Archive of News and Press Releases
Crossing the equator
On Tuesday last week, the route of Polarstern towards its home base crossed the equator. Shortly after that we also traversed the “atmospheric equator”, the so-called Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), which is usually associated with heavy rain showers and thunderstorms.
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Through the humid southern trade winds
We are now in the second week of our cruise back to Bremerhaven and have already nearly reached the equator. For the last few days, we have experienced tropical weather conditions with temperatures around 28°C and high humidity.
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The Arctic is facing a decline in sea ice that might equal the negative record of 2012
Sea ice physicists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), are anticipating that the sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean this summer may shrink to the record low of 2012. The scientists made this projection after evaluating current satellite data about the thickness of the ice cover. The data show that the arctic sea ice was already extraordinarily thin in the summer of 2015. Comparably little new ice formed during the past winter. Today Dr Marcel Nicolaus, expert on sea ice, has presented these findings at…
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Bionic Lightweight Design researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute at Hannover Messe 2016
Researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) will introduce their latest developments in the field of bionic lightweight design at Hannover Messe from 25 to 29 April 2016. Their focus is on the ELiSE lightweight construction method, which uses structures from nature to gain a developmental edge over methods that start from scratch. The industry is currently looking for lightweight reinforcement of complex flat and 3D-components. The AWI researchers have developed and built a holo pyramid that allows them to demonstrate the different procedures to…
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Beginning the return voyage
The last cruise section of this year’s Antarctic season for Polarstern started on 10 April 2016 in Punta Arenas and will end on 12 May in Bremerhaven. Until Las Palmas, we have 14 scientists on board who are mainly studying the atmosphere above the ship. Another group takes care of the transport of king crabs. In Las Palmas 25 additional people will board our vessel for an echosound training course.
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The Expedition PS98 from Punta Arenas to Bremerhaven
The transfer cruise PS98 from Punta Arenas to Bremerhaven ends the 2015/16 summer season of Antarctic research.
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Towards the Strait of Magellan
For both crew and scientists the last week of our Polarstern expedition PS97 required everyone to dig deep. A varied geological, geophysical and oceanographic work program was accompanied, or shall we say interrupted, by two major storms.
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Six to ten million years ago: Ice-free summers at the North Pole
An international team of scientists led by the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) have managed to open a new window into the climate history of the Arctic Ocean. Using unique sediment samples from the Lomonosov Ridge, the researchers found that six to ten million years ago the central Arctic was completely ice-free during summer and sea-surface temperature reached values of 4 to 9 degrees Celsius. In spring, autumn and winter, however, the ocean was covered by sea ice of variable extent, the scientists explain…
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Back at the Chilean Continental Margin
After a successful second traverse of the Drake Passage for both the biological and geological work groups we once again approach coastal waters.
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The Drake Passage – Second Traverse
During the fifth week of our Polarstern expedition PS97 we left the Antarctic Peninsula area close to Elephant Island to start our second Drake Passage traverse toward South America.
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