the ice of the Arctic, unknown habitats conceal an unexpected variety of living beings. On October 23rd, 46 scientists are expected to return to the home port in Bremerhaven from an Arctic expedition with [...] with the research vessel Polarstern. Over the past six weeks, they had explored life in ice, ocean and seabed with new robots and camera systems.

first aerial survey flights over the Arctic this year. The flights, which will extend far into the Central Arctic, will support the investigation of the atmosphere and sea ice, and supplement the MOSAiC [...] expedition’s extensive research agenda. Core research priorities include cloud formation over the Arctic Ocean and the question as to whether the sea ice observed during MOSAiC was generally thicker or thinner [...] Arctic
Following a five-month mandatory delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, on August 30th the two German polar research aircraft Polar 5 and Polar 6 will launch from Svalbard to conduct their first

reached its destination, will spend the next year drifting through the Arctic Ocean, trapped in the ice. A total of 600 people from 17 countries, who will be supplied by other icebreakers and aircraft [...] MOSAiC Expedition
It could be the largest-scale Arctic research expedition of all time: in September 2019 the German research icebreaker Polarstern will depart from Tromsø, Norway and, once it has reached

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

forces to improve the capacities for marine-based research in the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. In the project “ARICE- Arctic Research Icebreaker Consortium”, they aim at better coordinating the existing polar

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

Biodiversity
Massive sponge gardens thrive on top of seamounts in the Central Arctic Ocean, one of the most oligotrophic seas on Earth. They appear to feed on the remnants of an extinct fauna. Micr [...] Communications . They stress the need for a better understanding of the diversity and uniqueness of Arctic ecosystems in the light of global and local change.

have now analysed. Their most important finding: even a short-term influx of warm water into the Arctic Ocean would suffice to fundamentally impact the local symbiotic communities, from the water’s surface [...] Climate Change
The warming of arctic waters in the wake of climate change is likely to produce radical changes in the marine habitats of the High North. This is indicated by data from long-term observations

Arctic cod is the most abundant fish in the Arctic Ocean. It is an important food source for Arctic marine mammals and plays an important role in the self-sufficiency of the Inuit. An international study [...] now evaluated the most important scientific work on Arctic cod of the past decades. The conclusion: Above all, the already advanced decline in arctic sea ice cover as a result of man-made climate change

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