News

Over the past decade, interest in using the marine coastal areas as a source of alternative, sustainable food production has grown significantly. A team of experts from 28 countries, including scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) has launched the SeaWheat project as a part of the EU program “COST” to modernise traditional aquatic diet from the coastal seas to make them more sustainable and healthier.

Over the next few decades, anthropogenic climate change and the resultant changes in the global water cycle will produce a significant rise in drought frequency in the Northern Hemisphere. An international team of scientists led by climate researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute arrive at this conclusion in a new study released today in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. The experts analysed climate simulations produced by the latest generation of models for three different emissions-and-development scenarios and investigated the…

The climatic and environmental history of our planet is hidden in the ice: it harbours information on the temperature development and atmospheric composition dating back centuries and even millennia. In the context of the project Beyond EPICA-Oldest Ice, an international team of researchers hopes to unlock that information – by retrieving a core sample from the deep ice of the Antarctic, which contains climate data from the past 1.5 million years. Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute make up part of the team. Initial drilling is about to begin.

Microplastics are everywhere, even in the most remote places. Where do these tiny pieces of plastic come from? Researchers from the University of Basel and the Alfred Wegener Institute have shown that it takes precise analysis to answer this question.

The aim of the "Seabed 2030" project is to bring together all available bathymetric data to produce the definitive map of the world ocean floor by 2030 and make it available to all. The AWI is an integral part of the Seabed 2030 project. On December 1st from 2 p.m. the "Map the Gaps Symposium" will be organized. Topics such as mapping and data processing technology, deep water exploration and alumni activities are shared and discussed. This year's event is virtually hosted by IOC Africa and all are welcome. 
Registration

Today, the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) publishes a new impulse paper on planetary health, on which AWI biologist Prof. Hans-Otto Pörtner worked as a member. With this paper, the WBGU wants to initiate a discussion on health and global sustainability. The results and insights gained from it are intended to inspire the preparation of the main report on this topic, which is scheduled for publication in 2023.
Further information

In response to climate change, the massive Thwaites Glacier in the West Antarctic is melting faster and faster. If it collapses completely, it could have catastrophic effects on the global sea level and the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. As part of a major international collaboration, in the year to come experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) plan to use seismic waves to take a peek underneath the gargantuan glacier and investigate the features of the ground that it flows over. The…

Hosted by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the International Vista Seminar 2021 will take place on November 17 under the title "Subsea floor processes and a sustainable ocean". There, AWI Director Antje Boetius will give a lecture at 3:00 p.m. on the topic "Hydrothermal vents and deep sea mining - are we interfering with the “origins of life”?". The event can be followed via livestream. 
Further information and livestream

The "Orchester des Wandels" is a non-profit association of musicians from all over Germany. Together they draw attention to climate change and deal with the climate crisis in creative concert formats. In the course of the UN climate conference COP26, the orchestra calls for immediate action: "COP26 act now!".
To the current video of the Orchestra of Change

 

Melting glaciers are a major contributor to global sea-level rise. In order to project the latter as precisely as possible, all relevant processes at work in the world’s large glaciers must be simulated as realistically as possible in computer models. In most simulations, the ice is exclusively depicted as a flowing body. But, as a new modelling study led by the Alfred Wegener Institute confirms, this approach neglects the ice’s qualities as a solid body. Accordingly, using the example of a glacier on the coast of Greenland, the experts showed that ocean…