News

 On July 27th  the members of the wintering team at the Neumayer Station III have seen the sun for the first time since May 21st. The polar night officially ended on July 22nd in Atka Bay. But the wind blew with 20 metres per second and snowfall prevented the nine-member crew from watching the sun rising after two months.

The Argentinean ambassador in Germany, Daniel Polski, visited the AWI Bremerhaven today. In talks with AWI director Prof Dr Karin Lochte and several other AWI scientists the guest got to know more details about the institute itself and the long and successful German-Argentinean cooperation in Antarctica.

Together with AWI researchers and the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Norway Ban Ki-moon launched a radio-sonde. He was impressed by the balloon and the technical possibilities. In front of the glacier he called for action against the climate change.

A quarter of a century old, with over 900,000 kilometres (488,842 nautical miles) logged and still on the cutting edge of science and technology: 8 July 2015 will mark the Research Vessel Heincke’s 25th “birthday”. Staff from the Alfred Wegener Institute, which operates the Heincke, take part in expeditions with the ship just as often as fellow researchers and students from Germany and abroad.

Our oceans need an immediate and substantial reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. If that doesn’t happen, we could see far-reaching and largely irreversible impacts on marine ecosystems, which would especially be felt in developing countries. That’s the conclusion of a new review study published today in the journal Science.

How communicate researchers their scientific knowledge? And how is it carried to policy makers? These were two of the questions that were discussed in one of the "Arctic Discussion Series" in Potsdam.

From 14 to 21 June 2015, for the first time the two AWI-directors Prof Karin Lochte and Dr Karsten Wurr visited Siberia. Their goal: to meet our local research partners in person and to support the continuing development and expansion of Russian-German scientific collaborations.

Professor Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten recently received an extraordinary honour for his past achievements and long years of promoting Russian-German scientific collaboration.

If you want to live, you need to breathe and muster enough energy to move, find nourishment and reproduce. This basic tenet is just as valid for us human beings as it is for the animals inhabiting our oceans. Unfortunately, most marine animals will find it harder to satisfy these criteria, which are vital to their survival, in the future. That was the key message of a new study recently published in the journal Science.

A new book gives an overview of the current state of research and of research gaps concerning litter in our oceans: “Marine Anthropogenic Litter” will be released by Springer-Verlag as an Open Access publication in June 2015. The editors brought together experts from around the globe to contribute to the book. Estimates of the amount of litter in the world’s oceans, its distribution, effects on humans and biota, and prevention strategies are just some of the complex topics addressed in the book’s 16 chapters.