Archive of News and Press Releases
AWI directorate speaks on international Arctic conference
Today the director of the Alfred Wegener Institute Professor Karin Lochte and Dr Uwe Nixdorf, Vice Director and head of AWI logistics, give presentations in the Country Session Germany at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik.
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Polarstern returns from the Arctic after a five-month journey
On Wednesday, 14 October 2015 the research icebreaker Polarstern from the Alfred-Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), entered its homeport in Bremerhaven. Since mid-May, over 200 biologists, physicists, chemists, ice physicists, oceanographers and geoscientists have taken part in a total of four expeditions, with changes of personnel in Longyearbyen (Spitsbergen) and Tromsø (Norway). In the course of these five months, Polarstern covered over 16,000 nautical miles (more than 30,000 kilometres).
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AWI welcomes international scholarship holders
The Alfred Wegener Institute welcomes the new scholarship holders of the Centre of Excellence in Observational Oceanography. The international young scientists will be embarking a ten-month traineeship as ocean experts.
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Billions of juvenile fish under the Arctic sea ice
Using a new net, marine biologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute have, for the first time, been able to catch polar cod directly beneath the Arctic sea ice with a trawl, allowing them to determine their large-scale distribution and origin. This information is of fundamental importance, as polar cod are a major source of food for seals, whales and seabirds in the Arctic. The study, which was recently published in the journal Polar Biology, shows that only juvenile fish are found under the ice, a habitat the researchers fear could disappear as a result…
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Hans-Otto Pörtner elected Co-Chair of the IPCC’s Working Group II
Today, AWI biologist and climate researcher Professor Hans-Otto Pörtner was officially voted Co-Chair of the IPCC’s Working Group II at a ceremony held in Dubrovnik, Croatia. He’ll be leading the Group, which primarily focuses on the risks and impacts of climate change, as well as potential adaptation strategies, together with Debra Roberts from South Africa.
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The Climates of the Geological Past
Alfred Wegener is known for his theory of continental drift which he published exactly 100 years ago in 1915. Slightly less known, but equally important are the studies on the climates of the geological past, which he carried out and published together with his father-in-law Wladimir Köppen.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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