In September 2019, an international group of scientists set off in a ship from Tromsø, Norway intending to do something that most ships would do anything to avoid: freeze into the ice of the Central Arctic Ocean — for a year.

The mission, called the Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) involves hundreds of scientists from 20 nations and is the largest Arctic science mission in history. It’s spearheaded by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Germany.

They invited a small group of journalists to come along for the first part of the expedition, which is how I found myself living for five and a half weeks on one of the two ships involved in the expedition’s set-up — the Russian research vessel Akademik Fedorov.

Short Wave Podcast

It’s science for everyone, using a lot of creativity and a little humor. Join host Maddie Sofia for science on a different wavelength.