kleiner orangener Seestern in einer Seegraswiese
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.

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Further press releases from Helmholtz

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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03.01.2023

Fewer moths, more flies

A new study by researchers from Halle and Leipzig, who compared historical and current data from Finland, shows that the complex relationships between plants and their pollinators have changed…
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08.12.2022

Polarstern Turns 40

9 December 2022 marks the 40th anniversary of the research icebreaker Polarstern’s commissioning. Built by a consortium combining the shipyards Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in Kiel and Werft…
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05.12.2022

Short-lived Ice Streams

Major ice streams can shut down, shifting rapid ice transport to other parts of the ice sheet, within a few thousand years. This was determined in reconstructions of two ice streams, based on ice…
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01.12.2022

Biodiversity Summit in Montreal

From December 7-19, 196 nations will meet to determine a new global biodiversity framework. In addition to species and nature conservation, climate protection is also being discussed, because the two…
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29.08.2022

Floating Summer School

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…
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23.08.2022

Vital Ventilation

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…
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18.08.2022

Noise affects life on the seafloor

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…
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16.08.2022

Polarstern Returns to Bremerhaven

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…
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07.07.2022

150 Whales Observed Feeding Together

After blue whales, fin whales are the largest whales in the world – and human beings have hunted both species to near-extinction. After the ban on commercial whaling in 1976, the stocks of these long…
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