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

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

Ocean Eddies
In a new study, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) investigated the long-term changes in the Arctic Ocean eddy activity [...] study reveals a remarkable surge in Arctic eddy activity in a warmer climate, a trend that is probably unparalleled when compared to other regions across the global ocean.

Press release

Press release

under pressure. However, jellyfish in the world’s oceans could actually benefit from the rising water temperatures – also and especially in the Arctic Ocean, as researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute [...] Institute have now successfully shown. In computer models, they exposed eight widespread Arctic jellyfish species to rising temperatures, sea ice retreat and other changing environmental conditions. The result: [...] triple the size of its habitat – with potentially dramatic consequences for the marine food web and Arctic fish populations. The study was just released in the journal Limnology and Oceanography.

expedition to the Arctic Ocean. Over the next two months, an international research team will analyse the feedback effects between global warming and sea ice retreat in the Arctic Ocean. The investigations [...] ons will focus on the differences in the melting of various sea ice types – representing the Arctic of the past decades, the present and the future. A parallel airborne campaign will complement the me

Press release

Arctic Ocean
The Arctic has a serious litter problem: in just ten years, the concentration of marine litter at a deep-sea station in the Arctic Ocean has risen 20-fold. This was recently reported in

is thought to be the warming of Atlantic water that flows from Europe’s Norwegian Sea into the Arctic Ocean, passing through the Barents Sea and the Fram Strait in the process. However, not all the Atlantic [...] In the last few decades, the Arctic sea ice has receded ever further, including increasingly in winter when the extent of sea ice is at its most prominent. One of the main drivers of this development is