An ice radar shows icebergs and iceflows around the ship. Besides the size of the floes it aloows tracks their location.

A view on the stormy sea near Iceland. Harsh weather conditions don't stop the scientists from taking samples at the pre-selected spots along the route. After days of severe storm and high waves the weather finally calmed down, leaving the crew exhausted.

The scientists on board share rooms during the expedition. After some days on board, privacy becomes something very rare and valuable.

The enigne room is the machanically beating heart of the ship. The diesel engines provide electricity to ship and give the ship its thrust.

Fog is a very common phenomenon in the arctic when warm surface water meets cool air on the ocean surface.

A young scientist looks at the ice floes passing by. While the region seems hostile to all forms of life there is a surprising amount of wildlife. While the sightings of whales become rarer along the way there is a very large number of seals and birds living on and around the ice.

An iceberg close to Scorseby Sund. After measuring its size from the distance the crew came to the conclusion that it is at least 90 meters tall. Navigating in regions with icebergs can be very dangerous as big icebergs like this one tend to tip and to cause massive waves in the surroundings. While driving fast on the open sea the captain tries to stay as far away as possible from any forms of ice.

A scientist watches the sampling probe as it is being lowered into the water. The probe is the central scientific piece of equipment of the expedition. It allows scientists to take water samples from different water depths. The closer the sampling spots are together the higher the resolution of the final data will be.

The sea around the ship is rising up at wind speed 9. The crew is still taking samples. The engines allow the ship to stay on one coordinate with a precission of half a meter.

An improvised clean room of one of the scientists. While most people on board work on the same project there are some scientists who do their own research. This scientist is adding trace elements to water samples in order to research how these elements effect the growth of biomass in the sample.

The CTD control room is the most important room for the scientists. From this computer the sampling probe is controlled. The screen shows collected data in real time.

A hose for liquid nitrogen. Most of the samples are analyzed on board. If this is not possible the filter papers are frozen and shipped to Germany.

In this incubator a scientist is mimicing the surface temeperature of the sea. The samples in the bottles come from the surface and were treatet with trace elements. After a filtration the scientist can say how the trace elements stimulated the growth of biomass.

This scientist is doing her masters degree in Hamburg. After school she decided to become a tax consultant but left the job after some years to follow her passion and go to sea.

The sampling probe below the surface. During the expedition the ship stopped at 170 points to gather samples from various depths. In total there are over 1500 samples which will be analyzed in the coming moths.

The captain of the ship in his cabin. He is responsible for both, the scientific and the technical crew on board. Furthermore he takes care all administrative and legal work as the ship enters and leaves the territory of multiple countries along the way. He has been to the arctic many times before and whitnessed the effects of climate change during the last decades. Routes that were once blocked by ice are now navigable and the retreat of the glaciers can be observed all along the coast.

Besides GPS navigation the crew works a lot with various maps. Routes can be calculated and altered in a much faster way on paper. New ice charts come in every day which also effects the planned route.

A scientist while sealing a CFC sample.

Sample tubes for one of the main experiments. The water in these tubes is analyzed in regards of its CFC content which is an idicator of the age of the water. The combination of the age of the water in different depths and the meltwater content allows scientists to calculate a rate at which the ice along the coast is melting.

The Maria S. Merian seen from the air. After arriving at its final destination in Svalbard the expedition is considered a succes. All experiments and projects that were planned for years in advance could be conducted. This expedition gives the scientists a new insight into the region with data that has never been recorded before in such a high resolution.