Archive of News and Press Releases
Salps, krill, and Elephant Island
The past week we have spent studying the waters around Elephant Island. Although this region is known for its harsh weather conditions we have been lucky and were able to continuously carry out our scientific experiments. The mood on board is very good and all working groups have made decent progress. .
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Research
AWI Director Antje Boetius welcomes a delegation of the University Laval, Canada, and the french research organisation CNRS. Scientists of both institutions present current and foreseen projects and discuss on future cooperation.
Antje Boetius is awarded the Vernadsky Medal 2018
The AWI-director, deep-sea scientist and leader of one of MPI’s research groups, Prof Dr Antje Boetius, receives the prestigious Vernadsky Medal for her groundbreaking contributions to biogeosciences and spearheading research on methane-based metabolisms and the marine carbon cycle.
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AWI researchers fulfil prominent roles in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has now announced the Lead Authors for its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), and experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) fulfil prominent roles in this regard: Prof. Hans-Otto Pörtner, an ecophysiologist at the AWI, has been Co-Chair (with Prof. Debra Roberts (South Africa) of the IPCC’s Working Group II since 2016. In addition, Dr Björn Rost and Prof. Dieter Piepenburg of the AWI have now agreed to serve as Lead Authors for individual chapters of…
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All around the South Shetland Islands
After leaving Admiralty Bay the days were dominated by stormy weather.
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Course Antarctica - departure into the polar autumn
The expedition PS112 started in the evening of the 18th of March from Punta Arenas, Chile, with 50 scientists and technicians from 7 nations on their way into the Southern Ocean. The destination: the South Shetland Island region around Elephant and King George Island at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
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Wandering greenhouse gas
On the seafloor of the shallow coastal regions north of Siberia, microorganisms produce methane when they break down plant remains. If this greenhouse gas finds its way into the water, it can also become trapped in the sea ice that forms in these coastal waters. As a result, the gas can be transported thousands of kilometres across the Arctic Ocean and released in a completely different region months later. This phenomenon is the subject of an article by researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, published in the current issue of the online journal…
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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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