• Higher Water Temperatures and Reduced Ice Cover In the Arctic Ocean

    Press release

  • Higher life at the deep seafloor

    and temporal variation in deep-sea meiofauna at the LTER Observatory HAUSGARTEN in Fram Strait (Arctic Ocean). MDPI - Diversity 12 (7). doi: 10.3390/d12070279 Käß, M., Vedenin, A., Hasemann, C., Brandt, [...] biomass of three epibenthic invertebrates from the deep-sea observatory HAUSGARTEN (Fram Strait, Arctic Ocean). Marine Ecology-Progress Series 602: 15-29. Grzelak, K., Kotwicki, L., Hasemann, C., Soltwedel [...] assessing temporal variations in benthic community structure, megafaunal composition and diversity at the Arctic deep-sea observatory HAUSGARTEN between 2004 and 2015. Deep-Sea Research I 122: 81-94. Vedenin, A

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    largest Arctic expedition in history: on 12 October 2020 our research vessel Polarstern returned after a year-long drift. Find out more UN Ocean Conference 2025 Find out more UN Decade of Ocean Science [...] in the Arctic Find out more Online news Bipolar seesaw out of balance A look at the history of our planet‘s climate reveals: Surprisingly, there were periods in the past when glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic [...] decades, the crews and employees of the F. Laeisz shipping company have supported AWI research in the Arctic and Antarctic, both on land and at sea. Laeisz has operated the Polarstern since New Year's Eve 1995

  • How climate change is altering the Arctic Ocean

    On 29 May 2025, the Polarstern research vessel set sail from Bremerhaven for the Arctic. The destination of the 95 expedition participants, led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, is the AWI Hausgarten, a [...] y situated between Svalbard and Greenland. There they will investigate how the ecosystems of the Arctic deep sea are reacting to changing environmental conditions as a result of rapid climate change. The [...] June, will focus on benthic and plankton communities in the open water and physical changes in the ocean.

  • How is the Arctic Ocean changing? – Research vessel Polarstern launches expedition to Arctic Ocean

    Press release

  • How the Arctic Ocean Became Saline

    Arctic
    The Arctic Ocean was once a gigantic freshwater lake. Only after the land bridge between Greenland and Scotland had submerged far enough did vast quantities of salt water pour in from the Atlantic

  • How waves stir up the Arctic Ocean - new Emmy Noether Group at the AWI

    inside the ocean. They can grow as large as skyscrapers, travel thousands of kilometres and have a major impact on the transport of heat and nutrients. When they break, the surrounding ocean water is mixed [...] mixed. Oceanographer Dr Friederike Pollmann and her new Junior Researcher Group Artemics (Arctic internal wave energetics and mixing and their interdependence with sea ice in changing climate conditions) [...] conditions) at the Alfred Wegener Institute want to investigate how these waves work in the Arctic, how they are related to sea ice retreat and what this means for the future.

  • IICWG-DA

    Assessing the contribution of ocean and sea ice initialization for seasonal predictionin the Arctic , Madlen Kimmritz Assimilation of sea ice freeboard observations into an ocean and ice analysis and forecast [...] zone from ocean gravity wave attenuation, Giacomo De Carolis Sea Ice Concentration uncertainties , Rasmus Tonboe Sea-ice thickness and snow depth observations from satellite altimeters in Arctic and Antarctica [...] and results) Sea ice observations and uncertainties Sea ice model parameterizations and coupling to ocean and atmosphere models Verification approaches for sea ice analyses and forecasts Automated prediction

  • Ice Ocean Dynamics

    the Eurasian shelf seas. Ocean waters with salinities below the average salinity of the Arctic Ocean also contribute positively to the fresh water balance of the Arctic Ocean. Such waters flow in from [...] er-Institut) Figure 1: Surface circulation of the Arctic Ocean (Graphic: Alfred-Wegener-Institut) Figure 2: Mid-depth circulation in the Arctic Ocean, which is fed from the Atlantic. 129 Iodine releases [...] blue line shows the total Arctic (liquid + sea ice) freshwater content (integrated in the area in blue on the map) (Graphic: T. Kovacz, Alfred-Wegener-Institut) The Arctic Ocean receives freshwater by run-off

  • Ice algae: The engine of life in the central Arctic Ocean

    these algae. This also means that the decline of the Arctic sea ice may have far-reaching consequences for the entire food web of the Arctic Ocean. Their results have been published online now in the journal [...] Food web
    Algae that live in and under the sea ice play a much greater role for the Arctic food web than previously assumed. In a new study, biologists of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre