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21 metres long, 1.30 metre draught, a maximum speed of ten knots and full of the most up-to-date technology: on 13 August 2013 the research ship MYA II will be handed over to science at a ceremony in List on Sylt. Prof. Dr. Waltraud Wende, the Schleswig-Holstein Minister for Education and Research, is going to be present at the event, as well as representatives of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research. Ten percent of the 4.5 million euro development and construction costs for the MYA II were met by the State of Schleswig-Holstein, and 90…

The breakup and collapse of the Larsen A ice shelf in the western Weddell Sea in 1995 has resulted in fundamental changes to life on the sea bed in less than two decades. As reported by biologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in the cover story of the current issue of the scientific journal Current Biology, Antarctic glass sponges have been the prime beneficiaries of the disappearance of the ice shelf. To the surprise of the scientists, the density of these archaic filter-feeders has increased…

Yesterday (8 July 2013) a huge area of the ice shelf broke away from the Pine Island glacier, the longest and fastest flowing glacier in the Antarctic, and is now floating in the Amundsen Sea in the form of a very large iceberg. Scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association have been following this natural spectacle via the earth observation satellites TerraSAR-X from the German Space Agency (DLR) and have documented it in many individual images. The data is intended to help solve the physical…

AWI-scientist Prof. Dr. Hans-Otto Pörtner and his colleague Dr. Sam Dupont (University of Gothenborg, Kristineberg, Sweden) publish in the current issue of the journal nature the article: “Get ready for ocean acidification“. They summarize the current status of knowledge and demonstrate needs for action. Their appeal: more interdisciplinary research has appeared necessary.

A new workshop building for the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, is being inaugurated on Heligoland on Thursday, 20 June 2013. The new workshop building completes the first phase of the so-called Bluehouse Greenhouse concept: the development of a modern research complex that achieves an energy balance which is as climate-neutral as possible. The building cost € 1.65 million, with investment especially in sustainable construction. The festive inauguration is the start of the open day of the Biological…

In collaboration with an international team of researchers, scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, have sequenced the genome of the calcified alga Emiliania huxleyi and have found an explanation for the enormous adaptive potential and global distribution of this unicellular alga. As the researchers report in an online prepublication of the scientific journal Nature, the microalga’s “trick” is genetic diversity. It has a particularly large so-called pan-genome which means that the unicellular algae…

A group of researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research is flying to South Africa today. However this trip south is no summer holiday, but rather the start of a special journey: on Saturday, 8 June 2013 the research vessel Polarstern will be embarking on an expedition to the Antarctic winter. 49 researchers from institutes in twelve countries together with 44 crew members will spend a good two months in the Southern Ocean. They will be exploring the sea ice, the atmosphere and the ocean, until the…

There are two reasons for celebration today at the Franco-German Arctic research station AWIPEV on Spitsbergen: firstly, the scientific community at the world’s northernmost research location marks the 10th year of cooperation between the German Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the French Institut Polaire Paul Emile Victor (IPEV). Secondly, the station is today the first meteorological facility in the world to be awarded with the seal of quality of GRUAN, the climate data network, the objective of which…

Permafrost experts of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research are currently conducting a multi-week spring expedition to the Lena Delta where they are investigating the interaction between the atmosphere, snow cover and the frozen earth of the tundra. That they are able to live and conduct their research at less than spring temperatures of up to minus 30 degrees Celsius is attributable to the new Russian research station “Samoylov”. The impressive building was erected at the initiative of the Russian head of state…