Since October, the Polarstern, a German research icebreaker, has been frozen in the ice in the Arctic Ocean on a mission to learn more about climate change in the region, the fastest-warming area on the planet.

The Mosaic expedition (shorthand for Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) is organized by the Alfred Wegener Institute and is expected to continue until September. Until then the Polarstern will be drifting with the pack ice for hundreds of miles, near the North Pole and across the Arctic.

About 60 scientists and technicians are on board for two months at a time, taking detailed measurements of the ice and snow, ocean, atmosphere and the organisms small and large that exist in the central Arctic.

In the first few months the expedition encountered wild storms, constantly shifting and cracking ice that made setting up instruments difficult, and the occasional polar bear. Since early October the expedition has been in the polar darkness, with the only illumination coming from lights on the ship and some set up on the ice.