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Over the next few months, geophysicists and geologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research will gain unprecedented insights into the climatic history of the Antarctic Ice Sheet as part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). The experts will take part in three Antarctic expeditions on board the IODP drilling ship “JOIDES Resolution”, and will lead two of the three legs. By collecting the drilled cores, the researchers hope to find evidence of how the ice masses of the Antarctic have reacted to…

The Antarctic is a frigid continent south of the Antarctic Circle, where researchers are the only inhabitants. Despite the hostile conditions, here the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) operates a research station where researchers live and work year round. Since 2009 the Neumayer Station III, located on the Ekström Ice Shelf on the eastern coast of the Weddell Sea, has served as the primary base of operations for German Antarctic research activities. The station crew, together with a delegation from the…

Global warming is leaving more and more apparent scars in the world’s permafrost regions. As the new global comparative study conducted by the international permafrost network GTN-P shows, in all regions with permafrost soils the temperature of the frozen ground at a depth of more than 10 metres rose by an average of 0.3 degrees Celsius between 2007 and 2016 – in the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as the high mountain ranges of Europe and Central Asia. The effect was most pronounced in Siberia, where the temperature of the frozen soil rose by nearly 1…

What to expect in 2019 via Nature and Science

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.