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Deep-sea mining could provide a way to address the increasing need for rare metals. However, its environmental impact is only partially known. In addition, there is a lack of clear standards to regulate mining and set binding thresholds for the impact on the organisms living in affected areas. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology together with colleagues at the Alfred Wegener Institute, the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, and other institutes now describe that deep-sea mining-related disturbances also have a…

Despite the current challenges, the MOSAiC expedition will continue. After many national borders were closed in response to the coronavirus pandemic, one team transfer had to be postponed. But thanks to new alternative plans supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the German Research Foundation and the operators of the German research fleet as well as the dedicated work of the expedition team currently on board, MOSAiC will soon enter its next phase. An interim review of the project shows: the data to be gathered over the next…

The Arctic Ocean in summer will very likely be ice free before 2050, at least temporally. The efficacy of climate-protection measures will determine how often and for how long. These are the results of a new research study involving 21 research institutes from around the world including the Alfred Wegener Institute, coordinated by Dirk Notz from the University of Hamburg, Germany.

Why are emissions of the greenhouse gases methane and nitrogen so high outside the vegetation periods in permafrost regions? How do the carbon and nitrogen cycles and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions differ between the vegetation period and outside of it? And why do existing models of methane fluxes fail outside the vegetation period? Dr Claire Treat wants to provide answers to these questions with the FluxWin junior research group, which she is establishing and leading at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research…

Caught in the glare of Polarstern’s spotlights, a curious mother polar bear and her cub explore the MOSAiC ice camp – with this image Esther Horvath, a photographer and photo editor at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), won the World Press Photo Award for an individual picture in the category “Environment”, as the World Press Photo Foundation announced on the evening of 16 April.

Ready for a coffee break? In the “Coffee Break” format, participants of the MOSAiC expedition report live on the Instagram platform on their experiences in the Central Arctic.

Disposable gloves and disposable suits to combat the corona pandemic: AWI employee Ullrich Knoll has handed over 28,000 disposable gloves to the Bremerhaven fire brigade. Since laboratory operations at the Alfred Wegener Institute are reduced, the available protective equipment is donated to facilities in Bremerhaven.

An international team of researchers led by geoscientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, have now provided a new and unprecedented perspective on the climate history of Antarctica. In a sediment core collected in the Amundsen Sea, West Antarctica, in February 2017, the team discovered pristinely preserved forest soil from the Cretaceous, including a wealth of plant pollen and spores and a dense network of roots. These plant remains confirm that, roughly 90 million years ago, the coast of West Antarctica…

Your computer is now a portal to the North Pole: Explore one of the most mysterious regions on Earth from the comfort of your own home with a new massive open online course (MOOC) featuring short lectures by researchers about their work, stunning footage from the icebreakers Polarstern and Akademik Fedorov, 360° videos and more. More than three dozen MOSAiC scientists and Arctic experts summarize the core of their research during the MOSAiC expedition. The course is offered through the platform Coursera, and also viewable on YouTube.

Five years of the student laboratory OPENSEA at the AWI’s Helgoland facilities: since 2014, Germany’s only island in the open sea has given interested school classes the opportunity to actively explore marine flora and fauna at a student laboratory. Six years ago, the first group of schoolchildren visited the AWI Helgoland to collect and analyse samples from the mudflats. The children were supported by a small team from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).