Archive of News and Press Releases
What Earth's gravity reveals about climate change
On March 17, 2002, the German-US satellite duo GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) were launched to map the global gravitational field with unprecedented precision. After all, the mission lasted a good 15 years - more than three times as long as expected. When the two satellites burnt up in the Earth's atmosphere at the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018, respectively, they had recorded the Earth's gravitational field and its changes over time in more than 160 months.
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ROV in Antarctic waters
Where the Earth’s plates meet, there is evidence of their motion. An expedition of the Research Vessel Polarstern will explore this activity in the Southern Ocean in detail. The major focus of the expedition led by scientists from MARUM is to examine hot vents and cold seeps. This will be the first deployment of the remotely operated vehicle MARUM-QUEST in the Antarctic region. The start of the expedition is scheduled for 13 April 2019.
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Retrieving Climate History from the Ice
In the context of a major European Union project, experts from 14 institutions in ten European countries have spent three years combing the Antarctic ice, looking for the ideal site to investigate the climate history of the past 1.5 million years. Today, the consortium Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice (BE-OI), led by Olaf Eisen from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven, presented its findings at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna.
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End of work and journey home
During the past week, we finished our work in the Powell Basin, collected another glider and started our homeward journey to Punta Arenas. By now, we have reached the Strait of Magellan. Tomorrow morning, we will pick up the pilot for the passage through the Magellan Strait and into Punta Arenas where we should arrive in the afternoon.
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![[Translate to English:] Fig1_SatelliteImage_Polynya_Sentinel_de.jpg](/fileadmin/_processed_/0/3/csm_Fig1_SatelliteImage_Polynya_Sentinel_de_21e49c4d67.jpg "Fig1_SatelliteImage_Polynya_Sentinel_de.jpg")
The Transpolar Drift is faltering – and sea ice is now melting before it can leave the nursery
The dramatic loss of ice in the Arctic is influencing sea-ice transport across the Arctic Ocean. As experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research report in a new study, today only 20 percent of the sea ice that forms in the shallow Russian marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean actually reaches the Central Arctic, where it joins the Transpolar Drift; the remaining 80 percent of the young ice melts before it has a chance to leave its ‘nursery’. Before 2000, that number was only 50 percent. According to the…
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Western South Scotia Ridge
During the past week, science has focused on bathymetry, oceanography and heat flow/geology transects along the western end of the South Scotia Ridge between the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Orkney Plateau. Our work was only briefly interrupted by a gale-force storm that passed through our area.
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Polar research and Europe: new challenges and opportunities
The symposium in Lisbon was attended by high-ranking representatives of the Portuguese funding organisation and the University of Lisbon. Representatives from all over Europe and the European Commission were also present. AWI Director Antje Boetius gave the keynote speech.
Powell Basin
Out of the heavy sea ice of the Weddell Sea, we have spent the past week in open water and loose sea ice in the Powell Basin. So far, we have conducted a short bathymetric survey, deployed a lander, completed an oceanographic transect and collected geological and biological samples.
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Colonisation in Slow Motion
There is a wide variety of animals living on the Arctic seabed. Attached to rocks, they feed by removing nutrients from the water using filters or tentacles. But it can take decades for these colonies to become established, and they probably don’t achieve their natural diversity until much later. These are the findings of a unique 18-year study by researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), which has now been published in the scientific journal “Limnology and Oceanography”.
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ICES Service Award to AWI Biologist Jennifer Dannheim
The International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES) honors Jennifer Dannheim with the ICES Service Award for her work as Chair of the Working Group on Marine Benthal and Renewable Energy Developments (WGMBRED).