What do Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev have to do with the Polar Prediction Project? In the very last episode of The IcePod, things get turned upside down. When Kirstin Werner, former head of the PPP Coordination Office, moved on last fall, someone got the idea to grill her about her work with the Polar Prediction community before she left. Here, Kirstin talks about her experiences with the Year of Polar Prediction, but also gives insights into her background in Arctic research, her previous work as a journalist, and takes us back to that moment in her childhood when she saw Ronald Reagan ..read more

Finally, it's there! As promised earlier, the short version of our The IcePod interview with Captain Thomas Wunderlich in English language is now available. Thomas Wunderlich took over the command of the German research icebreaker RV Polarstern for leg 4 and 5 of the MOSAiC expedition in June 2020. Thomas Wunderlich is one of currently three captains on board Polarstern; together with his colleague Captain Stefan Schwarze he made sure that scientists could carry out their work during the one-year drifting MOSAiC ice camp in the central Arctic. In this special edition of The IcePod, we we hear ..read more

In the new episode of The IcePod, we meet with Karin Strand, Vice President of Expeditions of Hurtigruten, a Norwegian coastal ferry service and cruise line that offers expeditions to Antarctica. When Karin Strand began studying law in the late 1990s, she had no idea where life would take her. It all started with a student job in the summer; here she cleaned cabins aboard the ships of the traditional Norwegian ferry service that carries people from Bergen to Kirkenes in northern Norway. "Little did I know by the time", how much nature would become her profession. "During breaks at sea, I used ..read more

In this episode of The IcePod, we talk to Nina Gallo about her work as a tour guide in Antarctica and how she gets the most out for her Antarctica-loving passengers, even when the weather is unstable. Nina came to Antarctica about five years ago when she applied for a tour guide position in Antarctica. "Australia has a strong connection to Antarctica, and I heard about it when I was a kid in school," says the Australian writer and photographer. What she likes best about the Antarctic landscape is that it is "always surprising". After each of her trips south, you'd think Nina would be exhauste ..read more

In the first episode of The IcePod, season 2, we talk to Lasse Rabenstein and Panagiotis Kountouris. They run the start-up Drift+Noise Polar Services, which could potentially become the ‘one-stop solution for ice information'.  "If I were the captain of a fishing vessel sailing north of Svalbard..." – In this episode, Lasse and Panos tell us about their start-up company, which primarily aims to support shipping activities in polar regions fjnd a safe path through the ice. To that end, they are developing products such as an app that integrates various information, such as satellite data a ..read more

In the first season, Sara Pasqualetto and Kirstin Werner of the International Polar Prediction Coordination Office invited participants from the MOSAiC expedition who spent a year drifting through Arctic sea ice on the German research icebreaker RV Polarstern. Guests on the podcast were able to share details from the MOSAiC expedition about their scientific work on the ice, as well as about life on board, insights that would otherwise have been left untold. The episodes were broadcast on the community radio station Radio Weser TV in Bremen and Bremerhaven and are still available on Spotify and ..read more

Surprise, surprise! After the final episode with Matt Shupe, we have another one for you. In this German edition of The IcePod, we talk to Captain Thomas Wunderlich who took over the command of the German research icebreaker RV Polarstern for leg 4 and 5 of the MOSAiC expedition in June 2020.  Thomas Wunderlich is one of currently three captains on board Polarstern; together with his colleague Captain Stefan Schwarze he made sure that scientists could carry out their work during the one-year drifting MOSAiC ice camp in the central Arctic. How to become the captain of the 39 year-old Lady ..read more

Here's the final episode of The IcePod's season 1.  It's a pretty special one because we got to meet one of the highest-ranked people of MOSAiC – it's Matt Shupe. Matt has been the co-lead of the expedition and stayed onboard Polarstern for the first, the dark one, and the fourth, the light leg of the one-year expedition. Matt really is a cloud person; he has been working on his sweet spot of research, the Arctic mixed-phase clouds, since basically forever. As a PhD student, he has already been involved into the Arctic drifting expedition SHEBA  in 1997, and could thus bring on his ..read more

Number Eleven! It's the ocean episode. As we finally enter the last leg of the MOSAiC expedition, we get to talk to Zoe Koenig who is an Arctic physical oceanographer at the University of Bergen and the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø. Zoe was leading team Ocean during leg 5 which clearly differed from the previous ones as the original MOSAiC ice floe had disintegrated and Polarstern now was looking for a new home. Zoe always had a close relation to the ocean as she grew up in Brittany and spent her childhood's vacation sailing with the family off the French coasts. So the ocean has alway ..read more

For the tenth episode of The IcePod, we jump from the scientific part to the logistical aspects of the expedition. To carry out research in the living room of the polar bears requires people who take care of keeping everybody safe. "The binoculars are my weapons", says Laura Schmidt, member of the Safety and Logistics Team during MOSAiC leg 4. Laura grew up in the alpine environment of Southern Germany which paved the way into the Arctic easily.  Studying geography was a way to merge her passion for outdoor activities with scientific curiosity. And, Greenland was her first love – during ..read more