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The sun is viewed to be the driving force of all life on earth. How much of its energy actually reaches the earth’s surface is being recorded by scientists with the Basic Surface Radiation Network (BSRN), a worldwide network of 54 radiation measurement stations. The measurements taken here were originally intended to investigate the energy flows at the earth’s surface which are responsible for our climate. However, the highly precise data are now not only of interest to climate researchers. Photovoltaic installations, for example, generate more energy if…

An international research team has published the results of an ocean iron fertilization experiment (EIFEX) carried out in 2004 in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature. Unlike the LOHAFEX experiment carried out in 2009, EIFEX has shown that a substantial proportion of carbon from the induced algal bloom sank to the deep sea floor. These results, which were thoroughly analyzed before being published now, provide a valuable contribution to our better understanding of the global carbon cycle.

Function and significance of the biological clocks in polar planktonic organisms are the focus of the virtual Helmholtz Institute entitled PolarTime starting July 1st, 2012. It is one of eleven new virtual institutes funded by the Helmholtz Association.

This Thursday, 14 June 2012, the research vessel Polarstern will leave Bremerhaven on course for the Arctic. 44 expedition participants from institutions from Germany, Belgium, USA and the United Kingdom will spend around one month at sea. Their main study area is the Fram Strait between Spitsbergen and Greenland where they will conduct long-term oceanographic measurements.

The North-East Passage, the sea route along the North coast of Rus-sia, is expected to be free of ice early again this summer. The forecast was made by sea ice physi-cists of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Associa-tion based on a series of measurement flights over the Laptev Sea, a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. Amongs experts the shelf sea is known as an “ice factory” of Arctic sea ice. At the end of last winter the researchers discovered large areas of thin ice not being thick enough to withstand the…

The Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf fringing the Weddell Sea, Antarctica, may start to melt rapidly in this century and no longer act as a barrier for ice streams draining the Antarctic Ice Sheet. These predictions are made by climate researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association in the coming issue of the British science magazine “Nature“. They refute the widespread assumption that ice shelves in the Weddell Sea would not be affected by the direct influences of global warming due to the peripheral…

The research icebreaker Polarstern will be returning from the Antarctic to Bremerhaven on 16 May. The world known research ship will be prepared in the docks for the coming summer expedition to the North Polar Sea. Following a stop in the homeport of Bremerhaven, Polarstern will celebrate its 30th birthday in the expanse of the Antarctic Ocean.

In the coastal zone of temperate regions spring algal blooms occur regularly as a consequence of the more intense solar irradiation in spring. When algal blooms end the algae die and their remnants constitute an important nutrient supply for the whole ecosystem. But what exactly happens if an algal bloom ends? A study in this week's "science"-journal gives new insights into the succession of bacterioplankton communities and their functioning.