Arctic Ocean

The Pulse of Heat in the North Atlantic

The future of the Arctic Ocean will be decided in part in the Fram Strait, a region between Greenland and Svalbard in which warm water flows northward from the Atlantic. The AWI is investigating just how much of that water actually reaches the Arctic
Tiny algae, hugely resilient

Microalgae are microscopically small, single-celled algae species and an important source of food in the oceans. AWI researchers examines how changed living conditions as a result of climate change affect Arctic microalgae
Uncharted territory!

The ice shield of Greenland is shrinking – at an ever faster rate. To understand why AWI researchers had to take the Polarstern where no other research vessel had ever been – directly to the glacier front. An expedition report

News

Bivalve ice with pebbles

The latest findings on the MOSAiC floe

The New Siberian Islands were the birthplace of the MOSAiC floe: the sea ice in which the research vessel Polarstern is now drifting through the Arctic was formed off the coast of the archipelago, which separates the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea to the north of Siberia, in December 2018. Sediments, and even small pebbles and bivalves, were incorporated into the ice during the freezing process, which the on-going melting process has brought to light on the surface of the MOSAiC floe.

MOSAiC Expedition

Polarstern returns to MOSAiC floe

After a month’s absence, on 17 June the German research icebreaker Polarstern rendezvoused with the MOSAiC floe at 82.2 ° North and 8.4 ° East, after having left it on 19 May 2020 to exchange personnel and bunker supplies near Svalbard. Full of energy, the research team for the fourth leg of the expedition, which consists of experts from 19 countries, is looking forward to continuing the one-year-long MOSAiC expedition and its research on the ocean, ice and atmosphere in the Arctic. Earlier this week, their predecessors from Leg 3 returned to Bremerhaven on board the research vessels Sonne and Maria S. Merian.

Modelling

Can Arctic ‘ice management’ combat climate change?

According to a much-debated geo-engineering approach, both sea-ice retreat and global warming could be slowed by using millions of wind-powered pumps, drifting in the sea ice, to promote ice formation during the Arctic winter. AWI researchers have now, for the first time, tested the concept using a complex climate model and published their findings in the journal Earth’s Future. Their verdict is sobering: though the approach could potentially put off ice-free Arctic summers for a few more decades, beyond the Arctic the massive campaign wouldn’t produce any meaningful cooling effect.