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On 30 August, 14 young investigators from around the globe will depart from Bremerhaven, bound for Cape Town. During the cruise, known as the North South Atlantic Training Transect, they’ll gain valuable insights into the marine sciences and conduct brief projects on the interactions between the ocean, atmosphere and climate. They’ll take with them three mini-boats constructed by schoolchildren from Germany, Ireland and Spain, containing instruments to measure the air and water temperature.

Dying reefs and once-vibrant corals that have since lost all colour: climate change is having massive effects on the architects of undersea cities. As waters grow warmer, the phenomenon of “coral bleaching” continues to spread. Yet not all corals are equally susceptible. An international team led by Cesar Pacherres and Moritz Holtappels from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven and Soeren Ahmerkamp from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen may have found the explanation:…

Oceans have their own unique soundscape. Many marine organisms, for example, use sound for echolocation, navigation or communication with conspecifics. In recent decades, however, more and more sounds caused by human activities are permeating the waters. A study by the Alfred Wegener Institute now presents evidence that these sounds affect some invertebrates that live in and on the seafloor in ways that important functions they provide for their ecosystems may be impacted.

The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) refers to a pattern of climatic fluctuations in the tropical Pacific, which, over time, produce major changes in the temperature distribution and currents in the ocean. Humans, animals and even entire ecosystems can feel the effects of ENSO – particularly in the form of the extreme events El Niño and La Niña. Yet we still have no definitive explanation of how global warming influences ENSO, or on whether El Niño and La Niña will be more frequent and intense in the future, or less frequent and weaker. An…

The Research Vessel Polarstern was in the Arctic for the past seven weeks. There, the summertime sea-ice extent declined by ca. 40 percent over the past 40 years – making it one of the most visible impacts of climate change. In order to better grasp such changes, the research teams on board the Polarstern investigated Atlantic Water Recirculation in Fram Strait and in the marginal ice zone north of Svalbard, as well as ocean/glacier interactions off the coast of Greenland. Central research questions included how the ice conditions, ocean heat fluxes and…

In order to understand the Earth as one system and find effective solutions for global challenges, German Geosciences need to be modernised with Earth System Science as the future operating framework. This is the recommendation made by the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in its Report on Tomorrow’s Science “Earth System Science: Discovery, Diagnosis, and Solutions in Times of Global Change”. The report, to which AWI Director Antje Boetius contributed, provides an overview of the field of research and proposes steps to be taken.

At the end of June, Albert II, Prince of Monaco visited the French-German research base AWIPEV in Ny-Ålesund / Spitsbergen, which is operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) and the French Polar Institute Paul Emile Victor (IPEV). The highlight of the visit was the launch of the weather balloon, performed by the Prince himself. (Picture: Oceanographic Institute - Olivier Borde)

So far, thousands of deep-sea photos and videos from marine research institutes have been barely accessible on the Internet because they are not cataloged and described consistently. A team from the Helmholtz Research Centers, with the participation of AWI, GEOMAR and Hereon, has developed a uniform data standard for underwater images that is intended to enable the global use of such image data. The group presents the new metadata format in the journal "Nature Scientific Data".​ Further information

As part of an investigation of the Western Pacific Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, Senckenberg researchers, with the support of AWI scientists and researchers from Goethe University Frankfurt, have proved high levels of microplastic pollution, which is greater than previously assumed. While evaluating the sediment samples, the research team found that each of the 13 samples taken from a depth of up to 9450 meters contained between 215 and 1596 tiny microplastic particles per kilogram. Further information

In Germany, the Harz is a region particularly hard hit by climate change: storms, arid conditions and subsequent bark beetle infestations are causing unprecedented damage to the forest. Sea-ice experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute are now helping to quantify the damage and contributing to the success of reforestation efforts – from the air. To carry out essential equipment tests for an upcoming Arctic campaign, they are engaging in survey flights over the Harz, during which they're putting their new, high-resolution camera systems through their…