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The Alfred Wegener Institute’s project to “establish the sustainable production of seed oysters for a long-term reintroduction programme (PROCEED)” has now been named an official project of the UN Decade on Biodiversity. This honour is bestowed upon outstanding projects intended to preserve Germany’s biodiversity.

Late Monday morning, the time had come: the German research vessels Maria S. Merian and Sonne departed Bremerhaven, headed for the Arctic. In addition to the ship’s crews, roughly 100 passengers were on board: researchers and Polarstern crewmembers. The two ships will tentatively rendezvous with the Polarstern near Svalbard this weekend, so that their passengers can relieve the current MOSAiC team. A substantial amount of scientific material, equipment and provisions will also be transferred.

Lakes in the northernmost latitudes are widely considered to be a significant source of the greenhouse gas methane. In order to improve currently available climate-change projection models, it’s essential to have some idea of how much methane will be released by the millions of northern lakes. A German-American research team led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), which also included members from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), has now developed a method for determining the amount of methane…

Over the past quarter-century, changes in Antarctic sea-ice cover have had profound impacts on life on the ocean floor. As biologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute report in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications, between 1988 and 2014, total benthic biomass on the continental shelf of the northeast Weddell Sea declined by two thirds. In addition, the composition of the benthos changed drastically, and the ecosystem’s productivity suffered. This period coincides with a significant increase in sea-ice cover in the region, a trend that…

The live format "Coffee Break" goes into the next round: participants of the MOSAiC expedition report live on Instagram of their experiences in the Central Arctic. On May 7, from 4 p.m., Giulia Castellani and Ivo Beck chat over a cup of coffee about everyday life on a research ship and life on the polar night on the MOSAiC Instagram channel @mosaic_expedition. This Instagram live video enables viewers to be actively involved and to ask the speakers questions interactively.

Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) and the University of Oslo have determined that much of the permafrost that is currently still very cold might disappear by the end of the century. What’s new about their simulations: the inclusion of thermokarst processes. The outcomes of the study have just been released in the journal Nature Communications.    

Deep-sea mining could provide a way to address the increasing need for rare metals. However, its environmental impact is only partially known. In addition, there is a lack of clear standards to regulate mining and set binding thresholds for the impact on the organisms living in affected areas. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology together with colleagues at the Alfred Wegener Institute, the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, and other institutes now describe that deep-sea mining-related disturbances also have a…

Despite the current challenges, the MOSAiC expedition will continue. After many national borders were closed in response to the coronavirus pandemic, one team transfer had to be postponed. But thanks to new alternative plans supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the German Research Foundation and the operators of the German research fleet as well as the dedicated work of the expedition team currently on board, MOSAiC will soon enter its next phase. An interim review of the project shows: the data to be gathered over the next…

Why are emissions of the greenhouse gases methane and nitrogen so high outside the vegetation periods in permafrost regions? How do the carbon and nitrogen cycles and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions differ between the vegetation period and outside of it? And why do existing models of methane fluxes fail outside the vegetation period? Dr Claire Treat wants to provide answers to these questions with the FluxWin junior research group, which she is establishing and leading at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research…

The Arctic Ocean in summer will very likely be ice free before 2050, at least temporally. The efficacy of climate-protection measures will determine how often and for how long. These are the results of a new research study involving 21 research institutes from around the world including the Alfred Wegener Institute, coordinated by Dirk Notz from the University of Hamburg, Germany.