Archive of News and Press Releases
Beavers are changing the face of the Arctic
Beavers are highly effective ecosystem engineers: if a given landscape isn’t quite to their liking, they simply rearrange the terrain. And that’s what they’ve been doing for millennia in the temperate latitudes. But now they’re expanding their territory, and can increasingly be found in the North American Arctic. A German-American research team recently investigated the ramifications of this development. According to their findings, the animals could change entire ecosystems and contribute to the thawing of permafrost soils, as they report in the journal…
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Melting triggers melting
The melting of glaciers on one side of the globe can trigger disintegration of glaciers on the other side of the globe, as has been presented in a recent paper by a team of AWI scientists, who investigated marine microalgae preserved in glacial deposits and subsequently used their findings to perform climate simulations. The study highlights a process with alerting consequences for modern ice sheets: continuous warming of the ocean can result in a massive loss of polar ice mass, and consequently to rapid sea level rise.
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Research icebreaker Polarstern departs for the Fram Strait
On Tuesday, 10 July 2018 the research icebreaker Polarstern will leave its homeport in Bremerhaven, headed for the Arctic. The main focus of the journey will be on long-term oceanographic measurements and biological research in the water column and on the seafloor of the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard.
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Experiencing Science
This Thursday the SILBERSALZ Festival starts in Halle. For four days everything revolves around film screenings, virtual reality, apps and live performances on various scientific issues.
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An entire year trapped in the Arctic ice
It could be the largest-scale Arctic research expedition of all time: in September 2019 the German research icebreaker Polarstern will depart from Tromsø, Norway and, once it has reached its destination, will spend the next year drifting through the Arctic Ocean, trapped in the ice. A total of 600 people from 17 countries, who will be supplied by other icebreakers and aircraft, will participate in the expedition – and several times that number of researchers will subsequently use the data gathered to take climate and ecosystem research to the next level.…
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Why the tongue of the Pine Island Glacier suddenly shrank
The Pine Island Glacier in Western Antarctica is not only one of the fastest-flowing ice streams in the Southern Hemisphere; over the past eleven years, four major icebergs have calved from its floating tongue. In February 2017, researchers on board the German research icebreaker Polarstern successfully mapped an area of seafloor previously covered by shelf ice. A comparison of these new maps with satellite images of the ice stream reveals why the glacier suddenly retreated toward the coast: at important points, it had lost contact with the ground, as…
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Antarctica ramps up sea level rise
The findings are from a major climate assessment known as the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE), and are published today in Nature. It is the most complete picture of Antarctic ice sheet change to date - 84 scientists from 44 international organisations combined 24 satellite surveys to produce the assessment.
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The Final Strai(gh)t
On 5th June after leaving Las Palmas on Gran Canaria we again reduced our speed for 5 hours so that we could tow the Triaxus/topAWI for one final test. Thereupon followed a final comparison station with CTD and the optical measurements package. Thereafter, we were supposed to head to Bremerhaven with all haste and without further ado.
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![[Translate to English:] Eine neue Initiative der Vereinten Nationen will für einen besseren Schutz der Meere und Ozeane sorgen.](/fileadmin/_processed_/8/b/csm_20101201_ANTXXVII2_010_FRoedel_0093cec892.jpg "Action Platform for Sustainable Ocean Business")
AWI Director Antje Boetius advises United Nations initiative
The seas and oceans are climate machines, living and economic areas at the same time. They supply raw materials and food, serve as transport routes and recreational areas. But this space is also under threat: from littering and overfishing to global warming. To protect the oceans, the United Nations (UN) celebrates World Oceans Day on 8 June each year.
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How is the ecosystem around the Antarctic Peninsula changing?
In the autumn, the waters surrounding the Antarctic Peninsula were still home to large quantities of krill and salps, ready to spawn. Thanks to warmer water temperatures, the ice formation began later in the year, as a result of which single-celled algae, the chief food source for these organisms, were available in higher concentrations. How life in the Southern Ocean will adapt to such changes was a central topic during this year’s Antarctic season on board the research vessel Polarstern, which will end when, on Monday 11 June 2018, the ship returns to…
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