in the Arctic: the AWI’s Hausgarten observatory in the Fram Strait, where experts from various disciplines are investigating all aspects of the ecosystem, from the water’s surface to the ocean depths, [...] in order to determine the impacts of climate change on biodiversity in the Arctic. After roughly a month underway, in mid-September Polarstern will reach the Norwegian port of Tromsø, where she’ll receive [...] her final preparations for the one-year-long MOSAiC expedition, prior to leaving for the Central Arctic on 20 September.

Arctic Ocean
The Arctic has a serious litter problem: in just ten years, the concentration of marine litter at a deep-sea station in the Arctic Ocean has risen 20-fold. This was recently reported in

German Norwegian Ocean Forum
From the Arctic to the North Sea: this year’s German Norwegian Ocean Forum was held in Bremen’s Übersee Museum. The spotlight topic of the symposium, which was jointly organised [...] by the AWI, Innovation Norway, and the Royal Norwegian Embassy, was ‘The sustainable future of our oceans’. AWI Director Antje Boetius moderated the event.

(17/18 Sep 18). A new week begins - fog, calm sea, ice free. Nothing reminds us that we are in the Arctic Ocean (but this may change soon when are steaming northwards end of this week!).

forces to improve the capacities for marine-based research in the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. In the project “ARICE- Arctic Research Icebreaker Consortium”, they aim at better coordinating the existing polar

Sea Ice
The Arctic sea ice continues to dwindle: Since the 1970s, when satellites first began monitoring the white sheet covering the Arctic Ocean, its February extent was never as small as it was this [...] this year. The reason: warm air intrusions, which are not only hitting the Arctic more frequently, but are also intensifying and reaching farther north.

Arctic Ocean
On the seafloor of the shallow coastal regions north of Siberia, microorganisms produce methane when they break down plant remains. If this greenhouse gas finds its way into the water, [...] these coastal waters. As a result, the gas can be transported thousands of kilometres across the Arctic Ocean and released in a completely different region months later. This phenomenon is the subject of [...] current issue of the online journal Scientific Reports. Although this interaction between methane, ocean and ice has a significant influence on climate change, to date it has not been reflected in climate

progress into the north significantly. During our journey in the thick ice across the deepening Arctic Ocean, wildlife became scarcer and scarcer. Patches of Melosira arctica were only spotted rarely.

started in the marginal sea ice zone east of Svalbard, and then set course north into the central Arctic Ocean.The marginal sea ice zone was mostly covered with decaying sea ice and some larger ice-free areas

observation of ice, ocean and seafloor processes in the Central Arctic. A main aim is to observe and analyse the changes in the sea ice cover, and its causes and consequences for ocean and life.