News

In cooperation with the Alfred Wegener Institute scientists at DESY, a Research Centre of the Helmholtz Association, have developed novel lenses that enable X-ray microscopy with record resolution in the nanometre regime.

A special issue in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences presents new research efforts towards a predictive understanding of Arctic climate change and its linkage with Eurasian mid-latitude climate and weather.

How can the oceans help satisfy the global demond for food. This question has been examined in the first Evidence Review Report by SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies) titled Food from the Oceans.

Permafrost makes up a quarter of the landmass in the Northern Hemisphere. Climate change means that Arctic coasts are thawing and eroding at an ever greater pace, releasing additional greenhouse gases. A large EU project, coordinated by the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), is now exploring the consequences for the global climate and for the people living in the Arctic. But that’s not all: working together with residents of the Arctic region, the researchers will also co-design strategies for the future in…

At an international workshop, nature conservation authorities and organisations, scientists and oyster farmers have founded a European network. Their goal is to reintroduce and restore stocks of the now rare and highly endangered native European oyster.

Researchers from several European institutions found that northern high-latitude cooling played a role in triggering the rapid termination of the African Humid Period 5500 years ago.

On 1 November 2017 Prof Antje Boetius will assume leadership of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). She will succeed Prof Karin Lochte, who has led the Institute for the past ten years.

In November 2017, the German research network on ocean acidification BIOACID (Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification) reaches its conclusion after eight years of extensive interdisciplinary scientific activity. Experiments and analyses carried out by more than 250 scientists from 20 German institutions clearly indicate that ocean acidification and warming, along with other environmental stressors, impair life in the ocean and compromise important ecosystem services it provides to humankind. A brochure summarises major outcomes of the project for…

Following a five-month journey, the research vessel Polarstern returned to its homeport in Bremerhaven on the evening of Friday, 13 October. During the most recent expedition, the vessel reached the 79 North Glacier in Northeast Greenland, where the researchers on board investigated how the ocean temperature, which has been rising over the past twenty years, has affected the glacier’s mass.

The 1st of October 2017 marks the ten-year anniversary since the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) research aircraft Polar 5 began service. In that time, the Basler BT-67 has flown more than 1.3 million kilometres to fulfil essential scientific and logistical duties. In the course of 48 measuring campaigns, predominantly for atmospheric research and geophysics purposes, the airplane has landed on the Arctic sea ice near the North Pole, and at the South Pole.