Mathematicians in the ice
An award-winning photo in the Nature Journal shows CDS member Prof. Dr. Thomas Richter and Dr. Carolin Mehlmann at work in the Arctic Ocean.
The mathematicians from Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg are measuring the snow depth on a huge ice floe floating on the Arctic Ocean. Emiliano Cimoli, a remote-sensing scientist at the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, Australia, took the award-winning photo.
The photo was taken during the two-month expedition to the Arctic Ocean on the research vessel "Polarstern" from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in August 2023. The goal of the expedition was to explore the changing Arctic and in particular to investigate the sea ice and the impact of the decreasing sea ice cover on the ocean system. A numerical model created by Dr. Carolin Mehlmann, which enables a better simulation and prediction of the size and movement of sea ice at the North Pole, was tested during the research expedition.