News

They research how climate models can be improved or how metastases can be identified more quickly: Six young scientists have been awarded the 2020 Helmholtz Doctoral Prize. AWI scientist Nils Hutter was awarded the title "Resolving Leads in Sea-Ice Models: New Analysis. Methods for Frontier Resolution Arctic Simulations" for his work. The award ceremony is available online.

Roughly two years after the groundbreaking ceremony on 18 April 2019, the shell for the AWI Technical Centre in the Klußmannstraße, Bremerhaven is now complete. Since the ongoing pandemic made a live topping-out ceremony impossible, the Alfred Wegener Institute marked the milestone for the new building with a video topping-out speech and greetings from prominent members of the political and research communities. The next planned steps, beyond interior work on the offices and conference rooms, especially include the construction of workshops and…

The "Arctic Science Ministerial" supports the Arctic Council and organizes ministerial meetings on Arctic topics. The 3rd Arctic Science Ministerial was organized by Iceland and Japan as an online event. AWI Director Antje Boetius and Volker Rachold, Head of the German Arctic Office, accompanied the Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Education and Research, Michael Meister. Using the example of the MOSAiC expedition, Mr. Meister emphasized the urgency of international cooperation in polar research.

Back-to-back successes: The Communications and Media Relations department of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) recently won the prize for the best scientific press release of the year 2020, awarded by the Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw). The prize recognises press releases that are characterised by a high degree of professionalism (quality), are of high value in terms of the news shared, and are also scientifically significant (relevance and originality). Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the awards…

New research from a large international community of scientists predicts that sea level rise from the melting of ice could be halved this century if we meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to 1.5°C.  

AWI project APPLICATE successfully comes to an end: After more than 4 years of research, the European Union funded project APPLICATE (Advanced Prediction in Polar regions and beyond) was completed on April 30, 2021. In the project led by the AWI, a team of experts for weather and climate prediction  from over 15 research institutes examined the relationships between the Arctic and mid-latitudes. The aim of the project was to improve weather forecasts for the polar regions. More information about APPLICATE.

Ocean risks losing its ability to absorb carbon, exacerbating global warming. New Report published: “Integrated Ocean Carbon Research: A Summary of Ocean Carbon Knowledge and a Vision for Coordinated Ocean Carbon Research and Observations for the Next Decade” with contributions from AWI scientist Dr. Judith Hauck.

AWI scientist Sinhué Torres-Valdés observed the nutrient chemistry of the Arctic Ocean on an expedition as part of the PEANUTS project (Primary production driven by Escalating Arctic NUTrient fluxeS). The SCRIPPS Institution of Oceanography led the expedition in 2018. The results have now been published in a paper in the journal Nature Communications. The PEANUTS project is funded by the Changing Arctic Ocean Program (CAO).

The SCAR Krill Action Group, led by AWI biologist Prof. Bettina Meyer (SKAG), has an online meeting this week on: Evaluating change in Antarctic krill population.

When German coastal researchers head for the North Sea to measure the nutrient load in the water and, for the first time, whenever they use a scientific instrument, it is automatically recorded by an app, above all they’ll have the ingenuity of AWI sea-ice engineer Martin Schiller to thank for the new service. After taking part in a search operation in the Arctic, he developed FloeNavi, a system for navigating and locating measuring sites on sea ice. The AWI Computing Centre has since expanded the system’s most popular function into a separate app. Read…