Today, the research vessel Polarstern will depart on a seven-week-long voyage to the Arctic, where the onset of summer also marks the beginning of the annual sea-ice melting. Over the past 40 years, the [...] zone, the team of researchers on board will investigate how heat fluxes and water layering in the ocean, as well as the characteristics of the ice, interact and influence melting. A further focus of the

north of Svalbard, as well as ocean/glacier interactions off the coast of Greenland. Central research questions included how the ice conditions, ocean heat fluxes and ocean stratification determine sea-ice [...] The Research Vessel Polarstern was in the Arctic for the past seven weeks. There, the summertime sea-ice extent declined by ca. 40 percent over the past 40 years – making it one of the most visible impacts

A major new project will help benchmark biodiversity change in the Arctic Ocean and guide conservation efforts by identifying unique species and assessing their extinction risk. The research led by scientists

million metric tons of CO 2 in the Arctic deep sea for millennia. In this region alone, a previously unknown transport route uses the biological carbon pump and ocean currents to absorb atmospheric CO 2

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

the Alfred Wegener Institute’s flagship has successfully completed more than 130 expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic and offered a temporary home for thousands of researchers from Germany and around the [...] safely traversed 1.8 million nautical miles. The ship is currently on an expedition in the Southern Ocean.

Over the past 200 years, our planet’s oceans have absorbed more than a quarter of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As a result, their acidity has increased by nearly 30 percent their [...] recently demonstrated. If this comes to pass, it could have far-reaching consequences for life in the ocean, as they report in the journal Nature.

Research aircraft from the Alfred Wegener Institute have been surveying the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for 30 years. The immense effort of the past 52 expeditions has paid off: 40,000 km of measurement data [...] aeroplane- and helicopter-based measurement series in the world that has been carried out in the Arctic over such a long period. Currently, two Basler BT-67 aircraft are in operation: the Polar 5 and Polar

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

of sea ice retreat on the entire ocean system from the surface to the deep sea. Eleven years ago, Antje Boetius was part of the largest ever sea ice minumum in the Arctic and its consequences for life in [...] the North Pole. For two months, a good fifty scientific expedition participants will explore the Arctic in transition as sea ice extent reaches its annual minimum in September. They will explore the biology [...] in the deep sea. Now she is returning with her team to compare the state of the Arctic today - also with the data from the MOSAiC expedition 2019/20.