Press release

Southern Ocean
A unique series of measurements taken over several years in the Antarctic Ocean provide new findings about the daily vertical migration of zooplankton communities: scientists of the Thünen [...] Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries in Hamburg and the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven observed changes during the year and between years. The Antarctic zooplankton is the main source of food for many [...] many fish and whale species, including the largest mammal in the world, the blue whale.

kilometres as defined for the region of the ‚Greater North Sea‘ according to the OSPAR Convention for the protection of the marine en- vironment of the North-East Atlantic (www.ospar.org). The North Sea coast is [...] main- land to the south. The English Channel and the Norwe- gian Sea connect it to the Atlantic Ocean while the Ska- gerrak joins it to the Baltic Sea. The area of the North Sea is around 750,000 square [...] Nine of the ten warmest years occurred after 1988. The water temperature in the German Bight has risen more than in other regions of the North Sea. Salt content and visibility The salt content of the North

. Only a small part of it sticks out of the water, like the tip of an iceberg. By far the largest portion of the rock is submarine. The transitional zone between the island and the submarine is a rocky [...] Schmalenbach is tipping the contents of hundreds of small beakers over the railing of the “Aade” into the sea: hundreds of small lobsters which were raised in the laboratory. The onlook- ers in the unique Helgoland [...] signal of the algae on the rocky intertidal is recorded. Each pixel represents the colour spectrum of visi- ble light up to the infrared range. With the help of the characteristic reflection of the individual

network. The mission of the “Frontiers in Arctic Marine Monitoring” (FRAM) infrastructure is to support synchronous year-round integrated system observations of one of the fastest changing regions of the Earth [...] information about the dynamics of the pack ice. 06 Ice tethered Bio-Optical Buoy (IBOB): consists of 3 sensor modules, one in the ice, one directly below the ice and one 5 meters below the ice. Measures [...] attribute the impact of anthropogenic activity and natural phenomena on the marine ecosystem of the Arctic Ocean. Long-term data set of 3 phytoplankton functional types in the Arctic by synergistic use of hyper-

findings in the North Sea and start of production Start of the Trilateral Cooperation on the Protection of the Wadden Sea between Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark The member states of the United Nations [...] and therefore of a high ecological, economical and societal value. Two hotspots of biodiversity are the Dogger Bank in the north of the southern North Sea and the Wadden Sea, located along the Dutch, German [...] CLIMATE CHANGE The North Sea Surge is hitting the dunes Tourists on a walk across the mudflats FUTURE 2050 The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean with deep waters in the north and shallow

different types of killer whales live in the Southern Ocean. They are known to differ in feeding ecology and appearance. However, little is known about the distribution and behaviour of these different [...] whale ecotypes. To answer these questions, scientists monitor the whales’ communication with specific underwater sound recorders. However, so far nobody knew, which calls the different ecotypes are using

Arga Island in the NW part of the delta. The third river terrace is the oldest geomorphological unit of the Lena Delta, shaped by the extremely cold climate of the last glacial period when the area was not [...] assumed. At the bottom of the snow layer, the remaining shortwave radiation flux is assigned as energy input to the uppermost soil grid cell. The albedo of the snow is calculated as a function of the difference [...] version of CryoGrid 3 so that the sum of the volumetric contents of ice and water re- mains constant (for simplicity, the densities of ice and wa- ter are assumed equal). The phase change of the soil wa-

deployment of Expendable Bathythermographs (XBTs) to measure the thermal structure of the upper 1.8 km of the water column. XBT probes were ‘fired’ during the second leg of the cruise when the vessel was [...] mixing at the surface decreases the oxygenation of the lower water masses. Additionally, it decreases the formation of central water, which is subducted from the thermocline. In the case of SACW, the formation [...] deoxygenation of the water mass. This can greatly impact the ventilation of the surrounding water body and the formation rate of the water mass itself. Consequences are the expansion and formation of oxygen minimum

from the shallow region of the English Channel to the Bay of Biscay, the region around the Ampère Seamount, the Cape Verde Islands and further stations in the South Atlantic up to Cape Town. The participants [...] gradually. In the morning of 10 November Polarstern entered the harbour of Las Palmas. The cruise leg PS95.2 started in the afternoon of the same day with the departure from Las Palmas towards the Cape Verde [...] lectures of the work carried out in the previous six days on the evening before and a teaching/learning period on the morning of the transfer where the outgoing groups taught the incoming students. The themes