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Permafrost
Researchers measure record erosion on Alaskan riverbank
Itkillik River eats into the thawing riverbank at an average rate of 19 metres per year.
[26. January 2016]
According to estimates, Alaska's thawing permafrost soils cost the USA several 100 million dollars every decade – primarily because airports, roads, pipelines and settlements require relocation as a result of sinking ground and eroding river banks. An international team of researchers has now measured riverbank erosion rates, which exceed all previous records, along the Itkillik River in Alaska's north. In a stretch of land where the ground contains a particularly large quantity of ice the Itkillik River eats into the river bank at 19 metres per year, the researchers report in a study recently published in the journal Geomorphology.
Marine Litter
Micro-plastic particles in edible fish and herbivores
According to recent AWI studies, plastic waste in the North and Baltic Seas is also eaten by edible fish and nautiluses
[11. January 2016]
Micro-plastic particles pose a risk not only to sea birds, whales and organisms at the bottom of the sea. In two new studies, scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute Hemholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) show that plastic waste is also eaten by nautili as well as North and Baltic Sea fish such as cod and mackerel.
Joint Press Release of AWI and DBG
Alga of the Year 2016: Ice alga Melosira arctica – winner or loser of climate change?
Arctic Diatom in the Focus of a New AWI Research Project
[06. January 2016]
Researchers have chosen one of the most important algae of the Arctic, the Melosira arctica, as Alga of the Year. The scientists are planning to use it to study the impact of climate change.
Education and Training
RV Polarstern arrives in Cape Town
A Team of Young Scientists takes the Vital Signs of the Atlantic Ocean
[01. December 2015]
The German research vessel Polarstern will arrive tomorrow in Cape Town after a five week voyage. During this training cruise from Bremerhaven to South Africa 32 international young scientists were trained in how to observe and measure the vital signs of the Atlantic Ocean.
Climate Change
Warm water is mixing up life in the Arctic
AWI researchers’ unique 15-year observation series reveals how sensitive marine ecosystems in polar regions are to change
[19. November 2015]
The warming of arctic waters in the wake of climate change is likely to produce radical changes in the marine habitats of the High North. This is indicated by data from long-term observations in the Fram Strait, which researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) have now analysed. Their most important finding: even a short-term influx of warm water into the Arctic Ocean would suffice to fundamentally impact the local symbiotic communities, from the water’s surface down to the deep seas. As the authors recently reported in the journal “Ecological Indicators”, that’s precisely what happened between 2005 and 2008.
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