News

The international professional association Society for Underwater Technology (SUT) promotes research and knowledge transfer in underwater and marine technology. Every year, it presents the Gwyn Griffiths Underwater Robotics Award (GGUR), which recognises outstanding achievements in underwater robotics. We congratulate Christian Katlein, who received the award this year.

After an expedition lasting around one month, a hard-working international group of young marine scientists is arriving in Walvis Bai in Namibia on board the Polarstern. They have been taking part in a specialised training voyage aboard the German research icebreaker. 

On 8 December, the AWI signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the IBS Centre for Climate Physics at Pusan National University. The agreement strengthens the existing collaboration between Germany and South Korea in the areas of high-resolution earth system modelling, climate–ice sheet interactions, climate change physics and the promotion of young scientists.

An international team has set up a remote camp on the ice 700 km from the nearest base (New Zealand’s Scott Base), to attempt to drill for mud and rocks holding critical insights about the fate of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in our warming world.  

Bowhead whales likely reproduce beneath the sea ice northwest of Spitsbergen, while using the open water in the eastern Fram Strait as a migration corridor. This conclusion comes from researchers in the Ocean Acoustics Group at the Alfred Wegener Institute, who recorded the calls of bowhead whales using underwater recorders and analysed the records with artificial intelligence. Their study on bowhead whale habitat use in relation to sea-ice cover has now been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Cultural heritage is an important part of Bremerhaven's identity. In the event of damage caused by fire or water, the emergency network of Bremerhaven’s cultural and scientific institutions ensures that valuable objects are preserved. Staff from a total of 13 institutions, including Christian Salewski from the AWI, take care of securing and professionally treating the damaged cultural assets. For this purpose, a container with special cleaning and packaging materials is needed.

How does eye development work in invertebrates and what role does light play in the shaping of the adult nervous system? An international team led by the University of Vienna and the Alfred Wegener Institute has investigated these questions in marine bristleworms. The results show that the invertebrates' eye growth is based on a ring of neural stem cells and is regulated by ambient light even in adult worms. Such properties have previously mostly been investigated in vertebrates. The study was published in Nature Communications. To the University of…

The AWI has joined forces with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) to share an ice-capable vessel that will resupply three Antarctic research stations for the next ten years.  The Silver Mary will visit the Neumayer-Station III every other season, along with Norway’s Troll station and British Halley VI station The partnership builds on the successful UK-German partnership in 2023 and 2024. To the original press release from the BAS.

The fifth and final drilling campaign of the Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice project has just begun in Antarctica. At the remote field site of Little Dome C, 3,200 metres above sea level and with temperatures around –35°C, an international team of 15 scientists and logistics experts is engaged in drilling through the bedrock beneath the Antarctic ice sheet and retrieving duplicate ice samples collected during the previous season. These samples contain information on past climate conditions going back more than 1.2 million years. The project, led by the…

The SPD parliamentary group of the Bremen City Parliament visited the AWI in Bremerhaven. AWI Administrative Director Karsten Wurr welcomed the group and introduced the AWI as a research institute. The politicians were then given a tour of the AWI Technical Center, and Dr. Karsten Wurr and Dr. Uwe Nixdorf answered the guests' questions.