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

Summary

​​For readers of Endurance and other seafaring adventure stories comes a thrilling account of a twenty-first-century Arctic mission.

The Greatest Polar Expedition of All Time vividly describes one year aboard the Polarstern, a powerful ice-breaker ship that journeyed deep into the Arctic in 2019, carrying over 100 scientists and crew known as the MOSAiC Expedition. Hailing from across the world, they would become the largest expedition to ever survive a polar winter. Their purpose was to understand—and predict—the impacts of climate change on the Arctic.

Written by the expedition’s leader, the renowned atmospheric scientist Markus Rex, this page-turner reads like a captain’s log of daily life aboard the Polarstern. Living in one of the most remote, dangerous, and electrifying places on earth, Rex describes incredible sights: polar bears playing with scientific equipment, Christmas parties in the bitter cold, frostbitten scientists, and hair-raising storms that threaten to break the Polarstern’s cables and send it flying across the ice. He also reveals breathtaking science from deep inside the sea ice.

Filled with sobering, heart-warming, and bone-chilling moments, this book is a testament to Rex’s extraordinary drive to save a precious ecosystem. It’s also an ode to a place that has beguiled sailors and explorers for centuries.