Archive of News and Press Releases
One-two punch against corals: how stress factors interact
A new study in the prestigious journal Science Advances shows that stress from rising water temperatures reduces ability of corals to adapt to ocean acidification.
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New Information Material on a Proposal for a Marine Protected Area in the Antarctic Weddell Sea
The goal of the international Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is to create a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean. In the course of revising the proposal to establish a Marine Protected Area in the Weddell Sea, researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute have also updated the fact sheet and short video about this proposal. The two publications illustrate why the Weddell Sea must be protected.
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Safely Navigating on the Ice
Driving across ice in a truck or snowcat is a dangerous undertaking. Especially since climate change means that the ice conditions are always unpredictable. But in the Arctic, it’s often the only way to reach your destination. With a new navigation system, known as “TransIce Nav”, Alexandra Zuhr and Tabea Rettelbach want to make journeys like this much safer in future. The two Potsdam-based researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), took the first prize in the prestigious European “Copernicus…
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South of the Roaring Forties - approaching Atka Bay
The expedition continues to work according to plan. A fact that is probably not very exciting for readers, thus, for us very enjoyable. The Roaring Forties were more like Wavy Forties, as the announced low-pressure area arriving from west brought less extreme wind speeds but instead a rather unpleasant wave. The thermometer dropped by more than 10 ° C within one day and finally down to the current 0 ° C.
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Successful start to the program
The new Helmholtz research program "Changing Earth - Sustaining our Future" was started with a digital kick-off meeting. AWI Director Antje Boetius opened the meeting in 2019/2020, Vice President of the Earth and Environment Research Area.The new research program coordinates the scientific work of seven Helmholtz research centers in the field of "Earth and Environment". The digital kick-off event is available online.
Wandering Icebergs
During glacial periods, icebergs from Antarctica drifted much further north than they do today. An international team led by Cardiff University and which included the AWI has now revealed how this was possible, and what consequences it had for the ocean. Their study found that the transport of frozen freshwater had effects in regions as far away as the Northern Hemisphere and the deep Atlantic. The impacts on the evolution of climate at that time are subject of on-going research.
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South of the Equator – North of the Roaring Forties
We continue the voyage according to the plan. We received the result of the third smear test for CoV-2 that we sent from Las Palmas to Bremerhaven. They were all negative, Antarctica here we come! We will probably arrive within short time.
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Crossing the Equator
After we had sent the 3rd CoV-2 swab from Las Palmas to Bremerhaven, Polarstern continues its journey southwards. The weather is increasingly summerly. Near the Canary Islands, the thermometer already shows 18 ° C, we pass the Cape Verde Islands at 26 ° C, a cloudless sky and a gentle swell of 2 meters from the north. The hard-earned “sea legs” can rest for now, it could really be worse.
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The new face of the Antarctic
In the future, the Antarctic could become a greener place and be colonised by new species. At the same time, some species will likely disappear. 25 researchers recently presented these and many other findings in a major international project, in which they analysed hundreds of articles on the Antarctic published in the past ten years. By doing so, the team have provided an exceptionally comprehensive assessment of the status quo and future of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean that surrounds it.
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Introduced Alga Now Transforming the Wadden Sea
The alga Vaucheria velutina has been chosen “Alga of the Year 2021”. The Phycology Section of the German Society for Plant Sciences recently elected this introduced species “due to its sudden dominance and the unforeseeable ecological impacts” that its novel appearance in the northern Wadden Sea could entail. Mud gets trapped in the tube-like filaments of this alga, while other species of Vaucheria only thrive in salt marshes. As a result, lugworm burrows become clogged, and this eventually is transforming the Wadden Sea ecosystem. Coastal scientist Prof…
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