• Record low sea ice cover in the Antarctic

      Southern Hemisphere continues until the end of February. The current expedition team on board RV Polarstern has just reported virtually ice-free conditions in its current research area, the Bellingshausen

    • Polarstern Departs on Arctic Expedition

      Deep Sea Research
      Today, Monday, 22 May 2023, the Research Vessel Polarstern will leave her homeport in Bremerhaven, catching the afternoon high tide at ca 3:00 pm and bound for the Arctic Ocean. The

    • Polarstern back in Bremerhaven

      Polarstern returned to her home port of Bremerhaven with the morning tide today after a seven month Antarctic expedition and is now being unloaded. The ship will spend the next few weeks at Lloyd Werft for routine maintenance and repairs before departing for the Arctic again at the end of May.

    • Eyewitnesses to Arctic Change

      ArcWatch 1
      On Thursday, 3 August 2023, the research vessel Polarstern is scheduled to set off from Tromsø, Norway, towards the North Pole. For two months, a good fifty scientific expedition participants

    • Landmark in Antarctica named after AWI researcher

      During the last Antarctic season, British Polarstern expedition members Dr. Robert D. Larter and Dr. Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) discovered a new landmark in the Southern [...] Southern Ocean with one of the Polarstern helicopters. This cape is named in honour of the late AWI geologist Christian Hass.

    • Polarstern reaches North Pole

      e weeks after setting sail from Tromsø, Norway, the Alfred Wegener Institute's research vessel Polarstern makes a stop at the northernmost point on Earth. Here, too, the international team of researchers

    • The changing Arctic Ocean

      After eventful and busy months, the Arctic season ends this weekend with the Polarstern expedition called ArcWatch-1. The team of almost 100 crew and scientists measured sea ice thickness and properties [...] sea. Their data show significant changes compared to previous expeditions. On 7 September 2023, Polarstern reached the North Pole, and on 20 September there was the world's first livestream of an ROV under-ice

    • Research vessel Polarstern sets course for the East Antarctic

      Joint press release AWI, GEOMAR, CAU
      Yesterday evening, the research vessel Polarstern set off from Cape Town for a special region: Two expeditions in East Antarctica will focus on the history of the [...] and ship supply will take place in Hobart at the beginning of February. On the occasion of the Polarstern’s first call in an Australian harbour, an exchange with representatives from science and politics

    • Research vessel Polarstern visits Australia for the first time

      service of research for over 40 years, but there are still areas that are new territory even for the Polarstern: Between two expeditions to East Antarctica, the Alfred Wegener Institute's research icebreaker

    • Polarstern II: German Bundestag greenlights the construction of new icebreaker

      The Research Vessel Polarstern has been underway in the Arctic and Antarctic for 40 years now, giving experts from around the globe the opportunity to safely and effectively conduct research in two of [...] (AWI) to coordinate construction of a modern, high-performance and sustainable successor to the Polarstern, and to announce a corresponding call for tenders. Now that the federal budget for 2022 was approved [...] approved by the German Bundestag on 3 June 2022, the construction procurement procedure for Polarstern II can begin. The AWI plans to promptly launch the Europe-wide procurement procedure so that the competitive