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The Arctic Ocean was covered by up to 900 m thick shelf ice and was filled entirely with freshwater at least twice in the last 150,000 years. This surprising finding, reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature, is the result of long-term research by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute and the MARUM. With a detailed analysis of the composition of marine deposits, the scientists could demonstrate that the Arctic Ocean as well as the Nordic Seas did not contain sea-salt in at least two glacial periods. Instead, these oceans were filled with…

The Alfred Wegener Institute has risen to the challenge of undertaking an expedition to the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic under pandemic conditions. Consequently, the participants in this year’s first Polarstern expedition will be able to resume their long-term measurements in the Southern Ocean, gathering data that forms the basis for our understanding of polar processes and for urgently needed climate forecasts.

A new study in the prestigious journal Science Advances shows that stress from rising water temperatures reduces ability of corals to adapt to ocean acidification.

The goal of the international Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is to create a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean. In the course of revising the proposal to establish a Marine Protected Area in the Weddell Sea, researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute have also updated the fact sheet and short video about this proposal. The two publications illustrate why the Weddell Sea must be protected. 

Driving across ice in a truck or snowcat is a dangerous undertaking. Especially since climate change means that the ice conditions are always unpredictable. But in the Arctic, it’s often the only way to reach your destination. With a new navigation system, known as “TransIce Nav”, Alexandra Zuhr and Tabea Rettelbach want to make journeys like this much safer in future. The two Potsdam-based researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), took the first prize in the prestigious European “Copernicus…

The new Helmholtz research program "Changing Earth - Sustaining our Future" was started with a digital kick-off meeting. AWI Director Antje Boetius opened the meeting in 2019/2020, Vice President of the Earth and Environment Research Area.The new research program coordinates the scientific work of seven Helmholtz research centers in the field of "Earth and Environment". The digital kick-off event is available online.

During glacial periods, icebergs from Antarctica drifted much further north than they do today. An international team led by Cardiff University and which included the AWI has now revealed how this was possible, and what consequences it had for the ocean. Their study found that the transport of frozen freshwater had effects in regions as far away as the Northern Hemisphere and the deep Atlantic. The impacts on the evolution of climate at that time are subject of on-going research. 

In the future, the Antarctic could become a greener place and be colonised by new species. At the same time, some species will likely disappear. 25 researchers recently presented these and many other findings in a major international project, in which they analysed hundreds of articles on the Antarctic published in the past ten years. By doing so, the team have provided an exceptionally comprehensive assessment of the status quo and future of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean that surrounds it. 

The alga Vaucheria velutina has been chosen “Alga of the Year 2021”. The Phycology Section of the German Society for Plant Sciences recently elected this introduced species “due to its sudden dominance and the unforeseeable ecological impacts” that its novel appearance in the northern Wadden Sea could entail. Mud gets trapped in the tube-like filaments of this alga, while other species of Vaucheria only thrive in salt marshes. As a result, lugworm burrows become clogged, and this eventually is transforming the Wadden Sea ecosystem. Coastal scientist Prof…

Until recently, what we knew about the lives of baleen whales in the Southern Ocean was chiefly based on research conducted during the Antarctic summer. The reason: in the winter, there were virtually no biologists on site to watch for the animals. Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), have now used permanently installed underwater microphones, which have been recording for the past nine years, to successfully gather and analyse whale observation data from the Weddell Sea. The audio recordings…