Following in the footsteps of Nansen and his Fram expedition more than one hundred years ago, the research vessel Polarstern has been frozen into the ice since October, and drifts in the Arctic Ocean towards Svalbard and the Fram Strait. This international expedition is called MOSAiC (https://mosaic-expedition.org/). In 1893-1896 it took Nansen’s ship nearly three years to drift across the Arctic Ocean. For MOSAiC the journey has been less than a year.

The yearly maximum (in the Arctic) and minimum (in the Antarctic) sea-ice extent occurs in February/March. With satellite data processed at Norwegian Meteorological Institute the sea-ice extent is tracked and described on a daily basis.