amounts of microplastic in arctic sea ice than ever before. However, the majority of particles were microscopically small. The ice samples from five regions throughout the Arctic Ocean contained up to 12,000 [...] patch in the Pacific Ocean, while in turn, the high percentage of paint and nylon particles pointed to the intensified shipping and fishing activities in some parts of the Arctic Ocean. The new study has

Nature Scientific Reports
The ice-covered Arctic Ocean is a more important factor concerning the concentration of the greenhouse gas methane in the atmosphere than previously assumed. Experts from the [...] Research (AWI) report on the newly discovered interactions between the atmosphere, sea ice and the ocean in a recent online study in the journal Nature’s Scientific Reports.

German Norwegian Ocean Forum
From the Arctic to the North Sea: this year’s German Norwegian Ocean Forum was held in Bremen’s Übersee Museum. The spotlight topic of the symposium, which was jointly organised [...] by the AWI, Innovation Norway, and the Royal Norwegian Embassy, was ‘The sustainable future of our oceans’. AWI Director Antje Boetius moderated the event.

Arctic Ocean
The sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean reached its annual minimum of 4.81 million square kilometres on 12 September 2021. As such, the 2021 Arctic sea-ice minimum comes in at 12th place

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

becoming more frequent and intense. The Arctic Ocean also suffers from this development: The absence of sea ice will lead to more extreme fluctuations in ocean temperatures, with abrupt temperature changes [...] Wegener Institute shows how marine heatwaves will also become much more intense and frequent in the Arctic in the 21st century. With drastic consequences for the ecosystem. The researchers published their

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

frequency over a full annual cycle in the Central Arctic Ocean. They have now published three overview articles on the MOSAiC atmosphere, snow and sea ice, and ocean programs in the journal Elementa, highlighting [...] together. These results present the first complete picture of the climate processes in the central Arctic which is warming more than two times as fast as the rest of the planet - processes which affect weather

Arctic Ocean
This summer the sea-ice cover on the Arctic Ocean shrank to the second-smallest extent since the beginning of satellite observation in 1979. By mid-September it covered only 3.8 million [...] formed in Russia’s marginal seas, and soon melted again when the spring came. Secondly, this year the Arctic has seen extremely high air and water temperatures. Accordingly, heat gnawed away at the ice from

have now shown, the ocean may weaken warming around Antarctica and delay sea-ice retreat. Given that many models are not capable of accurately reflecting this factor and the role of ocean eddies, the study [...] Climate Research
Despite global warming and the sea-ice loss in the Arctic, the Antarctic sea-ice extent has remained largely unchanged since 1979. However, existing climate model-based simulations