2020-04-01 Smithsonian Magazine

April 2020 | SMITHSONIAN 61

Jessie
Creamean, an
atmospheric sci-
entist, spent nine
weeks aboard
the Polarstern
before returning
to Colorado
State University. 

A technician
installs power
cables between
the Polarstern
and Met City—
one of four main
research camps
on the ice.

choose to be marooned on a vast ex-

panse of sea ice at the onset of Arc-

tic winter , but this past fall Jessie

Creamean was delighted to spend

nine weeks aboard a vessel that had

b e e n d e l i b e r a t e l y f r o z e n i n t o a n i c e c a p

near the top of the world. On Mon-

days, she wrapped herself in several

layers, including a heavy-duty parka

and bulky orange boots with super-

insulated soles, and ventured into the

polar darkness. Driving snowmo-

biles loaded with equipment, she and

her fellow researchers, on alert for

cracks and fi ssures, caravanned over

the jagged surface of the ice.

After setting up a tent as a partial shield against the wind

and bitter cold, and wearing red-fi ltered headlamps to avoid

disturbing light-sensitive microbes, the researchers used a bat-

tery-powered drill fi tted with a spinning circular blade and a

three-foot-long barrel to draw about two dozen cores out of the

ice. For the next several hours they carefully sliced the cores

into sections, calling out precise measurements for Creamean

to record. Outside the tent stood a guard armed with a rifl e and

a fl are gun, scanning the horizon for approaching polar bears.

Creamean, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State Univer-

sity, is one of more than 300 researchers participating in a wildly

ambitious, eye-wateringly expensive yearlong expedition called

MOSAiC, the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the

Few people would