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Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awarded Prof. Dr. Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten and Prof. Dr. Michail Nikolaewitsch Grigoriev the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of their longstanding work in the field of German-Russian cooperation.

MOSAiC expedition leader Markus Rex gave a lecture on the Arctic research expedition at the SMM. The trade fair is considered the world's leading trade fair for the maritime industry and was held as a purely digital conference for the first time this year. The patron of SMM Digital was the Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel. The MOSAiC lecture is available online.

Due to construction work in the sea, shipping, and gas and oil extraction, the oceans are becoming increasingly louder. A comprehensive international study has now shown that this noise affects the behaviour of far more animal species than previously assumed. The researchers call for us to listen closely to the ocean and to finally regulate noise worldwide. Viable technological solutions are already available.

The Arctic Ocean was covered by up to 900 m thick shelf ice and was filled entirely with freshwater at least twice in the last 150,000 years. This surprising finding, reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature, is the result of long-term research by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute and the MARUM. With a detailed analysis of the composition of marine deposits, the scientists could demonstrate that the Arctic Ocean as well as the Nordic Seas did not contain sea-salt in at least two glacial periods. Instead, these oceans were filled with…

The Alfred Wegener Institute has risen to the challenge of undertaking an expedition to the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic under pandemic conditions. Consequently, the participants in this year’s first Polarstern expedition will be able to resume their long-term measurements in the Southern Ocean, gathering data that forms the basis for our understanding of polar processes and for urgently needed climate forecasts.

A new study in the prestigious journal Science Advances shows that stress from rising water temperatures reduces ability of corals to adapt to ocean acidification.

The goal of the international Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is to create a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean. In the course of revising the proposal to establish a Marine Protected Area in the Weddell Sea, researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute have also updated the fact sheet and short video about this proposal. The two publications illustrate why the Weddell Sea must be protected. 

Driving across ice in a truck or snowcat is a dangerous undertaking. Especially since climate change means that the ice conditions are always unpredictable. But in the Arctic, it’s often the only way to reach your destination. With a new navigation system, known as “TransIce Nav”, Alexandra Zuhr and Tabea Rettelbach want to make journeys like this much safer in future. The two Potsdam-based researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), took the first prize in the prestigious European “Copernicus…

The new Helmholtz research program "Changing Earth - Sustaining our Future" was started with a digital kick-off meeting. AWI Director Antje Boetius opened the meeting in 2019/2020, Vice President of the Earth and Environment Research Area.The new research program coordinates the scientific work of seven Helmholtz research centers in the field of "Earth and Environment". The digital kick-off event is available online.

During glacial periods, icebergs from Antarctica drifted much further north than they do today. An international team led by Cardiff University and which included the AWI has now revealed how this was possible, and what consequences it had for the ocean. Their study found that the transport of frozen freshwater had effects in regions as far away as the Northern Hemisphere and the deep Atlantic. The impacts on the evolution of climate at that time are subject of on-going research.