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

Press release

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

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.

Press release

Press release

The scarcely explored region to the north of Greenland was the area of study in the last of three Arctic expeditions undertaken by the Polarstern since the end of May 2025. In the largely untraveled waters [...] oceanographer Torsten Kanzow of the Alfred Wegener Institute were able to collect unique data on ocean circulation in the area. A chain of six moorings was also deployed to conduct autonomous measurements

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.

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

inside the ocean. They can grow as large as skyscrapers, travel thousands of kilometres and have a major impact on the transport of heat and nutrients. When they break, the surrounding ocean water is mixed [...] mixed. Oceanographer Dr Friederike Pollmann and her new Junior Researcher Group Artemics (Arctic internal wave energetics and mixing and their interdependence with sea ice in changing climate conditions) [...] conditions) at the Alfred Wegener Institute want to investigate how these waves work in the Arctic, how they are related to sea ice retreat and what this means for the future.