Eva-Katrin Landscheid Communication and events +49 471 4831 2333 Dr. Katja Mintenbeck Nationale Cooperation, UN Ocean Decade, UNFCCC COPs and IPCC +49 471 4831 2254 Heinrich Weingart Process and Board

Directorate's Office Am Handelshafen 12 27570 Bremerhaven Germany Dr. Katja Mintenbeck Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research Research Consultant of the Directorate's Office

Katja.Mintenbeck@awi.de
+49(471)4831-2254
Am Handelshafen 12, 27570 Bremerhaven

Sea ice plays a central part in the Earth system: it cools our planet, shapes ocean currents, and offers a habitat for countless species. Yet climate change is causing sea ice in the polar regions to increasingly dwindle. In the Antarctic, sea-ice retreat is currently so intense that we could see a new record minimum in the second half of February 2023. The SEA ICE PORTAL offers essential information on this and many other developments. From today, the joint project of the Alfred Wegener Institute, the Helmholtz Climate Initiative REKLIM, and the University of Bremen is available in a completely new format – with a more modern interface and new, more accessible content specially targeting users who are newcomers to the topic of sea ice.

Further Education
Rising temperatures, extreme weather events like heavy rain and storms – climate change is becoming more and more visible, and Germany is no exception. In this regard, every region faces its own unique challenges. With the course “klimafit”, the goal of the Helmholtz Climate Initiative REKLIM, the WWF Germany and the Universität Hamburg is to prepare citizens for the effects of climate change at their doorstep. As part of the National Climate Initiative, the course will receive 2.2 million euros of funding over three years. In March 2022, the next round of courses will begin at 128 community colleges throughout Germany.

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 on the negative list for absolute values. Sea ice extent in September is one of the strongest signs of climate change, experts pointed out in the recently published 6 th Assessment Report of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It has declined by about 40 per cent over the last four decades.

Event
The Helmholtz Climate Initiative REKLIM ("Regionale Klimaänderungen"/Regional Climcate Change), coordinated by the Alfred Wegener Institute, is one of 190 featured exhibitors at the 5th "Woche der Umwelt" (Week of the Environment) - an environmental exhibition of the Federal President and the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU). The event will take place on 7 and 8 June 2016 in Berlin's Schloss Bellevue and presents the topic "Environmental Protection" with its associated economic and social chances to thousands of invited guests.

New Study
A future warming of the Southern Ocean caused by rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere may severely disrupt the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The result would be a rise in the global sea level by several metres. A collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may have occurred during the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago, a period when the polar surface temperature was around two degrees Celsius higher than today. This is the result of a series of model simulations which the researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), have published online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Arctic Ocean
This September, the Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk to 4.1 million square kilometres (sq km)-the second lowest in the history of satellite measurements. It is exceeded only by the all-time record low of 3.4 million sq km in 2012. "Once again, a massive loss of sea ice in the Arctic," says Prof. Lars Kaleschke from Universität Hamburg's Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN). His colleague Prof. Christian Haas from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) confirms: "The trend continues." Currently, the Northeast and Northwest Passages are navigable at the same time.

Helmholtz Climate Initiative REKLIM
Understanding regional climate change, identifying the consequences and discussing the effects. The REKLIM research association’s fifth regional conference this year focuses on coastal regions. What effect does climate change have on areas between land and sea, and what are the consequences? Researchers from the Helmholz Association’s research consortium REKLIM “Regional Climate Change” discuss with representatives from politics and business the challenges facing society as a result of climate change.