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Developing innovative and socially accepted approaches to improve the natural potential for carbon storage in vegetation-rich coastal ecosystems: that is the goal of the new research consortium sea4soCiety, coordinated by the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in Bremen.The consortium consists of 40 scientists from nine northern German universities and research institutes, including the Alfred Wegener Institute. Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding the consortium with 5.3 million euros as part of the first…

Ice losses from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica are currently responsible for roughly four percent of the global sea-level rise. This figure could increase, since virtually no other ice stream in the Antarctic is changing as dramatically as the massive Thwaites Glacier. Until recently, experts attributed these changes to climate change and the fact that the glacier rests on the seafloor in many places, and as such comes into contact with warm water masses. But there is also a third, and until now, one of the most difficult to constrain, influencing…

An iceberg broke off the Ekstrom Ice Shelf in Antarctica between 12 and 13 August 2021. The iceberg has not yet been officially named, but will probably be given the name #A77 according to international statutes. It is about 53 km long and has an area of about 370 square kilometres, making it about half the size of Hamburg.

Climbing temperatures, more intense heat waves, prolonged droughts and more heavy rains due to a changed water cycle: through greenhouse-gas emissions, human beings have set in motion serious and far-reaching climate changes in every corner of the world, as the IPCC’s Working Group I explains in its sixth Assessment Report, released today.

says AWI climate researcher Prof Hans-Otto Pörtner, in response to the findings of the new Assessment Report from the IPCC’s Working Group I.

The AWI’s new experimental facility on Sylt makes it possible to simulate the effects of climate change on coastal ecosystems.

Germany is getting a new infrastructure for research on particulate matter, clouds, and trace gases. Distributed among eleven institutions, this German contribution to the EU research infrastructure ACTRIS will enable better forecasts for air quality, weather, and climate in the future. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding the implementation of this infrastructure with a total of 86 million euros over the next eight years. Many players in German atmospheric research are working together in ACTRIS-D - including universities,…

The waters off many of the world’s coasts are under enormous pressure. Climate change is altering entire ecosystems in coastal waters and shelf seas, and added to this are further stress factors like overfertilisation and overfishing. All these negative influences act together and often mutually reinforce each other. The functionality and performance of these habitats that are so vital for humans could suffer as a result, warns a team of researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. To better understand these…

With great dismay and sadness, we have heard that our former Director, colleague and friend, Prof. Dr Jörn Thiede, has passed away. A few months ago, on his 80th birthday, we celebrated his impressive life and achievements for the German and international geosciences, especially marine and polar research - unfortunately mainly digitally.

Researchers around the globe should have access to the valuable data from the MOSAiC expedition. In order to rapidly make user-friendly access to this information possible, the Alfred Wegener Institute, together with the DKRZ Hamburg and the DLR Jena, will develop a series of analytical tools that will allow initially researchers, and subsequently the general public, to access and work with the Arctic data online. The project has received ca. 2 million euros of funding from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research.