13.04.2021
Carbon-Hotspots in the Baltic Sea
Marine plants such as seagrass meadows, mangrove forests and salt marshes sequester large amounts of carbon in the sea floor. In the German Baltic Sea, for example, seagrass meadows currently store around 3 to 12 megatons. This is significantly more than was previously known, as the first results from Dr. Angela Stevenson from GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel show.
Further press releases from Helmholtz
29.09.2023
The changing Arctic Ocean
After eventful and busy months, the Arctic season ends this weekend with the Polarstern expedition called ArcWatch-1. The team of almost 100 crew and scientists measured sea ice thickness and…
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27.09.2023
How trace elements affect marine CO2 sinks
The right mix of trace elements is essential to a healthy diet. That’s true not only for humans, but also for phytoplankton. As a key carbon dioxide sink, these tiny algae in the Southern Ocean can…
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25.09.2023
Heat extremes in the soil are underestimated
An UFZ research team has found that climate change has a much greater impact on the intensity and frequency of heat extremes in the soil than in the air. This is particularly the case in Central…
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21.09.2023
Riddle of Varying Warm Water Inflow in the Arctic Now Solved
In the “weather kitchen,” the interplay between the Azores High and Icelandic Low has a substantial effect on how much warm water the Atlantic transports to the Arctic along the Norwegian coast. But…
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08.09.2023
Polarstern reaches North Pole
Five weeks after setting sail from Tromsø, Norway, the Alfred Wegener Institute's research vessel Polarstern makes a stop at the northernmost point on Earth. Here, too, the international team of…
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28.08.2023
Due to sea-ice retreat, zooplankton could remain in the deep longer
Due to intensifying sea-ice melting in the Arctic, sunlight is now penetrating deeper and deeper into the ocean. Since marine zooplankton respond to the available light, this is also changing their…
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14.08.2023
UFZ research team develops model for the drinking water market in Jordan
Jordan is one of the most arid countries in the world. In an article recently published in Nature Sustainability, a team of international researchers coordinated by the UFZ analyses the illegal water…
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09.08.2023
Climate change threatens Arctic polar cod stocks
Arctic cod is the most abundant fish in the Arctic Ocean. It is an important food source for Arctic marine mammals and plays an important role in the self-sufficiency of the Inuit. An international…
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01.08.2023
Eyewitnesses to Arctic Change
On Thursday, 3 August 2023, the research vessel Polarstern is scheduled to set off from Tromsø, Norway, towards the North Pole. For two months, a good fifty scientific expedition participants will…
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11.07.2023
Forest Modeller Dr. Rico Fischer in portrait
Rico Fischer studies the growth of the Amazon rainforest. With the help of computer models as well as measurement and satellite data, he can simulate the development of the entire Amazon rainforest…
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27.06.2023
Artificial Intelligence for Ethical and Sustainable Shrimp Farming
The project MonitorShrimp, which is making considerable strides in improving animal welfare and performance in the context of shrimp farming, is the outcome of a consortium combining the Alfred…
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26.06.2023
Scientists commit to the EU's Green Deal
Researchers from UFZ and iDiv, among others, express their concern about current discussions aimed at preventing the implementation of the Green Deal. More than 3,000 scientists from EU member states…
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26.06.2023
How polluted is the Elbe River?
Researchers from several Helmholtz Centres will devote June/July to the question of how environmental chemicals, nano- and microplastic particles, and nutrients enter the Elbe and then the sea, in…
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08.06.2023
20 Years AWIPEV: the French – German Arctic Research Base
A successful cooperation in international polar research celebrates its 20th anniversary. In 2003, the German Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) and the French Polar Research Institute Paul-Émile Victor …
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23.05.2023
Working Together to Bring High Tech Below the Waves
Over the next seven years, the three largest marine research institutes in the Helmholtz Association – the AWI, GEOMAR and Hereon – will pool resources to develop their marine technologies. Their…
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22.05.2023
Polarstern Departs on Arctic Expedition
Today, Monday, 22 May 2023, the Research Vessel Polarstern will leave her homeport in Bremerhaven, catching the afternoon high tide at ca 3:00 pm and bound for the Arctic Ocean. The four-week…
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17.05.2023
AWI Researchers demonstrate High Natural Radioactivity of Manganese Nodules
Manganese nodules in the deep sea contain a wealth of valuable metals that are vital to e.g. the electronics and steelmaking industries. Accordingly, these sectors and many countries have pinned…
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09.05.2023
30 years of AWI airborne survey in the Arctic
Research aircraft from the Alfred Wegener Institute have been surveying the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for 30 years. The immense effort of the past 52 expeditions has paid off: 40,000 km of measurement…
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03.05.2023
What is growing in the North Sea?
A new app is capable of identifying, visualising and describing macroalgae present in the western and eastern Wadden Sea, and around the island Helgoland. The app, called SeaKey, currently provides…
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27.04.2023
New Start-up develops aquafarms for macroalgae
The company MACROCARBON SL has just been founded in Las Palmas, on the Canary Islands. It is a spin-off from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and…
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21.04.2023
Arctic ice algae heavily contaminated with microplastics
The alga Melosira arctica, which grows under Arctic sea ice, contains ten times as many microplastic particles as the surrounding seawater. This concentration at the base of the food web poses a…
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20.04.2023
The climate crisis and biodiversity crisis can’t be approached as two separate things
Anthropogenic climate change has, together with the intensive use and destruction of natural ecosystems through agriculture, fishing and industry, sparked an unprecedented loss of biodiversity that…
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18.04.2023
Make Way for the BLUEHOUSE
The demolition now underway on Helgoland will make room for construction of the BLUEHOUSE, which will offer a uniquely interactive permanent exhibition on marine research. Its 600 square metres of…
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17.04.2023
Less Ice, Fewer Calling Seals
For several years, a team of researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute used underwater microphones to listen for seals at the edge of the Antarctic. Their initial findings, just released in the…
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04.04.2023
New AWI Study on Legacy Industrial Contamination in the Arctic Permafrost
A previously underestimated risk lurks in the frozen soil of the Arctic. When the ground thaws and becomes unstable in response to climate change, it can lead to the collapse of industrial…
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27.03.2023
Less Sea Ice, More Herring
Every year, the waters of the polar regions are still covered by sheets of ice for weeks or months on end. But this sea ice is increasingly disappearing due to climate change. A glimpse into our…
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27.02.2023
How eddies affect our climate
The ocean has a large effect on our planet’s climate. In this regard, mesoscale – i.e., medium-sized – eddies, which constitute essentially the weather on the ocean, could be far more important than…
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10.02.2023
Record low sea ice cover in the Antarctic
There is currently less sea ice in the Antarctic than at any time in the forty years since the beginning of satellite observation: in early February 2023, only 2.20 million square kilometres of the…
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07.02.2023
Plastic debris in the Arctic comes from all around the world – including Germany
“Citizen Science” gives interested citizens the chance to actively engage in scientific research. A citizen-science project conducted by AWI in the Arctic now shows just how successful this can be…
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03.02.2023
Polar sounds: Remixing the sounds of the Arctic and Antarctic seas
Since late summer last year, 50 sound clips from the Arctic and Antarctic seas have been made available for sound artists and musicians from all over the world to creatively reinterpret. On Monday,…
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