The Greatest Polar Expedition of All Time: The Arctic Mission to the Epicenter of Climate Change

The Arctic is the epicenter of climate change, warming twice as quickly as the rest of the planet and driving increasing weather extremes across the northern hemisphere. But because the region is so remote, scientists have had a limited understanding of its processes. In 2019, the MOSAiC expedition set off on an unprecedented journey across the Arctic to take our knowledge about climate change to a new level. Aboard the icebreaker Polarstern, researchers would spend a full year locked in the ice, collecting crucial data during polar winter for the first time ever.

The Greatest Polar Expedition of All Time is the thrilling inside account of this mission, a massive undertaking that involved twenty countries and hundreds of researchers. With resourcefulness and a scientist’s passion for discovery, expedition leader Markus Rex details the crew’s logistical challenges—including curious polar bears, sudden ice cracks, months of darkness in the polar night, and a pandemic. Through it all, Rex reminds us of the urgency of MOSAiC’s research, describing an Arctic that is vastly altered by warming but that still has a chance to be saved.

An eye-opening journey to the end of the Earth, The Greatest Polar Expedition of All Time reveals the teamwork it takes to complete a risky goal, all in the name of understanding—and combating—the climate crisis.