Archive of News and Press Releases

Press releases

Climate change, biodiversity loss and social justice – these challenges can only be overcome together

The fight against global warming and for sustainable development can only succeed if, from now on, humankind considers the issues of climate change, biodiversity loss and social justice together, and takes them into account equally in all political decisions – globally, nationally and regionally – as well as their interactions. According to the German co-authors, this is the most important takeaway from a new workshop report on biodiversity and climate change, the first to be jointly prepared by experts from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform…
[Translate to English:] Designstudie Uthörn II
Press releases

CO2-neutral on the North Sea

The Alfred Wegener Institute is setting new standards for sustainability in German maritime shipping. On 8 June 2021 the keel for the successor to the research cutter Uthörn will be laid at the Fassmer Shipyard in Berne, Lower Saxony. The 35-metre-long cutter will be the first seagoing vessel in Germany equipped with an environmentally friendly and especially low-emission methanol-fuelled drive system.
Permafrost in Canada
Online news

How Much Carbon Will Peatlands Lose as Permafrost Thaws?

A process-based model reveals that how much carbon peatlands may lose—or accumulate—in the future varies from place to place.
Drilling camp in Antarctica
Online news

The Southern Hemisphere’s Fiery Past

An international research team has now determined that the preindustrial atmosphere contained far more aerosols from fires and slash-and-burn agriculture than indicated by previous studies. Since soot particles have a cooling effect on the Earth, some climate models may now need to be adjusted.
Fig. 1: Recovery of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle PAUL
Weekly report

With high-tech in the deep sea

For about a week we have been operating in our study area, i.e. the LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) Observatory HAUSGARTEN in Fram Strait between Greenland and the Svalbard archipelago.
[Translate to English:] Salpa thompsoni
Press releases

Salps fertilise the Southern Ocean more effectively than krill

Experts at the Alfred Wegener Institute have, for the first time, experimentally measured the release of iron from the fecal pellets of krill and salps under natural conditions and tested its bioavailability using a natural community of microalgae in the Southern Ocean. In comparison to the fecal pellets of krill, Antarctic phytoplankton can more easily take up the micronutrient iron from those produced by salps. Observations made over the past 20 years show that, as a result of climate change, Antarctic krill are increasingly being supplanted by salps…
Weekly report

Freedom!

Finally, after 10 days of individual Corona quarantine in a Bremerhaven hotel, we were allowed to leave the necessary, and by all accepted, indispensable “single punishment” on Pentecost Monday, May 24, and set sail for our expedition to the Fram Strait, the passage between Greenland and Spitsbergen.
Short news

Holistic view of Antarctica

The 17th International Architecture Exhibition opened in Venice last weekend. "How will we live together?" is the motto. Also included is a holistic work about Antarctica, in which several AWI scientists participated. "Antarctic Resolution" takes a multidisciplinary look at the continent's unique geography, its unparalleled scientific potential, its contemporary geopolitical significance, its experimental governance system and its extreme inhabitant model. (Copyright Photo: UNLESS. Photo by DSL Studio)
Finnwal im Südpolarmeer (PS81)
Press releases

Antarctic hotspot: Fin whales favour the waters around Elephant Island

During the era of commercial whaling, fin whales were hunted so intensively that only a small percentage of the population in the Southern Hemisphere survived, and even today, marine biologists know little about the life of the world’s second-largest whale. That makes the findings of researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute for Sea Fisheries, which show that a large number of the baleen whales regularly frequent the krill-rich waters surrounding…
[Translate to English:] Das deutsche Forschungsschiff Polarstern in der zentralen Arktis
Press releases

Polarstern Sets Sail for the Arctic

On Whit Monday, 24 May 2021, the Polarstern will set sail for the Arctic. In Fram Strait, between Greenland and Svalbard, more than 50 participating scientists will resume the long-term observations that began at the AWI HAUSGARTEN more than 20 years ago. Here they will investigate the effects of environmental changes on the Arctic’s deep-sea ecosystem.