Archive of News and Press Releases
AWI Scientist Antje Boetius honoured
Professor Antje Boetius, Alfred Wegener Institute, was elected as Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences. Furthermore, she will be awarded the Goldschmidt Medal 2016 due to be presented in Japan.
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We are on the way – finally!
That’s what we’ve been heading for since weeks and months – finally it’s real! In the early evening on the 13th June 2016 we set sail for the long passage from Bremerhaven to the Arctic. We, that is 45 crew members and a total of 51 scientists, engineers, technicians and students with the common goal to conduct multidisciplinary investigations in the atmosphere, the water column and at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean.
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New equipment for the AWI - "Gardener"
Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) are setting out with the research vessel Polarstern towards Spitsbergen, to use newly developed equipment in the Arctic Ocean. Autonomous instruments on the seabed, in the water column and in the air will complement the long-term measurements of the deep-sea research group. In this way researchers can analyse the climatic changes in the Arctic and their impact on the fauna in the future with higher temporal and spatial resolution.
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Helmholtz Association adopts open access policy
Scientific publications involving scientists from the Helmholtz Association should be freely available to the public. This is the intention of a new open access policy recently adopted by the Assembly of Members of Germany’s largest research organisation. According to this policy, publications in the natural sciences should be made available free of charge within six months at the latest; in the humanities and social sciences the deadline is twelve months.
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The Expedition PS 99 from Bremerhaven to Tromsø
The RV Polarstern expedition PS99 to the Arctic will start on 13 June 2016 in Bremerhaven and lead to study areas northwest of Bear Island, south of Spitsbergen and in the central and eastern Fram Strait.
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Biological studies on the shelves off the Antarctic Peninsula
The waters around the Antarctic Peninsula are characterized by significant environmental changes and pronounced natural gradients in physical characteristics. The journal Polar Biology has now dedicated a special issue to this region. The articles in the issue report a wide range of results on the ecology of the Southern Ocean.
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Research vessel Polarstern expected in Bremerhaven
On Wednesday, 11 May 2016, the research vessel Polarstern is expected back in its home port of Bremerhaven after a good six months of Antarctic expeditions. In the austral summer, the research vessel of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), penetrated into the southern Weddell Sea as far as the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, where oceanographic and biological work was the focus. In addition, the expedition members provided logistical support for a research camp there.
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Pacific stores the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide at depths of thousands of metres
An international team of researchers headed by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute has gained new insights into the carbon dioxide exchange between ocean and atmosphere, thus making a significant contribution to solving one of the great scientific mysteries of the ice ages. In the past 800,000 years of climate history, the transitions from interglacials and ice ages were always accompanied by a significant reduction in the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. It then fell from 280 to 180 ppm (parts per million). Where this large amount of…
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Training in Sediment Acoustics
On Tuesday, May 3rd, a group of 20 Masters and PhD students and 5 instructors boarded the R/V Polarstern in Las Palmas. Some of those who have already been on board from Punta Arenas for more than three weeks, took the occasion to make a short shore leave.
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Daily up and down of the plankton animals in the sea
A unique series of measurements taken over several years in the Antarctic Ocean provide new findings about the daily vertical migration of zooplankton communities: scientists of the Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries in Hamburg and the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven observed changes during the year and between years. The Antarctic zooplankton is the main source of food for many fish and whale species, including the largest mammal in the world, the blue whale.
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