News

Artificially accelerated weathering of the mineral olivine may increasingly remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and counteract ocean acidification.

Successful German-Russian cooperation will be continued: Prof. Karin Lochte, Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in the Helmholtz Association, and Prof. Ivan Frolov, Director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), signed an agreement for continuation of the Otto Schmidt Laboratory for Polar and Marine Research (OSL) for another three years. Signature of the agreement took place at the end of October at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences IfM-Geomar in Kiel where the Scientific Advisory Board…

The German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) is financing a new aircraft for research purposes: “Polar 6” will reinforce the scientific and logistic operations of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association in the polar regions starting autumn 2011.

The research vessel Polarstern sets off on its 27th Antarctic expedition on coming Monday, 25 October. The voyage will consist of four legs separated by port calls in Cape Town (South Africa), Punta Arenas (Chile) and back to Cape Town. The scientific focal points of the expedition are atmospheric research, oceanography and biology. In addition, the ship will bring supplies to Neumayer Station III, the Dallmann laboratory and the British Rothera station during the expedition. Over 180 researchers from institutes in 15 countries are taking part in the…

The research vessel Polarstern returned to Bremerhaven from a four-month expedition on Saturday, 9 October. On its 25th mission in the Arctic the ship covered a total of around 16,620 nautical miles (corresponding to about 30,780 kilometres). The focus of the three legs was on oceanographic, biological and geoscientific studies. Over 120 scientists and technicians from institutes in six nations took part in the expedition.

For four days the topic of ocean acidification will be the focus of marine and polar research. The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Hemholtz Association is hosting the conference and expects more than 200 scientists from all over Europe at the Conference Center Bremerhaven.

Bigger, more attractive and geared to the relevant scientific requirements: the Centre for Scientific Diving of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research at the Biological Institute Helgoland.

The extent of the sea ice in the Arctic will reach its annual minimum in September. Forecasts indicate that it will not be as low as in 2007, the year of the smallest area covered by sea ice since satellites started recording such data. Nevertheless, sea ice physicists at the Alfred Wegener Institute are concerned about the long-term equilibrium in the Arctic Ocean. They have indications that the mass of sea ice is dwindling because its thickness is declining.Around a third to half of the freshwater export from the Arctic Ocean takes place in this way –…

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.