Archive of News and Press Releases
EPOCA: Ocean Acidification and its Consequences on Ecosystems
The European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA) will be launched on 10 June 2008. Its goal is to document ocean acidification, investigate its impact on biological processes, predict its consequences over the next 100 years, and advise policy-makers on potential thresholds or tipping points that should not be exceeded.
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The Antarctic deep sea gets colder - RV Polarstern finished first Antarctic field season within the International Polar Year
The Antarctic deep sea gets colder, which might stimulate the circulation of the oceanic water masses. This is the first result of the Polarstern expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association that has just ended in Punta Arenas/Chile.
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Methane sources over the last 30,000 years – New insights into natural changes in atmospheric methane concentrations
Ice cores are essential for climate research, because they represent the only archive which allows direct measurements of atmospheric composition and greenhouse gas concentrations in the past. Using novel isotopic studies, scientists from the European Project for Ice Coring In Antarctica (EPICA) were now able to identify the most important processes responsible for changes in natural methane concentrations over the transition from the last ice age into our warm period. The study now published in the scientific magazine nature shows that wetland regions…
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Seven Months on a Drifting Ice Floe - Drift Expedition NP 35 has Produced Unique Data about the Hibernal Atmosphere above the Central Arctic
For the first time, a German has taken part in a Russian drift expedition. Jürgen Graeser, a 49-year-old scientific technician of the Potsdam Research Unit of the Alfred Wegener Institute, has spent seven months on an ice floe and gained observational data from a region, which is normally inaccessible during the Arctic winter.
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The response of marine algae to climate change: Young scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute gets EU funding in the amount of 1.4 million Euros
A new project at the Alfred Wegener Institute dealing with the impact of climate change on marine phytoplankton will be funded by the European Research Council ERC with 1.4 million Euros. With his project "PhytoChange" Dr. Björn Rost was among the 3% of successful applicants for the Independent Investigator Grant and succeeded against more than 9,000 competitors from all over Europe.
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European ice core project EPICA receives the European Union Descartes Prize for Collaborative, Transnational Research
The research project EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) is one of this year’s winners of the Descartes Prize for Research awarded by the European Union on the 12th of March in Brussels. The Descartes Prize for Research is endowed by 1.36 million Euro in total and is awarded to up to four European teams each year for outstanding transnational projects in natural sciences and humanities.
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Stratospheric ozone chemistry plays an important role for atmospheric airflow patterns
Still too much uncertainty in today’s climate models
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Half time in the International Polar Year 2007/08
Scientists present the most important results of polar and climate research at the 23rd International Polar Meeting in Münster from March 10 – 14, 2008.
Press conference on March 10 at 01:00 p.m.
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Helicopter crashed in Antarctica near the German research station Neumayer II
On Sunday morning one of the two helicopters of the German research vessel “Polarstern” crashed near the German Antarctic research station Neumayer II. Two people have been killed, three injured.
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Antarctic expedition provides new insights into the role of the Southern Ocean for global climate.
In the Southern Ocean, large quantities of surface-drifting plankton algae are able to significantly reduce the carbon dioxide content of the surface waters, which can affect the global carbon dioxide cycle. This is one of the results from an Antarctic expedition which has just drawn to a close in Cape Town on February 4, and which was led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, part of the Helmholtz Association.
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