• Arctic Carbon Conveyor Belt Discovered

    million metric tons of CO 2 in the Arctic deep sea for millennia. In this region alone, a previously unknown transport route uses the biological carbon pump and ocean currents to absorb atmospheric CO 2

  • Fisheries Agreement for the Central Arctic

    We know little about the fish stocks in the central Arctic Ocean, and what we know about the local ecosystem is insufficient to ensure sustainable management. In response, in June 2021 the Agreement to [...] to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean – which includes a moratorium on fishing in the region – entered into force. The European Union and nine other countries signed the

  • Polarstern Turns 40

    the Alfred Wegener Institute’s flagship has successfully completed more than 130 expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic and offered a temporary home for thousands of researchers from Germany and around the [...] safely traversed 1.8 million nautical miles. The ship is currently on an expedition in the Southern Ocean.

  • Arctic Ocean: Greater Future acidification in summer

    Over the past 200 years, our planet’s oceans have absorbed more than a quarter of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As a result, their acidity has increased by nearly 30 percent their [...] recently demonstrated. If this comes to pass, it could have far-reaching consequences for life in the ocean, as they report in the journal Nature.

  • Torsten Kanzow

    Institute and Professor at the University of Bremen. Ocean currents Ocean topography of polar regions Ocean-ice sheet interaction Sea level Ocean currents play various important roles in the climate and in ecosystems [...] the two polar regions makes the Arctic and Southern Oceans key regions in the context of ocean circulation. At the AWI, we investigate the characteristics and role of ocean currents through interdisciplinary [...] mid-latitudes to the Arctic and Antarctic. Once there, this heat can delay the formation of sea ice or cause the floes to melt more rapidly. This applies to the ice covering the Arctic Ocean, as well as to the

  • Infrared Based Whale Detection - AWI OZA

    Polar bear mother and cup in the Arctic ocean Automatic Marine Mammal Mitigation by Infrared Imaging Use of loud seismic airguns and naval sonars in marine surveys is feared to potentially injure whales [...] adjustment. ARK 27.3 Aug - Oct 2012 1563h operational Operation of FIRST-Navy infrared imager in the Arctic Ocean. (+) Successful operation of sensor for entire expedtion without any member of the IR team on [...] hindrance which is less prevalent in off-shore seismic and renewable energy construction settings. Arctic Ocean PS101 Sep-Oct 2016 Ship based operation of FIRST-Navy infrared imager on RV Polarstern. (+) O

  • 30 years of AWI airborne survey in the Arctic

    Research aircraft from the Alfred Wegener Institute have been surveying the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for 30 years. The immense effort of the past 52 expeditions has paid off: 40,000 km of measurement data [...] aeroplane- and helicopter-based measurement series in the world that has been carried out in the Arctic over such a long period. Currently, two Basler BT-67 aircraft are in operation: the Polar 5 and Polar

  • Polarstern Departs on Arctic Expedition

    the Arctic Ocean. The four-week expedition, slated to end on 19 July in Tromsø, Norway, will focus on extended ecological fieldwork at the AWI’s deep-sea observatory Hausgarten and at the FRAM Ocean Observing

  • Microplastics

    the buoyancy and stickiness of floating microplastic particles leading to an export to the deeper ocean and sediments. Meanwhile, scientists and authorities worldwide have recognized the massive accumulation [...] stipend), Sebastian Primpke and Gunnar Gerdts) Fram Pollution Observatory / Microplastics in the Arctic (in-house project; PIs: Melanie Bergmann, Ilka Peeken and Gunnar Gerdts) “Microplastics Reactor” [...] Defining the baselines and standards for microplastics analyses in European waters); www.jpi-oceans.eu/ecological-aspects-microplastics (PIs: Sebastian Primpke and Gunnar Gerdts) WT.SH project “Size

  • Eyewitnesses to Arctic Change

    of sea ice retreat on the entire ocean system from the surface to the deep sea. Eleven years ago, Antje Boetius was part of the largest ever sea ice minumum in the Arctic and its consequences for life in [...] the North Pole. For two months, a good fifty scientific expedition participants will explore the Arctic in transition as sea ice extent reaches its annual minimum in September. They will explore the biology [...] in the deep sea. Now she is returning with her team to compare the state of the Arctic today - also with the data from the MOSAiC expedition 2019/20.