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The Polarstern recently ended a two-month expedition in the Central Arctic in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. The international and interdisciplinary research team, led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, focused on the summer melting of Arctic sea ice in three different regimes. The comprehensive inventory revealed major differences between the various sea ice regimes and a low sea ice concentration in the study area. In addition, bacteria and zooplankton dominated the biological communities, while the expected ice algae could hardly be found. 

Just exactly how internal clocks function in zooplankton in the open sea at the mechanistic and molecular level is the core question the BICLOPS junior research group is addressing. Over the next five years, the European Research Council (ERC) will be funding the group led by AWI biologist Sören Häfker to the tune of €1.5 million. 

Some Fourteen thousand years ago, algal blooms in the Southern Ocean helped to massively reduce the global carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere – as has now been revealed by new analyses of ancient DNA published by a team from the Alfred Wegener Institute in the journal Nature Geoscience. In the ocean around the Antarctic continent, these algal blooms had a significant impact on global carbon dynamics. The current and expected future decline in sea ice in this region now poses a serious threat to these algae, which could incur global consequences.

Since the mid-1990s, the Greenland ice sheet has been losing mass, leaving only three floating tongues remaining. One of these, Nioghalvfjerdsbræ or the 79°N Glacier, is already showing the first signs of instability. In addition to the warm ocean water, which is increasingly thinning the ice from below, the runoff of meltwater on the surface is also playing an increasingly significant role. In a new study, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute investigated how - caused by global warming -  a 21 km2 large meltwater lake formed and developed on…

A unique ice core is currently being examined in the Alfred Wegener Institute's ice laboratory: the oldest continuous ice core that has ever been drilled on Earth. As part of the EU-funded Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice project, a research consortium set up a drilling camp on the high plateau in East Antarctica in 2019. Up until January 2025, international teams drilled over 2,800 metres of continuous ice during the Antarctic summer months. This ice core includes air bubbles that enable direct measurements of greenhouse gases from the last 1.2 million years…

On Wednesday, 2 July 2025, the Polarstern will set sail from Tromsø, Norway, embarking on an expedition to the Arctic Ocean. Over the next two months, an international research team will analyse the feedback effects between global warming and sea ice retreat in the Arctic Ocean. The investigations will focus on the differences in the melting of various sea ice types – representing the Arctic of the past decades, the present and the future. A parallel airborne campaign will complement the measurements and, at the outset of the expedition, the Polarstern…

In the last few decades, the Arctic sea ice has receded ever further, including increasingly in winter when the extent of sea ice is at its most prominent. One of the main drivers of this development is thought to be the warming of Atlantic water that flows from Europe’s Norwegian Sea into the Arctic Ocean, passing through the Barents Sea and the Fram Strait in the process. However, not all the Atlantic water flowing into the Barents Sea reaches the sea ice. Part of the Atlantic water recirculates, i.e. by changing direction and flowing back into…

Antarctic krill is a key species in the Antarctic marine ecosystem: it is an important food source for many species, such as whales, seals and penguins. However, the small crustaceans are increasingly becoming the focus of fishing, which can incur significant consequences for the entire Southern Ocean ecosystem. Therefore, concepts that minimize the negative effects of fishing on the krill themselves and on the animals that feed on krill are required urgently. A research team from the Alfred Wegener Institute and the Norwegian Institute of Marine…

The world produces more than 460 million tons of plastic every year. Plastics are made from a wide variety of chemicals and polymers that are almost exclusively derived from fossil fuels. When they end up in the environment, they can cause lasting damage to us humans, the climate and our ecosystems. Plastics can now be found in even the remotest parts of our planet and throughout the human body. One approach currently being advocated as a way out of the crisis is plastic credits. An international consortium of experts, led by Sangcheol Moon of the…

On 29 May 2025, the Polarstern research vessel set sail from Bremerhaven for the Arctic. The destination of the 95 expedition participants, led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, is the AWI Hausgarten, a long-term observatory situated between Svalbard and Greenland. There they will investigate how the ecosystems of the Arctic deep sea are reacting to changing environmental conditions as a result of rapid climate change. The month-long expedition, which is scheduled to finish in Tromsø, Norway, at the end of June, will focus on benthic and plankton…