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The Highly Cited Researchers list is an annual award from Clarivate that recognises the world's leading scientists who have demonstrated a significant and broad impact in their field of research through their published work. This year's list includes four AWI scientists: Hans-Otto Pörtner, Guido Grosse, Sebastian Primpke and Gunnar Gerdts. With their outstanding research achievements, they contribute to the scientific debate in their fields.
 

The retreat of Arctic sea ice and the melting of land ice sheets around Greenland lead to more and more freshwater flowing into the Atlantic Ocean. A recent study by AWI climate modeler Qiyun Ma provides brand new insights into how freshwater released from different regions affects and weakens the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The study identifies the Irminger Basin as the region most responsive to additional freshwater and as a key driver of AMOC changes. Regarding the potential slowdown of the AMOC in the future, the authors…

Despite advances in clean and renewable energies, the growing consumption of oil and natural gas is causing global fossil emissions to climb: by the end of 2024, they are expected to increase by 0.8 percent to 37.4 billion metric tons of CO2 . The emissions from coal will increase slightly (by 0.2 percent). Despite the urgent need to reduce emissions and slow climate change, there is no indication that a turning point has been reached in fossil CO2 emissions worldwide. This is the conclusion of the Global Carbon Project, which researchers from the Alfred…

Roughly 90 million years ago, climatic conditions in Antarctica were suitable for resin-producing trees. A team of researchers led by the Alfred Wegener Institute and the TU Bergakademie Freiberg have just released a paper in the journal Antarctic Science, in which they describe the southernmost discovery of amber in the world. 

Only a few weeks ago, massive precipitation produced by the storm “Boris” led to chaos and flooding in Central and Eastern Europe. An analysis conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute shows that in a world without the current level of global warming Boris would have deposited roughly nine percent less rain. Such conclusions can be drawn thanks to a new modelling approach called ‘storylines’. How it can be used in near-real-time was just presented in the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment. At the same time, the AWI team released a freely…

AWI scientist Hans-Otto Pörtner has been reappointed by Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke and Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger as a member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). The appointment is valid from November 1, 2024 to October 31, 2028. In addition to the AWI climate researcher, there are eight other members of the WBGU.

Oldenburg. A German-American research team led by Professor Iliana Baums from the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg (HIFMB) and Dr Samuel Vohsen from Lehigh University in the US has discovered two highly unusual bacterial species in the tissue of two deep-sea corals from the Gulf of Mexico. These previously unknown coral symbionts have an extremely reduced genome and lack the ability to obtain energy from carbohydrates, the team reports in an article published in the scientific journal Nature…

The Amazon region is a global hotspot of biodiversity and plays a key role in the climate system because of its ability to store large amounts of carbon and its influence on the global water cycle. The rain forest is threatened, however, by climate change as well as by intensified deforestation activities. An international team of researchers that includes scientists from MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, the Geosciences Department, the Institute for Environmental Physics of the University of Bremen and the Alfred Wegener Institute, have…

AWI Director Antje Boetius provided exciting insights into marine research at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg: in her performative lecture as part of the project “The Ocean is a Noisy Place” by the Hanoverian orchestra “musica assoluta”, she drew attention to the threat to the marine habitat. The program, under the direction of Thorsten Encke, combined classical and contemporary music, science and video art. Video artist cylixe and cellist Tanja Tetzlaff also took part.

Flatfish and shrimp are caught in the North Sea by using trawls that are dragged across the seabed. This releases carbon into the water and carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, as shown by the latest research at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon. The study is part of the collaborative project APOC. Partners are the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND). The researcher's effort for…