BERLIN, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The first interim results of MOSAiC, one of the largest Arctic expeditions ever, were presented by Germany's Minister of Education and Research Anja Karliczek and expedition leader Markus Rex on Tuesday.
"Never before has so much data been collected on the climatic situation in the Arctic," said Karliczek in a statement, adding that climate research would get "another important boost."
In addition to the urgent reduction of global emissions, technologies would be required to remove CO2 from the atmosphere in order to reduce the risk of a seasonal, complete disappearance of the Arctic ice, according to Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
In a first step, the BMBF would fund two projects seeking to store carbon in soil and oceans with around 50 million euros (60.1 million U.S. dollars).
"Only the evaluation of the next few years will show whether we can still save the year-round Arctic sea ice through consistent climate protection, or whether we have already passed this important tipping point in the climate system," said expedition leader Rex.
During the MOSAiC expedition, led by the German Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), scientists from 20 nations explored the Arctic from autumn 2019 to autumn 2020. The German icebreaker Polarstern drifted frozen in the ice through the Arctic Ocean.
The expedition's budget was more than 140 million euros, most of which was covered by the BMBF. (1 euro = 1.21 U.S. dollars) Enditem