Jens Quasten) Catching particles with plankton nets The North Sea is Gunnar Gerdts’ “hunting grounds” for marine plastic: not just on the open sea, but also in the mouths of the Elbe, Ems and Weser rivers [...] indicate that one cubic metre of water from the North Sea contains an average of between three and ten microparticles. He has also examined the arctic sea ice that fellow AWI researchers brought back from [...] particles. Today researchers know that this microplastic can be found in all regions, and even in arctic sea ice. AWI researcher Gunnar Gerdts is currently working to gauge the extent of this pollution. To do

of the litter to the North Pacific Gyre – which is why so much litter gathers there. The simulations also show that there may be a sixth, smaller garbage patch in the Barents Sea to the northeast of Norway [...] garbage patches in each. Located in the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, the largest is the North Pacific Gyre, which stretches from the Equator to roughly the 50 th parallel – where e.g. the Russian

seem like that much garbage, but compared to the North Sea, the effect of the concentration in the garbage patches becomes clear: although the North Sea is much closer to land (and therefore to the sources [...] ion Studio) Many of the pieces of plastic suspended in the water eventually drift out to the open sea. Sooner or later, most of them are caught by the great rotating ocean currents, also known as gyres

Boetius, AWI, Bremerhaven The FRAM Ocean Observing System will be installed in the gateway between the North Atlantic and the Central Arctic, representing a highly climate-sensitive and rapidly changing region [...] Lochte, AWI, Bremerhaven The ROBEX alliance aims to pool expertise gained in lunar expeditions and deep sea investigations to identify, develop, and test technologies that will allow the exploration of highly [...] inaccessible terrain, including areas on earth with extreme environmental conditions, such as the deep sea and Polar Regions, as well as other planets. The alliance will focus on developing a modular, robotic

with the new radar? Angelika Humbert: In the summer of 2016, we flew transects over Greenland’s 79° North Glacier and monitored the ice’s typical course for 200 kilometres – in other words, from the inland [...] the glacier to the grounding line. That’s what we call the point where the glacier flows into the sea and its tongue no longer touches the ground. We then took a look at the glacier’s inner structure and [...] below the ice stream. The roughness of this surface is a key factor in computer models of the 79° North Glacier’s flow, since our goal is to make predictions as to whether, and if so, how much, its flow

from the Filchner Ice Shelf FISP - The Filchner Ice Shelf Project Oceanographic research at the 79° North Glacier, Greenland To make sure we don’t damage the equipment used in the cavern, the next step is [...] doesn’t “run dry” when the main borehole (image 4) breaks through the ice shelf, it has to be made below sea level. Thanks to this method, we have a practically unlimited supply of drilling water, which we later

phytoplankton data collected in the Antarctic, particularly for the Weddell Sea and adjacent areas such as the Scotia and Lazarev Seas Summary of Polarstern stations in the Antarctic where zooplankton was sampled [...] Potter Cove Potter Cove (Co-ordinates: 62°14´S, 58°40´W' ) is located on King George Island north of the antarctic peninsula one of the fastest warming areas on earth. The time series at and around Potter [...] gov/copepod/time-series/de-30401/ ). Principal investigators: Doris Abele: Hydrography, biology, ecology, sea ice. Irene Schloss: Hydrography, biology potter_cove_Anders_Torstensson.jpg (Photo: Alfred-Wegener

the processes in the sea more precisely, a special ocean model has been developed at the AWI over the past few years - FESOM. Among other things it simulates ocean currents and sea ice. AWI researchers [...] It is feared that the Antarctic glaciers will slip faster into the sea when the ice shelf disappears. This could accelerate the sea level rise. In addition to the coupled climate model consisting of ECHAM [...] also operate the NAOSIM model which focusses on the ocean and sea ice. This model is fed with a lot of knowledge about the physics of sea ice, taking into account the thickness and the concentration of

weather forecasts for the polar regions, especially for the Arctic. On the one hand with the melting of sea ice, the Arctic will be of interest as a shipping route, and on the other hand the conditions in the [...] also influence the weather and climate in the mid-latitudes - for example, in Central Europe and North America. One problem is that there are far too few measurements from the Arctic. With the international [...] measurement campaigns that include ship expeditions, aircraft campaigns, and measuring sites on the sea ice. The main goal is to find out which observations are particularly important for ice and weather

Institute are investigating these seemingly simple organisms – and comparing what they see in the North Sea with their findings in the polar regions. The narrow, yellow-brown seaweed blade that Dr. Inka Bartsch [...] now expanding into several-metre-deeper waters, effectively enlarging their habitat. However, the North Sea has also grown warmer: by an average of 1.7 degrees Celsius from 1962 to the present. This change [...] Kyrill, it took three years to recover. According to Bartsch, “If we start seeing storms over the North Sea more often due to climate change, some species might not have enough time to bounce back.” This