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The features of the ocean floor help determine how water masses and ocean currents move and how they affect our climate. Biodiversity is also influenced by seafloor landforms. Accordingly, having as precise information on the seafloor topography as possible is indispensable for oceanographic and climate research - and now available in a new map.

The Research Vessel Polarstern has been underway in the Arctic and Antarctic for 40 years now. To ensure this research is also possible in the future, and at the highest scientific and technological level, the BMBF has enabled the AWI to coordinate construction of a modern, high-performance and sustainable successor to the Polarstern, and to announce a corresponding call for tenders. Now that the federal budget for 2022 was approved by the German Bundestag, the construction procurement procedure for Polarstern II can begin.

Due to global warming, temperatures in the Arctic are climbing rapidly. As a result, the treeline for Siberian larch forests is steadily advancing to the north, gradually supplanting the broad expanses of tundra which are home to a unique mix of flora and fauna. AWI experts have now prepared a computer simulation of how these woods could spread in the future, at the tundra’s expense.

According to estimates, by 2040 the level of plastic pollution could reach 80 million metric tons per year. Plastic particles have now been detected in virtually all spheres of the environment, e.g. in water bodies, the soil and the air. Via ocean currents and rivers, the tiny plastic particles can even reach the Arctic, Antarctic or ocean depths. A new overview study has now shown that wind, too, can transport these particles great distances – and much faster than water can: in the atmosphere, they can travel from their point of origin to the most remote corners of the planet in a matter of days. In the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, an international team of researchers – including experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, the Institute for Advanced…

Even the High North can’t escape the global threat of plastic pollution. An international review study just released by the Alfred Wegener Institute shows, the flood of plastic has reached all spheres of the Arctic. The plastic is not only a burden for ecosystems; it could also worsen climate change. The study was just released in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.