Archive of News and Press Releases
Unique Insights into the Antarctic Ice Shelf System
The world’s second-largest ice shelf was the destination for a Polarstern expedition that ended in Punta Arenas, Chile on 14th March 2018. Oceanographers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, together with German and international colleagues, have collected important data along the entire glacier front of the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf, which will help them investigate the melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet in an important region in the context of global sea-level rise from a multi-disciplinary perspective.
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Across the Weddell Sea
Pteropods spend their life cycle in the water column. The organisms actively “fly” through the water, by using their feet, which transform into two wings. The Pteropods calcium shell is made of Aragonite, which makes them especially vulnerable to ocean acidification. The increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to an increased absorption of CO2 in the cold waters of the polar oceans and enhances the acidification there.
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Surveying the Arctic: Tracking down carbon particles
On 15 March, the AWI research aeroplane Polar 5 will depart for Greenland. Concentrating on the furthest northeast region of the island, an international team of researchers will spend the next four weeks studying how the Arctic is changing. In the course of the PAMARCMiP campaign they will measure the sea ice and the atmosphere between Greenland and Svalbard – on the ground, using a tethered balloon, and from the air. Their primary target: carbon particles.
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Kick-Off Meeting: Nansen Legacy
This week 160 researchers, research leaders, representatives from the Norwegian Research Council, stakeholders, industry, management and international cooperation partners were gathered in Tromsø. Amonst them AWI director Prof Antje Boetius and Arcitc scientist Dr Michael Karcher, both members of the project's Advisory Board.
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On thin ice in the warm Arctic
The Arctic sea ice continues to dwindle: Since the 1970s, when satellites first began monitoring the white sheet covering the Arctic Ocean, its February extent was never as small as it was this year. The reason: warm air intrusions, which are not only hitting the Arctic more frequently, but are also intensifying and reaching farther north.
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From the Northern Transect to Halley Bay
A third transect from this week now also covers the Northern part of the Filchner Depression. Net and water samples as well as short sediment cores kept all research groups on Polarstern busy 24 hours a day.
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Ice and water in the Filchner Depression
Favourable ice conditions and stable weather with southwesterly winds enabled Polarstern to go far south into the Filchner Depression and to cross directly in front of the Filchner Ice Shelf close to 44° W this week.
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Stagnation in the South Pacific
A team led by geochemist Dr. Katharina Pahnke from Oldenburg has discovered important evidence that the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at the end of the last ice age was triggered by changes in the Antarctic Ocean. The researchers from the University of Oldenburg's Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) were able to demonstrate that the deep South Pacific was strongly…
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From the Ronne Ice Shelf Polynya
During this week we completed a transect along the Ronne Ice Shelf front, extending from 50°W to 60°W. Every instrument on board has been used.
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Larsen C expedition
A team of scientists, led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS), heads to Antarctica to investigate a mysterious marine ecosystem that’s been hidden beneath an Antarctic ice shelf for up to 120,000 years.
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