168 days, that’s the time, we, Linda and Luisa, two ArcTrain students from Bremen, spent on our greatest scientific adventure so far: the MOSAiC drift expedition. MOSAiC – The  Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate was a large, international research expedition. Frozen into the ice, the German […]

Two ArcTrainees – one big scientific question: A story about ...


The 7th Annual Meeting of ArcTrain was totally different from any ArcTrain meeting that has happened before, and still, many things were similar. The reason for the change was the same all over the world: the COVID-19 pandemic. The restrictions, as well as concerns to further spread the virus, forced […]

7th ArcTrain Annual Meeting – together in the distance


What is my PhD project about? I want to give you an introduction to this. To make this introduction easily understandable for everyone, no matter what scientific or non-scientific background you have, I did it in a special form: I only used the 1000 most commonly used English words. Valentin […]

Marrying in the water



Five months after the official start for the third ArcTrain Germany cohort, it was time for our first group retreat. The 12 ArcTrain students of the third cohort, one associated student, two ArcTrain students from Canada currently on research visits in Germany, the three PhD representatives of the second cohort, […]

ArcTrain visits the Harz Mountains – First retreat of the ...



Note: This blog post was written by Marie-Michèle Ouellet-Bernier and Jade Falardeau Aklavik is located in the Mackenzie Delta, 2° North of the Arctic Circle. This community, of about 600 people, is part of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. To get there, we need to reach the town of Inuvik, a […]

Nordic adventure in Aklavik



The Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM) is known to be the flagship for the ocean sciences that takes place every two years in the United States. In 2020 the conference was held in San Diego, California, between February 16th and 21st. With more than 6300 participating scientists it is the largest conference within the ocean […]

ArcTrain at the Ocean Sciences Meeting 2020


It is often good to remember the reasons for doing something. It might be helpful during the process of doing it and in times of doubts. So, an important question for all of us ArcTrainees – and for all other PhD students out there – should be: Why am I […]

Why am I doing a PhD?


After all this information and advice followed a nice presentation with an Arctic vibe to it about the MOSAiC expedition by Christiaan Haas. The meeting ended with an informal poster session with drinks and bites to get to know each other. With the posters, that some of us introduced by […]

ArcTrain Kick-Off Meeting – Round 3