Why scientists want to lock ship in ice to drift across North Pole

A research ship will be deliberately trapped in floating sea ice to drift across the North Pole in order to provide more accurate climate and weather forecasts.

The 120m-long icebreaker, called Polarstern, will be sailed into the Arctic and lodged in sea ice, so it can be carried naturally on a 2,500km journey, which is expected to take a year.

The research project – known as Mosaic – is designed to allow scientists to use state-of-the-art technology to observe and measure aspects of climate change in the region that have not been possible in the past.

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The unusual plan was inspired by an 1893 expedition made by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen on the vessel Fram, says the Daily Telegraph. Nansen purposefully encased Fram in sea ice, hoping he would become the first person to reach the North Pole. Ultimately, he ended up abandoning the mission after drifting off course.

Professor Markus Rex of the Alfred Wegener Institute, who will lead the Mosaic project, said they plan to travel in the summer of 2019, when sea ice is thin.

"We can make our way with our icebreaker Polarstern into the thin sea ice to the Siberian sector of the Arctic. Then we stop the engines and let the Polarstern drift with the sea ice," he explained.

"In winter the ice is too thick to travel through the ice; we can't break it. It would be way too dangerous to go on snowmobiles, and we have many, many containers of big instruments for studying the climate systems which we could never bring in snowmobiles."

The project involves technology that will allow the research team to observe climate change on a more detailed scale than current satellite-based measurements. A number of international partners are involved in the £54m project, including the UK, Russia, China and the US.

"We'll take water, ice and air samples. And we'll set up camps on the sea-ice close to the Polarstern and others up to 20 to 30km away. The whole set-up will drift across the Arctic. That will give us a new and absolutely fascinating insight into the climate system," said Rex.

Last month, new data showed that Arctic sea ice had reached its lowest-ever levels for January since records began in 1978.