the Alfred Wegener Institute’s flagship has successfully completed more than 130 expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic and offered a temporary home for thousands of researchers from Germany and around the [...] safely traversed 1.8 million nautical miles. The ship is currently on an expedition in the Southern Ocean.
A major new project will help benchmark biodiversity change in the ArcticOcean and guide conservation efforts by identifying unique species and assessing their extinction risk. The research led by scientists
Today, the research vessel Polarstern will depart on a seven-week-long voyage to the Arctic, where the onset of summer also marks the beginning of the annual sea-ice melting. Over the past 40 years, the [...] zone, the team of researchers on board will investigate how heat fluxes and water layering in the ocean, as well as the characteristics of the ice, interact and influence melting. A further focus of the
north of Svalbard, as well as ocean/glacier interactions off the coast of Greenland. Central research questions included how the ice conditions, ocean heat fluxes and ocean stratification determine sea-ice [...] The Research Vessel Polarstern was in the Arctic for the past seven weeks. There, the summertime sea-ice extent declined by ca. 40 percent over the past 40 years – making it one of the most visible impacts
, e.g. in water bodies, the soil and the air. Via ocean currents and rivers, the tiny plastic particles can even reach the Arctic, Antarctic or ocean depths. A new overview study has now shown that wind [...] the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, and the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel – describes how microplastic finds its way into the atmosphere and how it is subsequently
of plastic has reached all spheres of the Arctic: large quantities of plastic - transported by rivers, the air and shipping- can now be found in the ArcticOcean. High concentrations of microplastic can
frequency over a full annual cycle in the Central ArcticOcean. They have now published three overview articles on the MOSAiC atmosphere, snow and sea ice, and ocean programs in the journal Elementa, highlighting [...] together. These results present the first complete picture of the climate processes in the central Arctic which is warming more than two times as fast as the rest of the planet - processes which affect weather
have now shown, the ocean may weaken warming around Antarctica and delay sea-ice retreat. Given that many models are not capable of accurately reflecting this factor and the role of ocean eddies, the study [...] Climate Research Despite global warming and the sea-ice loss in the Arctic, the Antarctic sea-ice extent has remained largely unchanged since 1979. However, existing climate model-based simulations
in the middle of the ArcticOcean. The results from Stockholm University, the Alfred Wegener Institute and colleagues in the European Fisheries Inventory in the Central ArcticOcean (EFICA) Consortium are
Biodiversity Massive sponge gardens thrive on top of seamounts in the Central ArcticOcean, one of the most oligotrophic seas on Earth. They appear to feed on the remnants of an extinct fauna. Micr [...] Communications . They stress the need for a better understanding of the diversity and uniqueness of Arctic ecosystems in the light of global and local change.