News

Bedrock has been reached Tuesday July 27 2010 at the deep ice core drilling site NEEM on the Greenland Ice Sheet at the depth 2537.36 m. The Eemian is the last interglacial period, when climate was warmer than today, and sea level 5 meters higher, and is our best analogue for future climate. Scientists from 14 nations participated in NEEM, the most international ice core effort to date. After five years of work, ice from the warm interglacial Eemian period, 130.000 to 115.000 years before present and even older ice has been recovered. The last 2 m of ice…

The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association for the first time sent its Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) on an under-ice mission at about 79° North.

The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association will be thirty years old on 15 July. Through its innovative scientific and excellent research infrastructure the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) has developed into one of the world’s leading internationally recognised centres for climate research on both polar regions and the oceans.

40,000 years ago rapid warming led to an increase in methane concentration. The culprit for this increase has now been identified. Mainly wetlands in high northern lati-tudes caused the methane increase, as discovered by a research team from the University of Bern and the German Alfred Wegener Institute.

A critical minimum for Arctic sea ice can also be expected for late summer 2010. Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute and from KlimaCampus of the University of Hamburg have now published data in this context in the annual issue of Sea Ice Outlook.

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) announced the authors and experts for its fifth Assessment Report in Geneva. They include Prof. Peter Lemke and Prof. Hans-Otto Pörtner from the Alfred Wegener Institute.

Tomorrow the Polarstern research vessel sets off on its 25th Arctic expedition. From Bremerhaven it will first set course for the Greenland Sea, where primarily oceanographic work is on the agenda. Over 120 scientists and technicians from six nations are taking part in the three legs of the expedition. The Polarstern is expected back in Bremerhaven on 10 October.

Scientists have for the first time determined the complete genome sequence of a brown alga and opened a new door to the understanding of multicellularity and photosynthesis. 

 

“Gustavo” is an imposing bull always in search of the best feeding grounds. The elephant seal weighing 3 tons and measuring 4 metres in length belongs to a group of 14 animals that serve researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute as scientific assistants since recently.

On coming Monday, 17 May the research vessel Polarstern is expected back in Bremerhaven. That will mark the end of the 26th Antarctic expedition of the research icebreaker after over seven months covering more than 68,000 kilometres (37,000 nautical miles). The expedition was divided into four legs, in which over 150 scientists from 15 nations took part.