News

Sea ice plays a central part in the Earth system: it cools our planet, shapes ocean currents, and offers a habitat for countless species. Yet climate change is causing sea ice in the polar regions to increasingly dwindle. In the Antarctic, sea-ice retreat is currently so intense that we could see a new record minimum in the second half of February 2023. The SEA ICE PORTAL offers essential information on this and many other developments. From today, the joint project of the Alfred Wegener Institute, the Helmholtz Climate Initiative REKLIM, and the…

A temperature reconstruction from ice cores of the past 1,000 years reveals that today’s warming in central-north Greenland is surprisingly pronounced. The most recent decade surveyed in a study, the years 2001 to 2011, was the warmest in the past 1,000 years, and the region is now 1.5 °C warmer than during the 20th century, as researchers led by the Alfred Wegener Institute just report in the journal Nature. Using a set of ice cores unprecedented in length and quality, they reconstructed past temperatures in central-north Greenland and melting rates of…

Yesterday, German Federal Research Minister Stark-Watzinger visited the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). She was joined by researchers from the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) and the AWI research unit in Potsdam to talk to scientists about the need for CO2-neutral energy sources. The AWI was represented by Ulrike Herzschuh, Julia Boike and the head of the research unit Bernhard Diekmann.

The German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (DHV – Deutsche Hochschulverband) honors Professor Antje Boetius as an excellent, multiple-award-winning scientist who uses extensive field research to examine the effects of climate change on the oceans and the diversity of life in the deep sea. Thanks to her research, Boetius is “an advocate of the oceans” who urges close international cooperation and is committed to promoting future-proof climate, nature, and environmental protection.

The 5-part science documentary "Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops" explores how human activities trigger chain reactions, setting in motion processes that can no longer be stopped - from melting ice in the Arctic, to thawing permafrost. The goal is to use the short films to teach the next generation about the urgency of climate change. AWI has provided footage from the MOSAiC expedition for the series. It is available online and can be used for teaching purposes.

The “Destination Earth” (DestinE) initiative from the EU Commission started in 2022 and is an important part of Europe's Green Deal and Digital Strategy. By 2030, DestinE aims to create a high-resolution digital model of the Earth to support climate change adaptation policies and decision-making for reducing the impacts of extremes. Numerous European authorities, climate research institutions and supercomputing centers are involved in the project. Alfred Wegener Institute is participating in DestinE with its ocean model FESOM, which efficiently simulates…

9 December 2022 marks the 40th anniversary of the research icebreaker Polarstern’s commissioning. Built by a consortium combining the shipyards Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in Kiel and Werft Nobiskrug in Rendsburg, the Alfred Wegener Institute’s flagship has successfully completed more than 130 expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic and offered a temporary home for thousands of researchers from Germany and around the globe. In the process, the Polarstern has safely traversed 1.8 million nautical miles. The ship is currently on an expedition in the…

From January 2023, AWI Director Antje Boetius will become a new Fellow of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS). On December 7, she will be welcomed in her new role during the event "Nature and Prosperity - still salvageable?". In addition to a keynote speech by Antje Boetius, there will be a panel discussion with her, Kim Thy Tong, co-founder of Climate Union, and Andreas Jung, climate and energy policy spokesperson for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag. It is possible to register online for the event (event in German and in presence).

Major ice streams can shut down, shifting rapid ice transport to other parts of the ice sheet, within a few thousand years. This was determined in reconstructions of two ice streams, based on ice-penetrating radar scans of the Greenland ice sheet, that a team of researchers led by the Alfred Wegener Institute have just presented in the journal Nature Geoscience.

On December 6, AWI Director Antje Boetius speaks at two events. In the morning, at the invitation of the BMBF, she will give a keynote lecture on "Care of marine ecosystems for climate protection: global perspectives" at the online expert talks of the Action Program Natural Climate Protection. Afterwards, she will give a keynote speech on "Ambition for a greater planet - ocean and polar perspective" at the "Franco-German Fellowship Programme on Climate, Energy, and Earth System Research (Make Our Planet Great Again)" conference at Futurium Berlin.