Archive of News and Press Releases

Weekly report

Ice-free diet for copepods

How will the Arctic ecosystems react on climate change – how will they change as a consequence of the ongoing summer sea ice decrease? These are the questions moving our biologists and therefore they study flora and fauna in the sea ice, the water and at the sea floor. Hence our transects through the Arctic contain also net hauls and a considerable part of the water from the rosettes goes to the biologists.
Award winner Dr Moritz Langer
Online news

Reinhard Süring Foundation honours permafrost researcher Moritz Langer

AWI permafrost researcher Moritz Langer received the climate award of the Reinhard Süring Foundation. The award is endowed with a prize money of 1500 euro and honours Langer outstanding study: Satellite-based modeling of permafrost temperatures in a tundra lowland landscape, published in the scientific journal Remote Sensing of Environment.
Online news

Study on changes of past climate

The northern Antarctic Circumpolar Current’s flow speed in the Drake Passage was reduced by 40 % during the last glacial in comparison with the present interglacial. This is one result of a study by Dr. Frank Lamy from the Alfred-Wegener-Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and colleagues in this week’s “Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences of the United States of America” (PNAS).
Press releases

Climate scientists meet in Bremen

Understanding regional climate change, identifying the consequences and discussing the effects. The REKLIM research association’s fifth regional conference this year focuses on coastal regions. What effect does climate change have on areas between land and sea, and what are the consequences? Researchers from the Helmholz Association’s research consortium REKLIM “Regional Climate Change” discuss with representatives from politics and business the challenges facing society as a result of climate change.
Weekly report

Using ice as a buoy

Our last ice station started September 22. This time we had also to consider limitations by the daylight since at 85°N the sun goes back to have a daily cycle again.
Online news

New Tsunami scenarios for Indonesian Early Warning System

The earthquake and tsunami in Chile a few days ago show how important a precise early warning system is. Scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute support Indonesians to create new tsunami scenarios for the northeast of the archipelago.
Press releases

Marine biologists from around the globe meet on Helgoland

The 50th European Marine Biology Symposium takes place on Helgoland from 21th to 25th September 2015. Around 200 participants from 24 countries meet to discuss long-term changes to environmental conditions and ecosystems. This jubilee is a return to the roots: In 1966, the Biological Institute Helgoland hosted the first of these symposiums, which have since been held annually at different locations.
Weekly report

Searching for suitable ice

On Friday evening we spent three hours searching for an ice floe. Not that there was no ice – just as during the whole cruise so far, also now our progress is hampered by huge ice floes that we have to circumvent, and ridges that we have to pass by ramming.
Press releases

Sea-ice zone has a major influence on the ecosystem

In the last 30,000 years there was, at times, more mixing in the Southern Ocean than previously thought. This meant that vast quantities of nutrients were available to phytoalgae, which in turn contributed to storing the greenhouse gas CO2 during the last glacial period. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) present these new findings in a study published in the journal Nature Communications.
Online news

30 years of healing the ozone together

Today is the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.