News

AWI North Sea Office: Two new book publications on introduced species in German marine waters

[29. August 2023]  Increasingly, marine organisms from all over the world are being carried into German coastal waters by humans, whose diversity and ecology they can fundamentally change. For example, the German North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts are now characterized by non-indigenous marine organisms. Their occurrence and rate of introduction is used as an international assessment criterion for the ecological status of marine areas. In cooperation with the Schleswig-Holstein State Office for the Environment, the AWI North Sea Office has compiled an overview of all known introduced species in German marine areas: “Neobiota der deutschen Nord- und Ostseeküste - Eingeschleppte Arten in deutschen Küstengewässern”.

New study simulates greatly reduced permafrost

A glimpse of what our future climate could hold: During the warm mid-Pliocene, much of today’s near-surface permafrost was nowhere to be seen

[28. August 2023]  Many of the models used to make climate projections are unable to dynamically reflect permafrost. A new study involving experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute has for the first time applied an extensive ensemble of 17 climate models to quantify how said models portray permafrost in warm climates. Drawing on a comparison of models for a warm period during the mid-Pliocene roughly three million years ago, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the researchers conclude that the near-surface permafrost extent was less than 10 percent of that seen in the preindustrial era. 

Landmark in Antarctica named after AWI researcher

[18. August 2023]  During the last Antarctic season, British Polarstern expedition members Dr. Robert D. Larter and Dr. Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) discovered a new landmark in the Southern Ocean with one of the Polarstern helicopters. This cape is named in honour of the late AWI geologist Christian Hass.

Study sheds new light on threat to cold-water corals

The effects of climate change on cold-water corals are more complex than previously thought

[10. August 2023]  How are cold-water corals responding to the changing environmental conditions produced by climate change? When it comes to this question, to date, experiments have exclusively focused on mature cold-water corals. Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) recently explored the effects on corals at various younger developmental stages. What they found: Young and mature animals respond very differently to negative environmental influences. This aspect, they argue, urgently needs to be reflected in future research, forecasts and protective measures. The study was just released in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

Ice core drilling on Greenland reaches bedrock

International EGRIP research team drills climate archive from glacial ice to a depth of 2670 metres

[04. August 2023]  An international team of ice core researchers has reached bedrock while drilling through 2670 m thick ice in the EGRIP camp on the North Greenland Ice Sheet. This is the first time researchers have drilled a deep ice core through an ice stream. The EGRIP (East Greenland Ice core Project) is led by the Danish Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, and many researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute have participated in the drilling over the past seven years.

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