News

The earth is currently subject to profound climate change. However, the effects can regionally be highly different. How will global changes impact in detail on the regional scale? In which way will anthropogenic influence and natural climate change affect each other? On which knowledge base can regions react to the expected changes by means of appropriate climate adaptation and mitigation strategies? Eight research centres of the Helmholtz Association focus their competences in the Helmholtz network Regional Climate Change (“Regionale Klimaänderungen”:…

Geoscientists have succeeded in reconstructing the ice conditions in the Fram Strait, a narrow passage between eastern Greenland and Spitsbergen, during the past 30,000 years. They used a new research method. Based on fossilized algal remains in sediment cores, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association in collaboration with colleagues from the University Plymouth, Great Britain, worked out a uniform picture of the expansion of sea ice in this area that is particularly important for worldwide…

Research vessel Polarstern will start its journey October 16th from Bremerhaven to its 26th expedition into Antarctica. The expedition consists of four legs and leads Polarstern, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, at first to Punta Arenas.

Bremerhaven, October 6th 2009. The project Eurofleets (European fleets) funded by the European Commission in the 7th Framework program was recently launched with a meeting of about 100 scientists and fleet operators in Paris. 24 partners from 16 member states of the European Union or associated countries participated to further advance the networking of the European research fleets. The European Commission finances Eurofleets during the coming four years with 7.2 million Euros. The project is coordinated by the French research institute Ifremer. The…

The major research project BIOACID (Biological Impacts of Ocean ACIDification) starts today. It is a joint project which examines the repercussions of oceanic acidification on marine biological communities. The effects of oceanic acidification on lime formation, and growth and development of marine organisms will be examined in an interdisciplinary collaboration within the framework of BIOACID. The project is funded with 8.500.000 Euros by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with the participation of 14 German research institutes…

Kiel/Bremerhaven/Helgoland. Fresh breeze for the dive centre of the Biologische Anstalt Helgoland: Schleswig-Holstein’s Education and Science Secretary of State Jost de Jager handed today a grant notification of 850.000 Euros for the modernization and expansion of this research and training facility over to the directorate of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association.

The first season of the international drilling project NEEM (North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling) in north-western Greenland was completed today. A research team, with the participation of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, has drilled an ice core of altogether 1757.87 m length on the Greenland inland ice within 110 days. It is expected to contain data on climate history of about 38.000 years.

Three research institutes from the German federal state Bremen among others have set up an observation ward for the long-term observation of a mud volcano in the Norwegian deep sea. This took place during RV Polarstern’s 24th Arctic expedition from July 10th until August 3rd. The endeavours are part of the project ESONET (European Seas Observatory NETwork), funded by the European Union. Its purposes are to provide information about the dynamics of gas eruptions in the next years and to show the consequences of these eruptions, for example on the…

Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute have researched the geology of the seabed in the Labrador Sea on board of the research vessel Maria S. Merian. They have studied the so-called Eirik Drift at the southern tip of Greenland, a structure of several hundred kilometres length formed like a ridge. They discovered a submarine mountain (seamount) at the south-western fringe of their area of investigation that indicates volcanic eruptions during the past few million years.

A new measurement system for the detection of whales is used for the first time on board of the research vessel Polarstern. Whales are usually difficult to spot. Visual sightings by marine mammal observers are therefore usually based on observations of the spout, the condensing and quite warm breathing cloud. It rises, depending on the whale species and wind conditions, between one metre and ten metres over the water surface and remains visible for only a few seconds. A thermal imaging camera specifically optimized for this purpose now uses the heat of…