Archive of News and Press Releases
Bubbling under the Arctic Seabed
The fate of permafrost - soil that is frozen for 2 or more years - is of huge importance for the global climate because of the large amounts of organic carbon stored in it, which can be released into the atmosphere as these soils start to thaw.
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Second REKLIM Conference: 23rd – 25th September 2019
The Helmholtz Climate Initiative „Regional Climate Change“ (REKLIM) invites to the 2nd International Conference „Our Climate - Our Future: Regional Perspectives on a Global Challenge“. Abstracts can be still submitted by May 31st.
The sleeping giant is waking
For years now, scientists have been investigating how the gradual thawing of near-surface permafrost, which takes place in the uppermost layers of Arctic soils and in the course of decades, will affect the release of previously frozen carbon to the atmosphere. Now an international team of researchers, including AWI researcher Prof Guido Grosse, has underscored the urgent nature of another phenomenon, which has only been sporadically investigated: the abrupt thawing of ice-rich permafrost, which can transform entire landscapes in only months of years…
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Half of the coral reefs have already been lost
The oceans are virtually as important as land-based ecosystems for human beings. Further, since the changes taking place underwater are far less visible than those on land, it was all the more important that the IPBES pay due attention to the oceans in its Global Assessment report. In the following, we present a commentary by Julian Gutt, one of the report’s lead authors and a marine biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).
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Active volcanoes of the South Sandwich Island Arc
We started the new week on Monday, 29th April, with a long dive to sample smoking chimneys and vent animals in the known hydrothermal field of the segment E2-South. Here we concentrated our efforts on the active vent systems around Dog’s Head, a complex structure consisting of 4 chimneys, which are lined up nicely one after the other, fused on their bases and characterised by single black smoking orifices in 12-15m height.
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Sustainable oceans as a shared responsibility
From the Arctic to the North Sea: this year’s German Norwegian Ocean Forum was held in Bremen’s Übersee Museum. The spotlight topic of the symposium, which was jointly organised by the AWI, Innovation Norway, and the Royal Norwegian Embassy, was ‘The sustainable future of our oceans’. AWI Director Antje Boetius moderated the event.
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AWI researcher is one of the lead authors of the UN Environment Programme
The Global Environment Outlook (GEO) is generally considered to be the flagship of the UN’s Environment Programme. And AWI climate researcher Prof Peter Lemke has been a major contributor to it; he was selected as one of the lead authors for the sixth, recently released environment report (GEO-6 Report).
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The East Scotia Ridge – where new seafloor grows
Despite not neglecting station work and the associated scientific analyses over the Easter days, we were able to celebrate the Easter. At first priority stands a big thanks to the crew of RV Polarstern as they decorated the public areas and canteens to create an Easterly feeling on board.
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From the Arctic to the North Sea
Today the German Norwegian Ocean Forum take place in Bremen. It is jointly organized by the Norwegian Embassy, Innovation Norway and the AWI. AWI director Antje Boetius guides through the program.
Veritable powerhouses – even without DNA
Whether human beings or animals, plants or algae: the cells of most life forms contain special structures that are responsible for energy production. Referred to as mitochondria, they normally have their own genetic material, in addition to that found in the nucleus. Uwe John and colleagues at the Alfred Wegener Institute have now identified the first-ever exception to this rule in a single-celled parasite. The mitochondria of the dinoflagellate Amoebophrya ceratii appear to produce energy just like our own mitochondria, but without any genetic material,…
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