News

In the last 30,000 years there was, at times, more mixing in the Southern Ocean than previously thought. This meant that vast quantities of nutrients were available to phytoalgae, which in turn contributed to storing the greenhouse gas CO2 during the last glacial period. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) present these new findings in a study published in the journal Nature Communications.

Today is the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.

During their latest expedition on board the research vessel Sonne (So 242-2), researchers and engineers from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) successfully used the autonomous AWI robot, Tramper, for the first time on a deep-sea mission. The continuous-track vehicle’s first demo missions took place at a depth of about 4150 metres in an area of the subtropical Southeast Pacific around 850 km off the coast of Peru.

This Saturday at a conference in Quebec, Canada an international research team will present the first online data portal on global permafrost. In the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (www.gtnp.org) researchers first collect all the existing permafrost temperature and active thickness layer data from Arctic, Antarctic and mountain permafrost regions and then make it freely available for download. This new portal can serve as an early warning system for researchers and decision-makers around the globe. A detailed description of the data collection…

A decade ago scientists feared that the ability of the Southern Ocean to absorb additional atmospheric CO2 would soon be stalled. But the analysis of more recent observations show that this carbon sink reinvigorated during the past decade.

The growing world population, climate change, rapid urbanisation, and the international interdependence of economies are all increasing our vulnerability to natural hazards. Such major global challenges are the focus of the second Potsdam Summer School on "Facing Natural Hazards". From 14 to 23 September 2015, 40 young professionals from 28 countries will meet with renowned scientists from Potsdam's Earth and Environmental Science institutions as well as with international experts.

Hamburg/Bremerhaven, Germany: Even before the annual summer minimum, typically seen in mid-to-late September, the Arctic sea ice covers 4,35 million square kilometres. The Northeast and Northwest Passages are mostly ice-free already. Scientists from Universität Hamburg and the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) estimate that the ice extent will not hit a record low in 2015 but confirm the negative trend. During the International Polar Meeting in Munich, Germany, leading sea ice specialists will be available for interviews and background discussions.

The Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the TU Dresden’s Institute for Cartography present their joint three-dimensional map of the Antarctic continent and the seafloor of the Southern Ocean at this year’s International Cartographic Conference in Rio de Janeiro.

Today the graduates of the Nippon Foundation-POGO Centre of Excellence hosted by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) say goodbye to the AWI. During the past ten months the scholarship holders from different nations have learnt standard methods of the marine science to be able to use them in future in their homecountries.

West Antarctica is one oft he fastest warming regions on Earth. An international team which involved the Alfred-Wegener-Institut researched which impacts the warming has. The new study is published in the current edition of The Cryosphere.