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"Delivering the science we need for the ocean we want" - this is the motto of the first Ocean Decade conference: Three years after the start of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), the Ocean Decade community will meet in Barcelona from April 10-12 to set joint priorities for the future of the Decade. As a member of the German Ocean Decade Committee, AWI Director Antje Boetius will also be attending the conference and presenting the Antarctica InSync project together with AWI scientist Stefanie Arndt.

The International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) has honored Markus Rex, Matthew Shupe and Klaus Dethloff with the Award for Service 2024. They received the award for the planning and execution of the MOSAiC expedition, which provided crucial insights into Arctic systems and a better understanding of climate change. According to the IASC, their work is unparalleled in its contribution to Arctic science and international cooperation.

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets. An international research team led by the Alfred Wegener Institute and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have now used sediments taken from the South Pacific to reconstruct the flow speed in the last 5.3 million years. Their data show that during glacial periods, the current slowed; during interglacials, it accelerated. Consequently, if the current…

Dr Jenna Balaguer with her dissertation on the role of micronutrients for phytoplankton growth in the Antarctic and Dr Jonas Preine with his dissertation on the development of the marine volcanic field in the southern Aegean have been awarded the Annette Barthelt Prize 2024. The award is associated with a research grant of 6000 euros funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and was presented on Friday at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.

Ground-based measuring devices and aircraft radar operated in the far northeast of Greenland show how much ice the 79° N Glacier is losing. According to measurements conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute, the thickness of the glacier has decreased by more than 160 metres since 1998. Warm ocean water flowing under the glacier tongue is melting the ice from below. High air temperatures cause lakes to form on the surface, whose water flows through huge channels in the ice into the ocean. One channel reached a height of 500 metres, while the ice above…

When plastic ends up in the ocean, it gradually weathers and disintegrates into small particles. If marine animals ingest these particles, their health can be severely affected. Large accumulations of plastic can therefore disrupt the biological balance of marine ecosystems. But which areas are particularly affected? In a recent study, a research team from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), in collaboration with the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), has found large quantities of plastic waste and microplastics in a remote marine…

Yesterday, the Chairman of the Arctic Circle, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, visited the Arctic Office at the AWI site in Potsdam. He first visited the Radialsystem in Berlin and then met with staff of the Arctic Office to discuss the Arctic Circle Forum, which will take place on 7-8 May. Representatives of the German Foreign Office also attended the meeting.

Marine ecosystems are an important part of our earth and climate system: they are home to a wide variety of animal and plant species, produce about half of the oxygen in our atmosphere and provide humans with food. However, their structures and functions are changing under the influence of human activities and climate change: overfishing and pollution, tourism or warming water and changes in ocean circulation are affecting marine ecosystems. In order to better understand how they react to the dynamics of the Earth-human system and how they adapt, the…

Continental glaciers and ice sheets are excellent indicators of current and past climate changes. The Patagonian ice sheet was the largest ice sheet in the Southern Hemisphere apart from the Antarctic in the Earth's history. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute have now used a sediment core to demonstrate the climate sensitivity of this ice sheet over the last 140,000 years and published their findings in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academie of Sciences.

"Polar Ocean Mitigation Potential" (POMP) is a new EU project involving 16 partners, including the AWI. The aim of the research project is to investigate the effects of climate change on polar biodiversity and the CO2 absorption capacity of ecosystems in polar regions. The kick-off meeting took place from 27 to 29 February 2024 in Copenhagen to discuss future steps and to organise the workflows. The project is led by Aarhus University in Denmark and funded by the EU Horizon Programme. More information.