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  • NEWS FEATURE

Is a monster web of ocean currents headed for collapse? The race is on to find out

Research ships rarely brave the Greenland Sea in winter. Early this year, scientists ventured into the ice-covered waters to capture crucial data about the planet’s future.
By
  1. Tim Kalvelage

    1. Tim Kalvelage is a freelance journalist in Bremen, Germany. His reporting was supported by the FRONTIERS journalism programme, which is funded by the European Research Council. The council, which also funds the ROVER project, had no oversight over his work.

Norwegian research icebreaker RV Kronprins Haakon navigates through dense pancake ice in the Greenland Sea.

RV Kronprins Haakon drifts through ice floes off East Greenland early this year. Credit: Tim Kalvelage

Eight hundred kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, the research vessel Kronprins Haakon drifts quietly through a thick pack of ice floes. The sky and sea are bathed in purple morning light as Alexandra Stephens, a PhD student at the University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada, pilots a drone over the frosty expanse, hunting for heat.

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Nature 642, 558-562 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-01885-4

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