Archive of News and Press Releases
How to find an eddy
On HAUSGARTEN cruises we typically study and sample the oceanographic conditions and the biological communities on a relatively large scale. Consecutive stations are often separated by 20-40 km or more. However, many important processes and physical-biological interactions take place on much smaller spatial scales. In order to show how new measurement and sampling techniques capable of achieving a high horizontal resolution in combination with interdisciplinary cooperation can study such small scale processes, we decided to launch a complementary…
Find out more
Into the unknown - high altitude research aircraft explores the upper levels of the Asian Monsoon
The Asian Monsoon System is one of the Earth’s largest and most energetic weather systems, and monsoon rainfall is critical to feeding over a billion people in Asia. An international team of scientists led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) is now conducting the first-ever scientific mission to the upper levels of the monsoon system, using a high-altitude research aircraft flying out of Nepal. The results will help to better understand how this important weather system affects global climate and how it…
Find out more
Finally, we are let loose
In the late afternoon of June 23rd we (48 scientists, engineers, technicians and students from eleven nations) departed from Tromsø and enjoyed the marvellous weather. The sun was shining from a blue sky while POLARSTERN passed the fjords towards the North-Atlantic. Finally, we are let loose. In particular, the newbies are thrilled by this new experience of being on a research vessel heading to the Arctic. We set course north and when reaching the open Atlantic and the midnight sun was hiding behind a deep cloud cover, we all were looking forward for our…
Find out more
Week 9: Fish!
As soon as we reached the more open marginal sea ice zone in the Barents Sea east of Svalbard, we could finally start fishing with the bottom trawl. Most parts of our area of investigation had a closed pack-ice cover reaching far south onto the Svalbard and Barents Sea shelves. This heavy sea ice situation had forced us to postpone most of the bottom trawl fishing to the end of the expedition. This postponement was a hard challenge for the fisheries biologists on board. During the ~ 1 ½ days of steaming from the last CTD transect to the Barents Sea, the…
Find out more
Week 8: Returning to Svalbard
After concluding our 4th ice station at the northernmost location of this expedition, Polarstern set a south-westerly course, heading for the position of our well-known PASCAL ice floe of PS 106/1. This time, many open leads allowed a mostly gentle passage through the ice. Our journey was inter-spaced with stations where we set out Polarstern’s rubber boats Laura and Luisa to sample the surface microlayer, conducted CTD casts and performed hauls with our full range of zooplankton and under-ice fauna sampling gear: LOKI with AquaScat, Multinet, RMT and…
Find out more
Time to rise and shine
The copepod species Calanus finmarchicus schedules its day using a genetic clock that works independently of external stimuli. The clock shapes the copepod’s metabolic rhythms and daily vertical migration. This in turn have an enormous influence on the entire food web in the North Atlantic, where Calanus finmarchicus is a central plankton species. Wherever the high-calorie copepod is, determines where its predator species are. The results of the study will be published in the journal Current Biology.
Find out more
Antarctic biologists meet in Belgium
Antarctic scientists from all over the world meet in Leuven, Belgium, from July 10th to 14th. “Scale matters” is the overarching theme of the 12th biology symposium organized by SCAR, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. From the small molecular scale, through population and large ecosystem scale, biological processes and diversity span all these levels, and the contributions are accordingly variable.
Find out more
Week 7: In the deep Arctic Ocean
During our northward transect, Polarstern bit its way through heavy sea ice, hard as concrete and covered with a thick layer of snow. This altogether slowed down our progress into the north significantly. During our journey in the thick ice across the deepening Arctic Ocean, wildlife became scarcer and scarcer. Patches of Melosira arctica were only spotted rarely.
Find out more
Falling sea level caused volcanos to overflow
Throughout the last 800,000 years, Antarctic temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations showed a similar evolution. However, this was different during the transition to the last ice age: approximately 80,000 years ago, temperature declined, while the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere remained relatively stable. An international research team led by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the Alfred-Wegener-Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research has now discovered that a falling sea level may have…
Find out more
Week 6: From East Svalbard towards the deep Arctic Ocean
The past week we started in the marginal sea ice zone east of Svalbard, and then set course north into the central Arctic Ocean.The marginal sea ice zone was mostly covered with decaying sea ice and some larger ice-free areas. On this side of Svalbard we saw a lot more wildlife than in the westerly part. A large number of birds are constantly circling around the ship looking for fish, which can be spotted on overturning ice floes during ice breaking.
Find out more