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This year, the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Neumayer Station III will be exclusively supplied by sea. The research vessel Polarstern will transport– as usual – materials and fuel to the Antarctic. However, due to the coronavirus, this season all the staff who will work at the station will also travel to the Southern Continent by ship.

 

“Making theatre in a time of global crisis” - that was the title of the international online conference of the Open University of Cyprus. AWI Director Antje Boetius gave a keynote on the subject of “The tragedy of climate change, the utopia of the ark and how we are all in this play”. The full conference is available online.

In the past 20 years, Central Europe has experienced six summer heat waves and droughts. Until now, however, it was unclear what factors led to these extreme events. Researchers from two Helmholtz Centres (AWI & UFZ) have now discovered that in Central Europe, temperature and precipitation patterns in April play a vital role in determining whether or not the soils are drier than average in the following summer. If the April is too warm, with little precipitation, a large proportion of the moisture stored in the soil evaporates, making a summer drought…

At what depth beneath the seabed does it become so hot that microbial life is no longer possible? This question is the focus of a close scientific cooperative effort between the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen. An expedition by the drilling program IODP (International Ocean Discovery Program) in 2016, in which also an AWI scientist was involved, has provided new insights into the temperature limits of life beneath the ocean floor. The findings…

The frozen permafrost in the Arctic is thawing on an alarming scale. By analysing an annual record of satellite images, researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute have now confirmed these findings: thermokarst lakes in Alaska are draining one by one because warmer and wetter conditions cause deeper thaw, effectively weakening frozen ground as a barrier around lakes. In the season 2017/2018, lake drainage was observed on a scale that model outputs didn’t expect until the end of the century.

Speakers from public authorities, politics, business, science and civil society discussed the challenges of fishing in and using the North Sea and Baltic Sea in sustainable ways
What impact will the exclusion of bottom trawling have on marine protected areas in the German Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the North Sea and Baltic Sea? Two pilot missions in the North Sea and Baltic Sea, which started in March, are examining this key question as part of the research mission “Protection and Sustainable Use of Marine Areas” of the German Marine Research…

The reintroduction of oysters into European waters is one of the main objectives of the Native Oyster Restoration Alliance (NORA). AWI scientists Bernadette Pogoda and Corina Peter are also playing a major role in this alliance. The Alliance has now published a comprehensive collection of publications on this topic in the journal "Aquatic Conservation": Unlocking the blueprint for native oyster restoration in Europe

It’s a nightmare for fish breeders, causes damage amounting to millions, and is also a growing problem for wild salmon: the salmon louse is high on the list of notorious fish parasites. In a new project, experts at the AWI, together with several partners, are developing a new procedure that will rid the fish of these pesky nuisances more effectively and more gently.

The reason for the speed and severity of the abrupt climate fluctuations during the last glacial lies in the ocean. These are the findings of a new study by AWI researcher Henrik Sadatzki, which has now been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The study shows that widespread sea-ice retreat occurred within a period of 250 years or less during the last glacial and repeatedly triggered abrupt climate fluctuations. This scientific breakthrough provides a significant new aspect in the long-standing debate concerning the…

The Icelandic ambassador María Erla Marelsdóttir visited the AWI: In a conversation with AWI Director Antje Boetius, she found out about the MOSAiC expedition. Moreover, the two exchanged ideas on the subject of the "Arctic Council". Because Iceland will chair the Arctic Council until 2021. In addition to the AWI, the ambassador visited other institutions in Bremerhaven.