Archive of News and Press Releases
Week 7: In the deep Arctic Ocean
During our northward transect, Polarstern bit its way through heavy sea ice, hard as concrete and covered with a thick layer of snow. This altogether slowed down our progress into the north significantly. During our journey in the thick ice across the deepening Arctic Ocean, wildlife became scarcer and scarcer. Patches of Melosira arctica were only spotted rarely.
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Falling sea level caused volcanos to overflow
Throughout the last 800,000 years, Antarctic temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations showed a similar evolution. However, this was different during the transition to the last ice age: approximately 80,000 years ago, temperature declined, while the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere remained relatively stable. An international research team led by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the Alfred-Wegener-Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research has now discovered that a falling sea level may have…
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Week 6: From East Svalbard towards the deep Arctic Ocean
The past week we started in the marginal sea ice zone east of Svalbard, and then set course north into the central Arctic Ocean.The marginal sea ice zone was mostly covered with decaying sea ice and some larger ice-free areas. On this side of Svalbard we saw a lot more wildlife than in the westerly part. A large number of birds are constantly circling around the ship looking for fish, which can be spotted on overturning ice floes during ice breaking.
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Week 5: From Longyearbyen around Svalbard
The end of PS106/1 was garnished with amazing views of the Spitsbergen coastline in the midnight sun (Fig. 1). While scientists and crew members celebrated the successful completion of the PASCAL study and its interdisciplinary physical, biological and biogeochemical partners, wales and seals occasionally approached Polarstern.
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Week 2 at the ice floe
The TROPOS aerosol container, with online and off-line instrumentation (high volume and size-resolved samplers), was installed on Polarstern on the upper deck to measure in-situ atmospheric aerosol physical-chemical properties.
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German Association for Marine Technology at the AWI
The Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) welcomed members of the Association for Marine Technology (GMT). The AWI is itself a member of the association for offshore and marine technology, which, among other things, is committed to the transfer of knowledge and technology between science and industry in the marine-maritime field.
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How the climate can rapidly change at tipping points
During the last glacial period, within only a few decades the influence of atmospheric CO2 on the North Atlantic circulation resulted in temperature increases of up to 10 degrees Celsius in Greenland – as indicated by new climate calculations from researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute and the University of Cardiff. Their study is the first to confirm that there have been situations in our planet’s history in which gradually rising CO2 concentrations have set off abrupt changes in ocean circulation and climate at “tipping points”. These sudden…
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Week 1 at the ice floe
After successfully building up all measurement sites we now have reached a full week with a multitude of observations. This report provides a few examples of what and how we are measuring in our little white floe, we call our home. Oddly enough we didn't manage to give it a name, probably because we all know that it will soon be gone.
With contributions from Ulrike Egerer, Hauke Flores, Allison Fong, Ilka Peeken, Priit Tisler
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In and on the ice
Following our planned schedule three persons where exchanged by helicopter as we passed Longyearbyen.
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How the Arctic Ocean Became Saline
The Arctic Ocean was once a gigantic freshwater lake. Only after the land bridge between Greenland and Scotland had submerged far enough did vast quantities of salt water pour in from the Atlantic. With the help of a climate model, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute have demonstrated how this process took place, allowing us for the first time to understand more accurately how Atlantic circulation as we know it today came about. The results of the study have now been published in the journal Nature Communications.
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