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Scientists and political representatives are meeting in Rostock today, including AWI Director Antje Boetius. Cooperation in marine and polar research is an essential aspect of German-Russian research cooperation.

December 7 is the day of junior researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute. From 9:00 to 15:00, graduates of all disciplines present their work in the lecture hall. AWI director Antje Boetius welcomes the PhD students, junior group leader Scarlett Trimborn gives a keynote lecture.

At the UN Climate Conference in Katowice, Poland, this year’s Global Carbon Budget was released. For the purpose of the budget, researchers estimate the anthropogenic carbon budget for the planet as a whole; this includes the sources (emissions), the carbon sinks on land and in the ocean, and the carbon content of the atmosphere. The report provides the figures for the year 2017 and offers an initial indicator of the general trend for 2018.

Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research have for the first time reconstructed the historical development of the larch forests in northern Siberia over the past 9,000 years. This allowed them to identify, which factors determine the ranges of various larch species, and to gauge the forests’ capacity for absorbing carbon dioxide – an aspect that is directly relevant with regard to potential shifts in the larches’ ranges in the future. Their findings indicate that not air temperature alone determines…

The latest research conducted by AWI experts that the chances of survival for the offspring of important fish species will dramatically worsen, if the 1.5 ° C target of the Paris Climate Agreement is not achieved. Under conditions of further warming and acidification of the ocean, Atlantic cod and its arctic relative polar cod would be forced to look for new habitats in the far north. Their populations could dwindle. If so, this could be disastrous, as the polar cod is the most important food source for Arctic seals and seabirds. In addition, fishers…

Two researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute are in the annual ranking of the "Highly Cited Researchers": marine biologist Hans-Otto Pörtner (l.) and Christian Hamm, head of Bionic Lightweight Design.

Today, a delegation from the French University of La Rochelle visits the Alfred Wegener Institute to discuss current and future projects.

In 2019, Charlotte Havermans will form a new four- to five-member research group, which will use cutting-edge technologies to create a jellyfish inventory for the Arctic Ocean. The group will receive financial support from the Helmholtz Association and the Alfred Wegener Institute.

If carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and thereby in the ocean continue to rise, this could favour the mass development of toxic algae, with far-reaching consequences for the pelagic food web. This was discovered during a long-term experiment off the Canary Islands conducted by an international group of scientists with the participation of the Alfred Wegener Institute. The results have now been published in the international journal Nature Climate Change.

On Friday the Argentinian Ambassador S.E. Edgardo Malaroda visited the Alfred Wegener Institute together with the Embassy Secretary Martin Suaya.