The Alfred Wegener Institute carries out research in the Arctic and Antarctic as well as in the high and mid latitude oceans. The institute coordinates German polar research and makes available to national and international science important infrastructure, e.g. the research icebreaker “Polarstern” and research stations in the Arctic and Antarctic.
Newsflash
Focus on
Ocean acidification – the evil twin of climate warming
Around half of the carbon dioxide volume discharged into the atmosphere through exhaust pipes and chimney stacks over the past two hundred years has been absorbed by the oceans - but not without consequence. The carbon dioxide dissolves in the water, creating carbonic acid. This reduces the pH value of the seawater and makes the oceans more acidic. You will learn here about the consequences this has on the inhabitants of the oceans and on humans and how scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute are researching this subject area.
Press Releases
26. April 2013: Seal of quality on the anniversary: scientists celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Franco-German Arctic station on Spitsbergen and its inclusion in a new climate data network
There are two reasons for celebration today at the Franco-German Arctic research station AWIPEV on Spitsbergen: firstly, the scientific community at the world’s northernmost research location marks the 10th year of cooperation between the German Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the French Institut Polaire Paul Emile Victor (IPEV). Secondly, the station is today the first meteorological facility in the world to be awarded with the seal of quality of GRUAN, the climate data network, the objective of which is to measure elevation profiles of climate parameters such as temperature, air pressure and air humidity according to uniform worldwide quality standards so as to globally compare observations.
Go to Press Release: Seal of quality on the anniversary...
23. April 2013: Putin’s promised new building now in operation: AWI permafrost researchers start work in the new research station in the Russian Lena Delta
Permafrost experts of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research are currently conducting a multi-week spring expedition to the Lena Delta where they are investigating the interaction between the atmosphere, snow cover and the frozen earth of the tundra. That they are able to live and conduct their research at less than spring temperatures of up to minus 30 degrees Celsius is attributable to the new Russian research station “Samoylov”. The impressive building was erected at the initiative of the Russian head of state Vladimir Putin and for one week has replaced the old German-Russian station from 1998 where scientists were only able to work in the short Siberian summer.
Go to Press Release: Putin’s promised new building now in operation
18. April 2013: Wind parks at sea offering a new home to lobsters? The Land of Lower Saxony promotes a pilot project of researchers on Heligoland
The Land of Lower Saxony is promoting a pilot project on the settlement of the European lobster in the “Riffgat“ offshore windpark with just under EUR 700,000. Researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, are now starting on the rearing of 3,000 lobsters which they will be releasing in 2014. They wish to investigate whether lobsters successfully settle between the wind turbines.
Go to Press Release: Wind parks at sea offering a new home to lobsters?
17. April 2013: Atlantic cod in for even more stress? Marine biologists launch a new research project on the impact of climate change on the popular commercial fish
Researchers have known for some years that the Atlantic cod beats the retreat in the direction of the Arctic when the waters in its traditional habitat become too warm. In summer, shoals from the Atlantic Ocean, for example, are now moving up as far as Spitsbergen into the waters the Arctic cod calls its own. In the next two and a half years, biologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, together with scientists from Kiel, Bremen, Düsseldorf and Münster, will be seeking to discover the consequences of this climate-related migration on the stocks of these two commercial fish species, how the fish are responding to the water becoming warmer and more acidic and at which stages of life the changes are most dangerous to them. The first investigations are already in progress as part of the joint project BIOACID with focus placed on the early life stages.
Go to Press Release: Atlantic cod in for even more stress?
