News

With a visit to the German Emigration Center Bremerhaven (DAH), Chancellor Angela Merkel said goodbye to the state of Bremen and the Bremen Senate on November 4. After signing the Golden Book of Bremerhaven and a guided tour of the Emigration Center, she met with representatives of the political and scientific life in Bremerhaven and Bremen, including AWI Director Antje Boetius.

At the 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26), the Alfred Wegener Institute will be present with various contributions: At the Focus Day Permafrost on November 4, AWI permafrost experts Hugues Lantuit, Paul Overduin and Jens Strauss will give presentations on seabed permafrost, permafrost emissions as well as infrastructure damage and coastal erosion caused by thawing permafrost starting at 11:00 am (CET). They will also be involved in the panel that will follow afterwards.
Find out more

After dropping considerably worldwide in 2020, this year fossil carbon dioxide emissions will likely reach the level before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. That’s the conclusion arrived at by the Global Carbon Project. Every year, experts assess how much CO2 was released into the atmosphere around the globe, and how much was absorbed by natural sinks. Dr Judith Hauck, a climate researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute, is also part of the team. The project has just released its preliminary report in the journal Earth System Science Data.

Antarctic and Southern Ocean ecosystems are under increasing pressure from global climate change and direct human impacts. Decisive, immediate action on climate change mitigation is required at the global scale, as well as effective management at the local scale, to protect these ecosystems and their societal benefits worldwide.

At the 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26), the Alfred Wegener Institute is represented on site with various contributions: On November 3rd from 14:00-15:00 (CET) the panel discussion of the EU Polar Cluster will be moderated by AWI expert Nicole Biebow and Marcel Nicolaus, AWI expert on sea ice will give the keynote speech on the MOSAiC expedition on the same day at 18:30 (CET).
Find out more

From 1 to 12 November 2021, heads of state, organisations and researchers will gather at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. Their primary goal is to assess and further develop national measures and targets in an effort to keep global warming well under two degrees Celsius. After all, the far-reaching effects of climate change can already be seen and felt. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute are in attendance, will take part in the various COP26 events, and will share their own experiences and findings from polar and marine…

The eighth cohort of the NF-POGO Centre of Excellence in Observational Oceanography at the Alfred Wegener Institute successfully completed their training on October 26, 2021.

Science journalist Tim Kalvelage receives the Georg von Holtzbrinck Prize for Science Journalism 2021 in the text category.

Antje Boetius will moderate a plenary session at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavík on October 16th. The AWI director will discuss the topics  MOSAiC expedition, the IPCC report and the COP26 with AWI scientist Markus Rex and Halldór Þrgeirsson, President of the Climate Council of Iceland. The session takes place from 12:45 p.m. - 3:40 p.m. and is organized in cooperation with the AWI and the German Arctic Office. The Arctic Circle Assembly is the largest annual international gathering on the Arctic.

PAIGE - Chronologies for Polar Paleoclimate Archives is a partnership project between the AWI and Italian Polar Research Institute ISP and is led on the German side by Gesine Mollenhauer and Frank Wilhelms. The aim is to improve the chronologies of palaeoclimate archives, namely of ice and marine sediment cores. As part of the project, experts discussed the state of research at a workshop in Bologna from 6.-7.10. At the opening, the Memorandum of Understanding between AWI and ISP was signed by the directors Antje Boetius and Carlo Barbante.