I was able to witness what it takes to get a number, and it isn’t just from the scientific instruments. It is a multisensory experience crafted by an international community--the experiences that the MOSAiC team creates together.
It is the people who are passionate about the Arctic climate system and want to understand how it works.
It is the joy you see when they pose questions about the Arctic, find some answers, and get to ask more questions in return.
It is the long nights, eating sandwiches on the ice rather than a hot meal, and the endless endurance of the MOSAiC team so that they may capture unique and important events on the ice.
It tastes of chocolate and potatoes--many, many potatoes.
It smells of grease from the engine room, fuel from the helicopter, sweat, and hot meals in the galley.
Through snow, heavy winds, and fog, it is cold hands, rosy cheeks, tired eyes, and feeling breathless as red-clad scientists slowly traverse the ice to check on equipment so that they are working at optimal capacity.
It is manual labor, from lugging heavily packed pulkas across the ice, pushing bobsleds of equipment and pulling up hundreds of meters of line that was cast deep into the ocean.
It is the disruption of polar silence by the laughter, the "a-ha!" moments, music, maybe some swearing, all spoken in different tongues as indications of hard work on the ice and onboard.
It is a world bathed in red and white flashlights under complete darkness to an endless spectrum of vibrant whites, grays, blues, turquoises, and greens, to the softness of purples, oranges, and pinks.
