
Thanks Thomas and Felix, for this eye-opening and enjoyable chat!
Read the transcript of this episode.
Learn more about the mammoth MOSAiC expedition: https://mosaic-expedition.org/