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After a month’s absence, on 17 June the German research icebreaker Polarstern rendezvoused with the MOSAiC floe at 82.2 ° North and 8.4 ° East, after having left it on 19 May 2020 to exchange personnel and bunker supplies near Svalbard. Full of energy, the research team for the fourth leg of the expedition, which consists of experts from 19 countries, is looking forward to continuing the one-year-long MOSAiC expedition and its research on the ocean, ice and atmosphere in the Arctic. Earlier this week, their predecessors from Leg 3 returned to…

Humanity cannot limit global warming to 1.5 degrees unless action is taken. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shown this in its special report from 2018. In addition to reducing emissions to nearly zero, humanity must actively remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere in order to achieve the climate goal. From 1 July, scientists from 14 institutions in six countries including the Alfred Wegener Institute will be examining the opportunities and risks of ocean-based technologies for such negative emissions. The EU is funding the…

Scientists around the world express solidarity with people of black color, many of which experience discrimination on a daily basis and are harmed by racism. At AWI we strive for diversity and equality of opportunity, and we stand against racism. We recognise that it is a long journey to full inclusiveness, and that we all have a task in getting there. The journey starts with recognising and reflecting structural deficits and behavioural patterns, with speaking up and with committing deeply to equality and social justice.

The Instagram live format "Coffee Break" is going into the next round: returnees of the MOSAiC expedition report live about their experiences in the Central Arctic. On June 4th, from 4 p.m., Julia Wenzel and Anja Sommerfeld chat over a cup of coffee about their experiences during the expedition on the MOSAiC Instagram channel @mosaic_expedition. Here's a look back at the latest issue of Coffee Break.

The Alfred Wegener Institute’s project to “establish the sustainable production of seed oysters for a long-term reintroduction programme (PROCEED)” has now been named an official project of the UN Decade on Biodiversity. This honour is bestowed upon outstanding projects intended to preserve Germany’s biodiversity.

Late Monday morning, the time had come: the German research vessels Maria S. Merian and Sonne departed Bremerhaven, headed for the Arctic. In addition to the ship’s crews, roughly 100 passengers were on board: researchers and Polarstern crewmembers. The two ships will tentatively rendezvous with the Polarstern near Svalbard this weekend, so that their passengers can relieve the current MOSAiC team. A substantial amount of scientific material, equipment and provisions will also be transferred.

Lakes in the northernmost latitudes are widely considered to be a significant source of the greenhouse gas methane. In order to improve currently available climate-change projection models, it’s essential to have some idea of how much methane will be released by the millions of northern lakes. A German-American research team led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), which also included members from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), has now developed a method for determining the amount of methane…

Over the past quarter-century, changes in Antarctic sea-ice cover have had profound impacts on life on the ocean floor. As biologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute report in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications, between 1988 and 2014, total benthic biomass on the continental shelf of the northeast Weddell Sea declined by two thirds. In addition, the composition of the benthos changed drastically, and the ecosystem’s productivity suffered. This period coincides with a significant increase in sea-ice cover in the region, a trend that…

The live format "Coffee Break" goes into the next round: participants of the MOSAiC expedition report live on Instagram of their experiences in the Central Arctic. On May 7, from 4 p.m., Giulia Castellani and Ivo Beck chat over a cup of coffee about everyday life on a research ship and life on the polar night on the MOSAiC Instagram channel @mosaic_expedition. This Instagram live video enables viewers to be actively involved and to ask the speakers questions interactively.

Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) and the University of Oslo have determined that much of the permafrost that is currently still very cold might disappear by the end of the century. What’s new about their simulations: the inclusion of thermokarst processes. The outcomes of the study have just been released in the journal Nature Communications.