News

The ice-covered Arctic Ocean is a more important factor concerning the concentration of the greenhouse gas methane in the atmosphere than previously assumed. Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) report on the newly discovered interactions between the atmosphere, sea ice and the ocean in a recent online study in the journal Nature’s Scientific Reports.

AWI modeller Nils Hutter wrote one of the year's best Master's theses in the University of Bremen's Environmental Physics degree programme. In recognition of his academic performance, he will be awarded the 2015 OHB Prize by the University's Faculty 1 on 27 November 2015.

On 29 October 2015 the research icebreaker Polarstern will leave its homeport in Bremerhaven for Cape Town, South Africa, where it is expected to arrive on 1 December. She’ll take with her 32 students hailing from 19 countries, who will be introduced to the latest methods and instruments used in oceanography. Nine instructors from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the FU Berlin and Ireland’s Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology will teach the participants in the “floating summer school”.

In a new study, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), show for the first time that marine litter can even be found at the sea surface of Arctic waters. Though it remains unclear how the litter made it so far north, it is likely to pose new problems for local marine life, the authors report on the online portal of the scientific journal Polar Biology. Plastic has already been reported from stomachs of resident seabirds and Greenland sharks.

Electrical energy from the socket - this convenient type of power supply is apparently used by some microorganisms that form nanowire connections to transfer energy. Researchers have now discovered such small power grids between dual-species microbial consortia that jointly degrade methane.

Today the director of the Alfred Wegener Institute Professor Karin Lochte and Dr Uwe Nixdorf, Vice Director and head of AWI logistics, give presentations in the Country Session Germany at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik.

On Wednesday, 14 October 2015 the research icebreaker Polarstern from the Alfred-Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), entered its homeport in Bremerhaven. Since mid-May, over 200 biologists, physicists, chemists, ice physicists, oceanographers and geoscientists have taken part in a total of four expeditions, with changes of personnel in Longyearbyen (Spitsbergen) and Tromsø (Norway). In the course of these five months, Polarstern covered over 16,000 nautical miles (more than 30,000 kilometres).

The Alfred Wegener Institute welcomes the new scholarship holders of the Centre of Excellence in Observational Oceanography. The international young scientists will be embarking a ten-month traineeship as ocean experts.

Using a new net, marine biologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute have, for the first time, been able to catch polar cod directly beneath the Arctic sea ice with a trawl, allowing them to determine their large-scale distribution and origin. This information is of fundamental importance, as polar cod are a major source of food for seals, whales and seabirds in the Arctic. The study, which was recently published in the journal Polar Biology, shows that only juvenile fish are found under the ice, a habitat the researchers fear could disappear as a result…

Today, AWI biologist and climate researcher Professor Hans-Otto Pörtner was officially voted Co-Chair of the IPCC’s Working Group II at a ceremony held in Dubrovnik, Croatia. He’ll be leading the Group, which primarily focuses on the risks and impacts of climate change, as well as potential adaptation strategies, together with Debra Roberts from South Africa.