Archive of News and Press Releases
Permafrost comics awarded
AWI scientist Michael Fritz receives this year's Potsdam Prize for Science Communication for the project "Es taut!: Frozen Ground Cartoons". The comics were created in cooperation with artists.
Antje Boetius is the patron of the 2019 photo festival »horizonte zingst«
As a deep-sea researcher and Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Antje Boetius has explored oceans around the globe. This year, for the first time she is also supporting the environmental photo festival »horizonte zingst«. In her role as festival patron, she hopes the gripping images will help raise awareness for environmental concerns
Find out more
Award for permafrost expert
Prize for AWI scientist Ingmar Nitze: As part of this years Publication Award of the Leibniz Kolleg in Potsdam, the permafrost expert has been announced as a laureate. The yearly confered promotion supports young scientists of mathematics and natural sciences.
To the smoking volcano of Saunders Island
Like last week, we spent the sixth week in the southernmost area of the South Sandwich Plate, from the back-arc spreading ridge of the segments 8 and 9 in the west to the Kemp Caldera. The volcano of Kemp Caldera is part of the collision zone with the South American plate to the East. A look to our expedition logo shows symbolically the spreading ridge on the left and flowing to the right the volcanoes, fore-arc area and subduction zone.
Find out more
The next milestone in Russian-German Arctic research
With the return of the Russian research icebreaker “Akademik Treshnikov” to the port of Murmansk, Russia, another successful chapter in Russian-German collaborative Arctic research drew to a close. On 20 March 2019 the ship embarked on the Russian expedition TRANSARCTIC 2019 in the Barents Sea and returned on 20 May 2019, with seven researchers from German partner institutions (AWI, GEOMAR, University of Bremen and University of Kiel) on board.
Find out more
Expedition to the Most Powerful Ocean Current
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is the planet’s most powerful and arguably most important. It is the only one to flow clear around the globe without getting diverted by any landmass, sending up to 150 times the flow of all the world’s rivers clockwise around the frozen continent. It connects all the other oceans, and is thought to play a key role in regulating natural climate swings that have repeatedly swept the earth for millions of years. But much is still not known about how it works, including how it might now respond to human-induced climate…
Find out more
AWI and ESA start operational service for improved satellite sea-ice thickness observations
Two current satellite missions from the European Space Agency (ESA) provide data to measure Arctic sea-ice thickness. The thickness of sea ice is a key parameter for many scientific and operational applications: But in contrast to the sea-ice coverage, measuring the thickness with satellites has always been challenging.
Find out more
Major questions concerning the role of microscopic life and our future
“Microbiology of global change” is the name of the research area that explores microbial responses to global warming, natural resource depletion, and environmental pollution, as well as feedback mechanisms and functions in climate change. The internationally respected journal “Nature Reviews Microbiology” asked Prof Antje Boetius for her thoughts on the area:“Given the fact that microorganisms have significant effects on our planet’s material flows, productivity and health, not to mention on us human beings, this field of research will provide essential…
Find out more
Ralf Dahrendorf Prize for Potsdam Research Team
Today the members of the PETA-CARB team at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam have every reason to celebrate, as they were recently honoured with a brand-new award: the Ralf Dahrendorf Prize for the European Research Area, which recognises outstanding engagement in key EU research projects, as well as the motivation to share the project outcomes with the public. The prize, which is awarded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research, went to a total of six recipients, each of which will…
Find out more
White smoker and yellow sulphur of the Kemp Caldera
On Sunday, 5th May, we arrived at the Kemp Caldera, a prominent crater of volcanic origin at the southern end of the South Sandwich volcanic arc.
Find out more