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Vast seasonal differences in climate history challenge modellers
The severe climate oscillations in the North Atlantic area during the last glacial period were a phenomenon of extreme winters - the summers were only slightly affected. This is the result of the examinations of research teams from the Netherlands, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, Bremerhaven, and the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel. It has now been published in the periodical “Nature Geoscience”.
The German Research Vessel Polarstern had to prove its ice breaking capabilities in Arctic waters to gain data on two series of long-term research measurements. After working in regions up to latitude 82° N, Polarstern of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association will enter port in Reykjavik (Iceland) on August 10th.
The head of the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, Prof. Dr. Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten, is the new president of the International Permafrost Association IPA. His appointment took place at the 9th International Conference on Permafrost in Fairbanks, Alaska. Prof. Hubberten will lead the International Permafrost Association for the next four years. During his term in office he will coordinate, among other things, the analysis of the scientific results of the International Polar Year.
After completing their simulation component in the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS), the team for tsunami modelling of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association has presented the currently leading software system for tsunami events with the potential for catastrophe.
The ice cover in the Arctic Ocean at the end of summer 2008 will lie, with almost 100 per cent probability, below that of the year 2005 – the year with the second lowest sea ice extent ever measured. Chances of an equally low value as in the extreme conditions of the year 2007 lie around eight per cent. Climate scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association come to this conclusion in a recent model calculation.
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