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Following a five-month mandatory delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, on August 30th the two German polar research aircraft Polar 5 and Polar 6 will launch from Svalbard to conduct their first aerial survey flights over the Arctic this year. The flights, which will extend far into the Central Arctic, will support the investigation of the atmosphere and sea ice, and supplement the MOSAiC expedition’s extensive research agenda. Core research priorities include cloud formation over the Arctic Ocean and the question as to whether the sea ice observed…

The Greenland Ice Sheet recorded a new record loss of mass in 2019. This was the finding of a team of international researchers after evaluating data from satellite observations and modelling data. The total loss amounted to 532 billion metric tons, more than in the previous record year 2012 (464 billion metric tons), which equates to an average global sea-level rise of 1.5 mm. After two years characterised by low loss of mass in 2017 and 2018, the ice sheet is now heading toward increasing mass losses. The five years with the greatest losses all…

At 12:45 pm on 19 August 2020 the German research icebreaker Polarstern reached the North Pole. The ship followed a route to the north of Greenland – and through a region that, in the past, was densely covered with ice, including multiyear ice. The journey from the northern Fram Strait to the Pole only took six days to complete. To mark this momentous event, countless members of the expedition team gathered on the bridge, where their eyes were glued to the position monitors, and then celebrated having reached the Pole together. 

Using conventional methods, the water levels in German rivers can be predicted roughly six weeks in advance. That is why the drought in the summer of 2018, characterised by extremely low flow conditions in the Rhine and Elbe, caught not only ships’ crews on the inland waterways by surprise, but also most of those running refineries, steelworks and chemical companies located along the course of the rivers. Many of the companies that rely on water transport soon reported delivery bottlenecks and production downtimes. The economic damages could certainly…

The glacial history of the Antarctic is currently one of the most important topics in climate research. Why? Because worsening climate change raises a key question: How did the ice masses of the southern continent react to changes between cold and warm phases in the past, and how will they do so in the future? A team of international experts, led by geophysicists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), has now shed new light on nine pivotal intervals in the climate history of the Antarctic, spread over 34…

Antje Boetius is currently in the Azores, where she undertaking deep sea dives with astronaut Alexander Gerst for his "Mission Erde" (Mission Earth) series. Alexander Gerst accompanies scientists wanting to gain a better understanding of the fragile Earth system on expeditions – for example in Siberia, the rainforest and in the deep sea. The films documenting the expeditions are produced for SWR by Lars Abromeit and Luise Wagner from Gruppe 5.

After exactly 300 days of drifting with the MOSAiC floe, the international team around Expedition Leader Markus Rex on Wednesday, 29 July 2020, started the dismantling of the research camp and evacuation of the floe. Just one day later the floe finally broke into several fragments. After accompanying the floe on its journey for ten months, the team will now shift its focus to the last remaining puzzle piece in the annual cycle of Arctic sea ice: the start of the ice formation process.

The Arctic sea-ice extent is the lowest it’s ever been in July since the beginning of satellite observation. The sea-ice retreat is especially pronounced off the Siberian coast, as a result of which the Northeast Passage (also referred to as the Northern Sea Route) was ice-free by mid-July. Virtually from the outset, the year 2020 promised to be an anomalous one in terms of both ice thickness and ice drift. In addition, in June there was a cell of warm air that produced extremely high temperatures in Siberia and seriously impacted the sea-ice cover: in…

Researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, together with the Bremerhaven Zoo have developed a special exhibition on the reintroduction of the European oyster (Ostrea edulis) into the North Sea. On display are living European oysters in an aquarium, a detailed model of an oyster reef and its inhabitants as well as background information on the ecological importance of the species in the exhibition.

What factors influence the spread of invasive animal species in our oceans? This question was the focus for a team of experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), Bangor University (Wales, UK), and the University of Greifswald’s Zoological Institute and Museum in the context of the DFG-sponsored Research Training Group 2010 RESPONSE (Biological Responses to Novel and Changing Environments). The results of their study have just been released in the journal “Ecography”.