In 2020, fieldwork for scientists around the world was canceled due to the pandemic. With travel restrictions lifted in the US and Europe, some scientists are returning to the field for the summer research season. But in the Arctic and Antarctic, where complex logistics and long planning periods are the norm, many field seasons are still disrupted. That means PhD students are writing their dissertations about Antarctica without ever seeing the place, scientific field camps in Greenland are being buried under feet of snow, and decadeslong observational records now have gaps in data. The World’s environment correspondent Carolyn Beeler reports.