News

On Whit Monday, 24 May 2021, the Polarstern will set sail for the Arctic. In Fram Strait, between Greenland and Svalbard, more than 50 participating scientists will resume the long-term observations that began at the AWI HAUSGARTEN more than 20 years ago. Here they will investigate the effects of environmental changes on the Arctic’s deep-sea ecosystem.

Normally, mountain forests are among the most diverse habitats in alpine regions. Yet, as a team from the Alfred Wegener Institute discovered in the Tibetan Plateau, the higher, treeless areas are home to far more species. Their findings, which were just published in the journal Nature Communications, can help to predict how the biodiversity of alpine regions will decline in response to global warming – when the mountain forests spread to higher elevations.

AMAP - The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program has published a report on the state of the Arctic on the Arctic Council Minsterial. AWI scientists Melanie Bergmann, Gunnar Spreen, Sebastian Primpke and Ilka Peeken have made significant contributions to the development AMAP guidelines and a plan for monitoring microplastics and litter in the Arctic, to support the Arctic Council Marine Litter Regional Action Plan. The most important messages of the report are summarized in a video.

They research how climate models can be improved or how metastases can be identified more quickly: Six young scientists have been awarded the 2020 Helmholtz Doctoral Prize. AWI scientist Nils Hutter was awarded the title "Resolving Leads in Sea-Ice Models: New Analysis. Methods for Frontier Resolution Arctic Simulations" for his work. The award ceremony is available online.

Roughly two years after the groundbreaking ceremony on 18 April 2019, the shell for the AWI Technical Centre in the Klußmannstraße, Bremerhaven is now complete. Since the ongoing pandemic made a live topping-out ceremony impossible, the Alfred Wegener Institute marked the milestone for the new building with a video topping-out speech and greetings from prominent members of the political and research communities. The next planned steps, beyond interior work on the offices and conference rooms, especially include the construction of workshops and…

The "Arctic Science Ministerial" supports the Arctic Council and organizes ministerial meetings on Arctic topics. The 3rd Arctic Science Ministerial was organized by Iceland and Japan as an online event. AWI Director Antje Boetius and Volker Rachold, Head of the German Arctic Office, accompanied the Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Education and Research, Michael Meister. Using the example of the MOSAiC expedition, Mr. Meister emphasized the urgency of international cooperation in polar research.

Back-to-back successes: The Communications and Media Relations department of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) recently won the prize for the best scientific press release of the year 2020, awarded by the Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw). The prize recognises press releases that are characterised by a high degree of professionalism (quality), are of high value in terms of the news shared, and are also scientifically significant (relevance and originality). Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the awards…

New research from a large international community of scientists predicts that sea level rise from the melting of ice could be halved this century if we meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to 1.5°C.  

Ocean risks losing its ability to absorb carbon, exacerbating global warming. New Report published: “Integrated Ocean Carbon Research: A Summary of Ocean Carbon Knowledge and a Vision for Coordinated Ocean Carbon Research and Observations for the Next Decade” with contributions from AWI scientist Dr. Judith Hauck.

AWI project APPLICATE successfully comes to an end: After more than 4 years of research, the European Union funded project APPLICATE (Advanced Prediction in Polar regions and beyond) was completed on April 30, 2021. In the project led by the AWI, a team of experts for weather and climate prediction  from over 15 research institutes examined the relationships between the Arctic and mid-latitudes. The aim of the project was to improve weather forecasts for the polar regions. More information about APPLICATE.