Archive of News and Press Releases
Working in Norske Trog
Meanwhile R/V Polarstern has worked her way toward the inner shelf of Northeast Greenland. We have reached the transition from Norske Trough to Westwind Trough, which is where the 79°N glacier meets the sea. In this region, sea ice often prevails the whole year round.
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Back at the Greenland Ice Shelf
In sunny weather and light sea ice conditions we find ourselves once again on the shelf of Greenland –this time in Norske Trough. In the beginning of the week we were able to accomplish most of the oceanographic, biological and biogeochemical workload planned along the zonal transect through central Fram Strait along 78°50’N. Subsequently we added to the mooring array deployed along the Greenwich Meridian in the second week of the expedition the southernmost mooring at 78°10’N.
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25 years of the Arctic Station in Svalbard
25 years ago, the German Arctic Station in Svalbard was officially opened by the former directors of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), Prof. Gotthilf Hempel and Dr Rainer Paulenz, as well as the BMBF State Secretary, Mr. Bernd Neumann.
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Questions about climate change
After having reached the northernmost point of the expedition at the end of last week, we moved southeastward across the East Greenland Current toward the continental shelf of Northeast Greenland, that we reached at the outlet of Westwind Trough.
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Turbulent recirculation
Meanwhile R/V Polarstern has reached the northernmost location planned for the GRIFF expedition. The last week was characterized by intense station work both in the West Spitsbergen Current and in central Fram Strait.
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The 100th expedition
In the evening of 18 July the research ice breaker Polarstern left the port of Tromsö (Norway) in cloudy and windy conditions to start its 100th expedition. On board there are scientists from 13 nations who cover the range from physical oceanography, geochemistry, geodesy, geology, geophysics, seismology, marine biology, biochemistry and mechanical engineering.
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Pathogenic bacteria hitchhiking to North and Baltic Seas?
With increasing water temperatures comes an increasing likelihood of potentially pathogenic bacteria appearing in the North and Baltic Seas. AWI scientists have now proven that a group of such bacteria known as vibrios can survive on microplastic particles. In the future, they want to investigate in greater detail the role of these particles on the accumulation and possible distribution of these bacteria.
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Long-awaited breakthrough in the reconstruction of warm climate phases
Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) have overcome a seeming weakness of global climate models. They had previously not been able to simulate the extreme warm period of the Eocene. One aspect of this era that particularly draws interests to climatologists: It was the only phase in recent history when greenhouse gas concentration was as high as researchers predict it to be for the future. The AWI scientists have now found that the apparent model weakness is due to a misinterpretation of the…
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“Groundwork”
As already announced in the last weekly report, today we will provide details about the work of the biogeochemists and biologists during “Polarstern” expedition PS99.2. Their goal is to investigate organisms and processes at the deep seafloor.
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One year alone in the deep sea of the Arctic
Far from any controls, an underwater robot has been working for the past few days in 2,500 metres of water on the seabed of the Arctic, after the completion of a successful test run. Researchers and engineers of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) have deployed the deep-sea crawler Tramper for a year-round, fully autonomous mission for the first time. The mobile underwater robot, which has been developed within the Helmholtz Alliance Robotic Exploration of Extreme Environments (ROBEX), will now perform weekly…
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