The 3rd International MOSAiC Science Conference was held under the motto - Transition to Sustained Arctic System Science - and took place from 26 February to 1 March 2024 on the Telegrafenberg Campus in Potsdam (Germany). It was organised by the AWI (Potsdam). Like the 2nd conference in Boulder, USA, this conference was also open to a broad audience from the field of polar research. This week of joint and personal exchange is of particular importance in the project and was already explicitly requested by the majority of those involved at the 2nd conference.
A total of around 160 scientists from 15 countries took part. As a prelude, 6 overview presentations were given by the Project Board on the current status of the project results. Over the course of the week, 10 invited lectures/keynotes were held on various topics. In a total of 14 session blocks and 1 permanent poster session (the posters were displayed in the foyer of the conference building for the entire week), the participants gave 84 talks and presented 46 posters.
Based on the experience and feedback from participants at the two previous conferences, the FLEX-time concept (ad-hoc discussion rounds in an organised manner) was further refined and made available and was again very well received. Six fully equipped conference rooms were provided in three buildings. In addition, there was a data session, 1 panel discussion with early career researchers (ECRs) and a tandem meeting on ice-buoys.
In addition to the panel discussion, ECRs were heavily involved in the organisation and participation of the conference from the beginning. By using the established MOSAiC ECR mailing list, a conference planning committee of ECRs was put together, which, in cooperation with the MOSAiC Office and with the support of the Project Board, helped to carry out a large number of organisational tasks. In addition, conference funding from IASC was once again successfully acquired and ECR travel support for participation in the conference was significantly increased as a result. There was also a separate session organised by ECRs for ECRs. The event was flanked by two excursions.
Thanks to the ongoing procurement of modern communication technology at the local venues, it was also possible to provide free online access to the conference for all participants with travel restrictions or unexpected developments.
Highlights:
• It was a very intensive week with particularly strong interaction between a wide range of participants from all areas (teams) of MOSAiC
• It has become clear that MOSAiC is much more extensive than the expedition in 2019/20. Many participants were not involved at that time, many work with remote sensing data and models or with field data from other campaigns that are blended with MOSAiC data.
• It was (great) to see that especially many young scientists contributed very actively to the conference, discussions and concepts. Many of the colleagues who were inexperienced in field measurements 5 years ago are now well established.
Picture: Alfred Wegener Institute / Sabine Helbig
Date and Location
Potsdam, Germany I February 26 - March 1, 2024.
IASC Working Group funding the project
- Atmosphere WG
Project Lead
Markus Rex (contact: markus.rex@awi.de), Matthew Shupe (contact: matthew.shupe@noaa.gov), Annette Rinke (Annette.Rinke@awi.de)
Year funded by IASC
2023