News

Australia, New Zealand, Fiji: Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is traveling to the key region of the Indo-Pacific. AWI scientist Markus Rex is part of the delegation trip from May 1 to 7. At a meeting with New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters, Markus Rex, representing the AWI, signed a Memorandum of Arrangement (MoA) with New Zealand's Antarctic Authority on cooperation in the Antarctic. The core of the Antarctic Treaty System is international cooperation in science. Further information.

During the annual Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) in Scotland, Dirk Mengedoht, Logistics Coordinator at the AWI for land expeditions and stations in the Arctic, was elected as the new Chairman of the Forum of Arctic Research Operators (FARO). During his three-year term of office, Dirk Mengedoht intends to focus primarily on the transparency and networking of various committees and initiatives with FARO in order to better combine parallel approaches, e.g. with regard to safety in the field. 

After 10 years, the "NF-POGO Centre of Excellence in Observational Oceanography" program for the international promotion of young scientists at the AWI is moving on to Canada. The end of the project was celebrated at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. 100 alumni of the program from all over the world were invited to the evening event, 73 of whom were able to attend. AWI Deputy Director Karen Wiltshire hosted the evening, which was celebrated in the museum's dinosaur hall.

POLARIN (Polar Research Infrastructure Network) - the new EU project at the AWI has now officially started: The kick-off meeting took place from April 17 to 19 in Bremerhaven. Almost 100 representatives came together to discuss the implementation of the project. The aim of POLARIN is to establish an international network of polar research infrastructures and their services in order to tackle the scientific challenges of the polar regions. 

The Green Party parliamentary group visited the AWI on April 24. They were welcomed by Karen Wiltshire, Vice-Director of the AWI and Director of the Biological Institute Helgoland and the Wadden Sea Station Sylt. After a joint exchange, the group visited the newly built Technikum.

A decade of excellence: Over the past ten years 100 scholars from 47 countries to become experts in marine science were trained at the Alfred Wegener Institute. This highly effective programme funded by the Nippon Foundation and the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO) and the Alfred Wegener Institute is successfully completed. This is a perfect occasion to celebrate all candidates and their teachers, and the graduation of the ten current participants from ten different countries in Berlin at the Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz…

At depths of more than 4,000 meters, cold, dense water masses from the Southern Ocean flow northwards into the large ocean basins, such as the Atlantic. This Antarctic bottom water drives deep-sea currents all over the world and circulates water masses to transport oxygen far down into the depths. An international research team, including the Alfred Wegener Institute, has now discovered that ocean currents have weakened by around twelve per cent due to the Antarctic bottom water. The study is published in Nature Geoscience.

The Ambassador of Chile, Magdalena Atria, visited the AWI on 17 April 2024 to attend the kick-off meeting of the new EU project POLARIN, in which the Chilean Antarctic Institute INACH is involved as a partner. She was welcomed by AWI Vice Director Uwe Nixdorf and AWI scientists. After a guided tour through the AWI building D, the participants talked about the long-standing collaboration and the various joint research projects.

In climate research, medicine, or the exploration of new materials for the energy transition, huge amounts of data are being generated. However, their full potential can only be realized if scientists can analyze ever-larger amounts of data. A new generation of AI foundation models is now poised to tackle a range of major challenges in science. The Alfred Wegener Institute is involved in two of the four pilot projects funded by the Helmholtz Association, one in a leading role. Helmholtz is funding the projects and the necessary infrastructure with around…

AWI Director Antje Boetius, Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger and her French counterpart Sylvie Retailleau are currently visiting the German-French research base AWIPEV in Ny-Ålesund for three days together with the Norwegian State Secretary Sindre Lysø. "We are here in a region that has warmed six times faster than the global average over the last 40 years," says Antje Boetius. "Despite these worrying findings, I am always inspired by the hope that the scientists show."