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Climate goals: why a crisis can still be avoided - AWI director Antje Boetius gave a lecture on this topic at the Schwarzkopf Foundation. Afterwards she discussed with the audience what each individual can do to get involved in climate protection.

AWI director Antje Boetius presented the MOSAiC expedition in a lecture at the autumn event of the Brussels-based Helmholtz office. The event was titled "Understanding tomorrow's climate: What science can tell us."

Strengthen cooperation and create connections: Together with AWI employees, Antje Boetius and Karsten Wurr welcomed the ambassador of the Republic of Chile in Germany, Cecilia Mackenna Echaurren, and the honorary consul, Reinhard R. Kütter, to the AWI.

In recognition of her outstanding scientific contributions, Prof Antje Boetius, Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, was recently awarded the “2019 Erna Hamburger Prize”. 

AWI Director Antje Boetius will be giving a talk at the Falling Walls Conference on 9.11. On the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, top scientists from all over the world meet there each year to exchange ideas about forward-looking research.

Permafrost coasts make up about one third of the Earth’s total coastline. As a result of accelerated climate change, whole sections of coastline rapidly thaw, and erode into the Arctic Ocean. A new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters now shows that large amounts of carbon dioxide are potentially being produced along these eroding permafrost coastlines in the Arctic.

In the past million years, the high-altitude winds of the southern westerly wind belt, which spans nearly half the globe, didn’t behave as uniformly over the Southern Pacific as previously assumed. Instead, they varied cyclically over periods of ca. 21,000 years. A new study has now confirmed close ties between the climate of the mid and high latitudes and that of the tropics in the South Pacific, which has consequences for the carbon budget of the Pacific Southern Ocean and the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The study was prepared by Dr…

A great honour for Prof Antje Boetius: the deep-sea researcher and Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research was selected for the “LeibnizRingHannover 2019”, a prize bestowed by the Hannover Press Club. 

A reconstruction of 25,000 years of South Ocean carbon chemistry, using micro-fossils buried in sediments, shows sub-Antarctic waters have played a key role in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Chemical changes measured in micro-fossil shells, as well as sediments, showed that different regions of the Southern Ocean varied in terms of their circulation, chemistry and biological productivity during the last glacial-interglacial cycle. This resulted in regional variations in the exchange of carbon dioxide (CO2)…

At this year’s annual meeting, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) will continue its negotiations regarding the establishment of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Weddell Sea. Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute were instrumental in preparing the application for the European Union (EU), which was submitted in 2016. In addition to the EU and its Member States, Norway has since joined as a co-supporter.