A large-scale project – the first all-year-round drifting expedition conducting research of the Arctic climate – T-MOSAiC (Terrestrial-Multidisciplinary distributed Observatories for the Study of Arctic Climate) was awarded at the Arctic Awards 2018. The project was celebrated for its achievements in the field of exploration and development of the Arctic and the Antarctic. The expedition includes over 600 scientists from 17 world countries. At the award ceremony, which took place on December, 1 in Moscow, the prestigious award was received by the only Russian member of the project, biologist and professor of the State University of Tomsk, Sergey Kirpotin.

Sergey Kirpotin and his crew of scientists from the BioKlimLand laboratory of the SUT have set up a network of scientific stations for all-year-round climate monitoring and experimentation. The network is over 2500 km long, stretching from Mongolia to deep Arctic. Sampling at the laboratory is performed according to unified procedures, which allows to perform constant monitoring of environmental changes according to various indicators and obtain comparable data of an international level. The research strategy developed by the scientists from Tomsk has been incorporated into the T-MOSAiC project.

According to Sergey Kripotin, T-MOSAiC unites like-minded people passionate for science and the Arctic. “The Arctic draws attention of scientists from the whole world, but existing knowledge and data is not enough for complete understanding of what is going on there. The scientific projects realized within the framework of the present consortium can both provide new information about the current transformations of our planet and also enable rather precise forecasting of further changes,” – he noted.