record levels found in Arctic sea ice Find out more > BBC | 24.04.2018 Record concentration of microplastics found in Arctic Find out more > Dialogue & Lectures Policy advice Arctic Monitoring & Assessment [...] in the oceans is a current and growing problem, since every year several million metric tons of plastic find their way from the land to the water. Plastic particles are broken down in the ocean by sunlight [...] Climate change is especially putting the polar regions under pressure. Environmental changes in the Arctic result primarily from the decline in the area of sea ice and the decrease in its thickness, since

Arctic sea ice: a chain reaction Dr Thomas Krumpen, sea ice physicist and expert for satellite analyses at the Alfred Wegener Institute. Sea ice Application of satellite data Arctic Ocean IceBird For the [...] AWI are exploring the thickness and surface conditions of Arctic sea ice. We measure both properties in several key regions of the Arctic Ocean with autonomous buoys, on helicopter and aircraft measurement [...] important reference data set on the development of Arctic sea-ice cover worldwide. Those surveys indicate that the thickness of sea ice leaving the Arctic Ocean towards the North Atlantic has steadily decreased

the impact of the Arctic on global climate. In addition to this major campaign, numerous field work activities take place every year in the mainland Arctic and in the adjacent Arctic Ocean. The coast plays [...] drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate ). From fall 2019 to fall 2020, the German research icebreaker POLARSTERN drifted frozen through the Arctic Ocean. The data collected will be valuable [...] Ecological processes in the terrestrial Arctic: Prof. Dr. Ulrike Herzschuh • Permafrost processes in the Arctic: Prof. Dr. Guido Grosse • Atmospheric processes in the Arctic: Prof. Dr. Markus Rex AWI Research

analyses is to determine how much carbon the ocean removed from the atmosphere and stored in its depths in the past. The permanently frozen soils of the Arctic store tremendous amounts of carbon in the form [...] not consumed by marine animals, including dead marine microorganisms, material transported to the oceans by rivers –the particles that trickle down are deposited layer by layer at depth. Ultimately, a unique [...] deposited on the seafloor, leaving clues that enable the AWI geoscientists not only to reconstruct the Arctic’s climate history, but also to understand the role of thawing permafrost in past climate changes.

sea levels are the two most important cornerstones. We conduct marine geological research in the Arctic and Antarctic to more precisely define the inadequately known advance and retreat behavior of the [...] contributes to better reconstructing the history of global ice sheets and evaluating their influence on ocean circulation and sea level variations. As a result, models for future ice sheet behavior are then to

AWI scientist Sinhué Torres-Valdés observed the nutrient chemistry of the Arctic Ocean on an expedition as part of the PEANUTS project (Primary production driven by Escalating Arctic NUTrient fluxeS). The SCRIPPS Institution of Oceanography led the expedition in 2018. The results have now been published in a paper in the journal Nature Communications. The PEANUTS project is funded by the Changing Arctic Ocean Program (CAO).

refreezing at the sea ice surface dramatically changes the energy exchange between atmosphere and ocean in the Arctic. Melt ponds play a key role in these changes, because they substantially enhance the absorption [...] albedo of Arctic summer ice from satellite optical data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 163, 153-164. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2015.03.012. Rösel, A.; Kaleschke, L., Birnbaum, G. 2012. Melt ponds on Arctic sea ice [...] early summer, when melt ponds started to form. From 9 May to 8 June 2008, we operated in the Canadian Arctic, mainly over the southern Beaufort Sea with Inuvik as airbase for Polar 5 . Sea ice conditions changed

refreezing at the sea ice surface dramatically changes the energy exchange between atmosphere and ocean in the Arctic. Melt ponds play a key role in these changes, because they substantially enhance the absorption [...] albedo of Arctic summer ice from satellite optical data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 163, 153-164. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2015.03.012. Rösel, A.; Kaleschke, L., Birnbaum, G. 2012. Melt ponds on Arctic sea ice [...] early summer, when melt ponds started to form. From 9 May to 8 June 2008, we operated in the Canadian Arctic, mainly over the southern Beaufort Sea with Inuvik as airbase for Polar 5 . Sea ice conditions changed

study of Arctic Ocean surface sediments (Fig. 2; Xiao et al., 2015 ). During the last years, a large number of IP 25 /PIP 25 studies have been carried out to reconstruct the late Quaternary Arctic sea-ice [...] Polar sea ice variability - Arctic Our ability to quantitatively reconstruct Arctic paleo-sea-ice distributions has been greatly improved by a novel biomarker approach which is based on the determination [...] SeaIce4). In order to fully establish the IP 25 approach as key proxy for the reconstruction of past Arctic Ocean sea-ice conditions, however, more ground-truth data related to the synthesis, diagenesis, and

Arctic Ocean
The influx of warmer water masses from the North Atlantic into the European marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean plays a significant role in the marked decrease in sea-ice growth, especially [...] evident a year later, when the ice has drifted towards Greenland via the North Pole and leaves the Arctic through Fram Strait. This study also includes data from the MOSAiC expedition.