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The German research vessel Polarstern has returned today to Bremerhaven from the Arctic Sea. It has cruised as the first research vessel ever both the Northeast and the Northwest Passages and thereby circled the North Pole. The third part of the research vessel’s 23rd Arctic expedition, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute in the Helmholtz Association, started its journey on August 12th in Reykjavik and ended it on October 17th in Bremerhaven. The ship travelled a distance of 10.800 nautical miles, equivalent to 20.000 kilometres. On board were 47…

A large international group of researchers succeeded in sequencing the genome of a marine alga. The periodical nature reports that it is the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum (“The Phaeodactylum genome reveals the evolutionary history of diatom genomes” nature online, October 15th 2008). The researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association who participated in the research project concentrated primarily on this diatom’s evolution.

The joint graduate programme “Earth System Science Research School” (ESSReS) will be inaugurated today in Bremerhaven. The interdisciplinary graduate programme will train 24 PhD-students of geo- and climate sciences during the next three years. Apart from the doctorate, far-reaching skills in geo-, bio- and climate sciences will be confirmed for the PhD-students. The research training group is a joint project of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, the University of Bremen and Jacobs University Bremen.…

They come from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Madagascar or the Seychelles: 13 representatives of the Hydrographical Surveys and Mapping Agencies from eleven nations bordering the Indian Ocean are currently participating in a two-week course at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven. The aim is to correctly evaluate the threats originating from tsunami events.

The Arctic summer nears its end and the minimum extent of sea ice is reached. The Arctic ice cover amounted to 4.5 million square kilometres on September 12th. This is slightly more than the lowest ice cover ever measured: 4.1 million square kilometres in the year 2007. Scientists are anxious about the development of sea ice because the long-time mean is 2.2 million square kilometres higher. This development did not come about completely unexpectedly, however. A model calculation conducted at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in…

Researchers of the Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT), the University of Bremen and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association have, discovered a hitherto unknown giant clam. Tridacna costata lives in the coral reefs of the Red Sea and grows to a length of 40 centimetres. It also exists in fossilized form and its decline about 125.000 years ago is seen by the researchers as the first incidence of overfishing in the history of mankind.

It is red, it burns and itches: a sunburn on our skin. However, too much sun is not only bad for humans. Many plants react very sensitive to an exposure to ultraviolet radiation, too. Yet they are dependent on sunlight. With the help of pigments absorbing solar energy and light, plants produce their cellular components by means of photosynthesis. However, this has its limits: too much sun means an over-abundance of energy and thus the destruction of the sensitive pigments. The results are black spots, pale leaves and rotten parts.

German research vessel Polarstern, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, transits the Northwest Passage for the first time. Polarstern left the port of Reykjavik on August 12th, sailed around Greenland on a southern course and is located right now at the beginning of the Northwest Passage. Its destination is the East Siberian Sea where geoscientific measurements at the junction between the Mendeleev Ridge and the East Siberian Shelf are at the focus of the participants of this expedition.

Vast seasonal differences in climate history challenge modellers
The severe climate oscillations in the North Atlantic area during the last glacial period were a phenomenon of extreme winters - the summers were only slightly affected. This is the result of the examinations of research teams from the Netherlands, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, Bremerhaven, and the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel. It has now been published in the periodical “Nature Geoscience”.

The German Research Vessel Polarstern had to prove its ice breaking capabilities in Arctic waters to gain data on two series of long-term research measurements. After working in regions up to latitude 82° N, Polarstern of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association will enter port in Reykjavik (Iceland) on August 10th.