Arctic Ocean
Tiny gypsum crystals can make phytoplankton so heavy that they rapidly sink, hereby transporting large quantities of carbon to the ocean’s depths. Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute [...] Institute recently observed this phenomenon for the first time in the Arctic. As a result of this massive algal transport, in the future large amounts of nutrients could be lost from the surface waters.

Press release

of plastic has reached all spheres of the Arctic: large quantities of plastic - transported by rivers, the air and shipping- can now be found in the Arctic Ocean. High concentrations of microplastic can

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 [...] properties, recorded the currents and chemical properties of the ocean and investigated life in and under the ice, in the open water and at the bottom of the deep sea. Their data show significant changes compared [...] on 20 September there was the world's first livestream of an ROV under-ice dive from the Central Arctic.

represents one of the most important connections between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic. In the past few years, we’ve seen a major decline in Arctic sea ice in the region. In addition, more warm and salty [...] regional climate model for the Arctic. The model consists of several components: the atmosphere, sea ice, ocean and land. Simulations with this model help us interpret the Arctic climate, its variability and [...] climate changes in the Arctic are connected to the weather and climate in central Europe. The difficult thing about these interactions is the fact that, in addition to the Arctic factors, other aspects

Arctic Ocean
The dramatic loss of ice in the Arctic is influencing sea-ice transport across the Arctic Ocean. As experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research [...] percent of the sea ice that forms in the shallow Russian marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean actually reaches the Central Arctic, where it joins the Transpolar Drift; the remaining 80 percent of the young [...] development not only takes us one step closer to an ice-free summer in the Arctic; as the sea ice dwindles, the Arctic Ocean stands to lose an important means of transporting nutrients, algae and sediments

sail for a six week expedition to the Central Arctic Ocean initiated by “ART”. ART, in this case, does not stand for artistry but is the abbreviation for Arctic in Rapid Transition, an international research [...] research network established by early career scientists working in the Arctic.

and Technology, and the PEBCAO Group (Phytoplankton Ecology and Biogeochemistry in the Changing Arctic Ocean) at AWI and the Helmholtz Young Investigators Group SEAPUMP (Seasonal and regional food web i

ecosystems must always keep the polar regions in mind. The Arctic and Antarctic, for example, play a central role in the system of global ocean currents, and the large but shrinking ice sheets are important

Arctic sea ice
Sea ice physicists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), are anticipating that the sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean this summer may [...] after evaluating current satellite data about the thickness of the ice cover. The data show that the arctic sea ice was already extraordinarily thin in the summer of 2015. Comparably little new ice formed