Press release

Southern Ocean
A unique series of measurements taken over several years in the Antarctic Ocean provide new findings about the daily vertical migration of zooplankton communities: scientists of the Thünen [...] Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries in Hamburg and the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven observed changes during the year and between years. The Antarctic zooplankton is the main source of food for many [...] many fish and whale species, including the largest mammal in the world, the blue whale.

little about the early phases of the circulation. This will be the focus of future studies, e.g. the BMBF project SLIP . Drilling the younger history of water mass exchange! The younger history of the water [...] documented e.g. in the western part of Ireland and the UK where branches of the gulf stream, named after the Gulf of Mexico, lead to a mild climate and allow the growth of palm trees. In the same latitudes [...] with the establishment of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet interrupted deposition of drift body 3. Deposition started again with the onset of the Pliocene (drift body 4, ~5 Ma). The gentle slope of the Outer

filmed thousands of nests of icefish of the species Neopagetopsis ionah on the seabed. The density of the nests and the size of the entire breeding area suggest a total number of about 60 million icefish [...] breeding at the time of observation. These findings provide support for the establishment of a Marine Protected Area in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. A team led by Autun Purser from the Alfred [...] Fascinating discovery
Near the Filchner Ice Shelf in the south of the Antarctic Weddell Sea, a research team has found the world's largest fish breeding area known to date. A towed camera system ph

landmass, sending up to 150 times the flow of all the world’s rivers clockwise around the frozen continent. It connects all the other oceans, and is thought to play a key role in regulating natural climate swings [...] Southern Ocean
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is the planet’s most powerful and arguably most important. It is the only one to flow clear around the globe without getting diverted by any landmass [...] swings that have repeatedly swept the earth for millions of years. But much is still not known about how it works, including how it might now respond to human-induced climate change.

tal conditions of the future. This implies that we research the state of the Earth System over a time span of several tens of millions of years. While we employ a diverse approach, the following time scales [...] considering the properties of the climate of the past. We are able to reconstruct past climate changes from historical data collections or by evaluating documented observations. The history of Earth provides [...] climate change? This is one of research's central questions. To give a proper answer, we have to know the parameters of natural variability, e.g. the temperatures in oceans, above the continents and in polar

little about the life of the world’s second-largest whale. That makes the findings of researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the Johann [...] Antarctic Peninsula
During the era of commercial whaling, fin whales were hunted so intensively that only a small percentage of the population in the Southern Hemisphere survived, and even today, marine [...] where in the peak month of May, so many fin whale vocalizations can be heard that the individual calls merge into a veritable chorous of sound, as the research team now reports in the journal Royal Society

different types of killer whales live in the Southern Ocean. They are known to differ in feeding ecology and appearance. However, little is known about the distribution and behaviour of these different [...] whale ecotypes. To answer these questions, scientists monitor the whales’ communication with specific underwater sound recorders. However, so far nobody knew, which calls the different ecotypes are using

rising and the Wadden Sea ecosystems are changing rapidly (Figure 1). At the Wadden Sea station of Sylt we have one of the most detailed and species rich marine time series in the world. The so-called Sylt [...] years, much of the work on the LTER has focused on key species and their role in habitat stability and species function. The demise of and introduction of species especially in the context of resilience [...] and taxonomical biodiversity of the North Sea, as well as the computation of flows of energy and nutrients through the system also via models. We aim to integrate the different data sets using modelling

Helgoland and the agency "studio klv". The Alfred Wegener Institute conducts research in the extreme habitats of the polar regions and oceans - from the atmosphere to the bottom of the seas. At the Helgoland and [...] on side The excavation pit is currently being prepared with the pile construction, and the next step will be the demolition of the two basement levels. In the course of the upcoming work, the subsoil is [...] around 600 square metres of state-of-the-art exhibition space. By combining haptic and virtual content, the BLUEHOUSE HELGOLAND will provide a whole new insight into the world of the North Sea and its exploration