News

AWI scientist Sinhué Torres-Valdés observed the nutrient chemistry of the Arctic Ocean on an expedition as part of the PEANUTS project (Primary production driven by Escalating Arctic NUTrient fluxeS). The SCRIPPS Institution of Oceanography led the expedition in 2018. The results have now been published in a paper in the journal Nature Communications. The PEANUTS project is funded by the Changing Arctic Ocean Program (CAO).

The SCAR Krill Action Group, led by AWI biologist Prof. Bettina Meyer (SKAG), has an online meeting this week on: Evaluating change in Antarctic krill population.

When German coastal researchers head for the North Sea to measure the nutrient load in the water and, for the first time, whenever they use a scientific instrument, it is automatically recorded by an app, above all they’ll have the ingenuity of AWI sea-ice engineer Martin Schiller to thank for the new service. After taking part in a search operation in the Arctic, he developed FloeNavi, a system for navigating and locating measuring sites on sea ice. The AWI Computing Centre has since expanded the system’s most popular function into a separate app. Read…

Sponges: They are considered to be one of the most primitive forms of animal life, because they have neither locomotion organs nor a nervous system. A team around deep-sea scientist Antje Boetius has now discovered that sponges leave trails on the sea floor in the Arctic deep sea. They conclude that the animals might move actively - even if only a few centimetres per year. They are now publishing these unique findings in the journal Current Biology.

The High-Tech Forum has published its key recommendations for the future innovation strategy in Germany. Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius, Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research is a member of the central committee that advises the Federal Government on implementing the High-Tech Strategy 2025 and contributed to the report on the results. The Forum urges promoting and demanding greater courage and implementation strength in the service of the Sustainable Development Goals. It maintains that it is important to…

The German polar and marine research community pays him high respect and tribute. Prof. Dr Jörn Thiede, founding director of today's GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and long-time director of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, celebrates his 80th birthday today. Due to Corona, instead of a large festive event with many guests, many companions sent him their birthday wishes in personal video messages.

Stormy weather and strict hygiene regulations put the science crew to the test. After a delay of almost two days due to weather conditions and several days of scheduled quarantine, the captain of the HEINCKE gave the command "cast off" on Thursday morning and set course for Helgoland. The research team of the "North Sea Wrecks" project collected samples around the wreck of the warship SMS MAINZ off the North Sea island. They will be used to investigate the extent to which the ship from the First World War, which was sunk together with its ammunition,…

Scientists of the JPI Oceans project “MiningImpact” are embarking on a 6-week expedition to the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific. Their goal is to carry out independent scientific monitoring of the test of a pre-prototype nodule collector machine conducted in parallel from a second vessel by the Belgian company Global Sea Mineral Resources (GSR). “MiningImpact” fully adheres to good scientific practice and all data will be made publicly available. The findings of this integrated impact analysis will be transferred into…

Michael Gutsche has given the AWI three large-format photos on permanent loan. The photographer took the impressive nature photos during the Arctic expedition "MOSAiC". Together with AWI director Antje Boetius, Gutsche unveiled the photos at the institute's location in Bremerhaven. There they now adorn the walls in the foyer of building E and in the entrance area of buildings A / B / C. The images show, among other things, how quickly the weather conditions in the Arctic can change and how fragile this ecosystem is.

Every year, ten international scholarship holders from all corners of the globe come to the Alfred Wegener Institute’s two island-based sites. The POGO-Nippon Foundation Centre of Excellence trains them to become oceanography experts.