23.06.2020
EN Die Mischung macht’s
Der Wald ist ein einzigartiger und wichtiger Lebensraum für Mensch und Tier. Knapp ein Drittel der Erdoberfläche ist von Wäldern bedeckt. Auch in Deutschland ist es rund ein Drittel der Landfläche: 11,4 Millionen Hektar. Doch es steht derzeit nicht gut um den Wald. Das sich verändernde Klima setzt ihm mächtig zu. Andreas Huth und Friedrich Bohn erforschen, wie Wälder am besten auf künftige Extreme
Further press releases from Helmholtz
16.09.2021
Annual sea ice minimum in the Arctic
The sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean reached its annual minimum of 4.81 million square kilometres on 12 September 2021. As such, the 2021 Arctic sea-ice minimum comes in at 12th place on the…
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13.09.2021
Degradation of biobased plastics in the soil
In two studies, soil ecologists at the UFZ have shown which microbial community is responsible for the degradation of biodegradable plastics, what role the climate plays in this process, and why…
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08.09.2021
Forest edges in the tropics increase carbon emissions
UFZ models show that fragmentation of tropical forests has increased to almost one third of the forest area. The increased tree mortality at the forest edges releases large amounts of carbon. These…
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05.09.2021
Pastorale for the Planet and the Polar Perspective
On Sunday, 5 September 2021, from 2:00 pm there will be a symposium on German-French cooperation in polar research and the arts, held at the University of the Arts Bremen, Speicher XI. Prior to the…
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18.08.2021
Thwaites Glacier: Significant Geothermal Heat Beneath the Ice Stream
Ice losses from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica are currently responsible for roughly four percent of the global sea-level rise. This figure could increase, since virtually no other ice stream in…
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05.08.2021
The North Sea in Miniature
The AWI’s new experimental facility on Sylt makes it possible to simulate the effects of climate change on coastal ecosystems.
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27.07.2021
Coastal Waters Under Pressure
The waters off many of the world’s coasts are under enormous pressure. Climate change is altering entire ecosystems in coastal waters and shelf seas, and added to this are further stress factors like…
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21.07.2021
Remote sensing data for recording water quality in lakes and rivers
Earth observation satellites of the European Copernicus programme will in future be used for governmental water quality monitoring by the environmental agencies of the federal states. This is the…
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01.07.2021
Focus on global plastic pollution
Current rates of plastic emissions globally may trigger effects that we will not be able to reverse, researchers from Germany, Sweden and Norway report in a new study published in the prestigious…
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24.06.2021
Antarctic Circumpolar Current Flows More Rapidly in Warm Phases
Our planet’s strongest ocean current, which circulates around Antarctica, plays a major role in determining the transport of heat, salt and nutrients in the ocean. An international research team led…
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23.06.2021
Climate Change makes Arctic Ozone Loss Worse
In spring 2020, the MOSAiC expedition documented an unparalleled loss of ozone in the Arctic stratosphere. As an evaluation of meteorological data and model-based simulations by the Alfred Wegener…
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16.06.2021
EU Provides 15 Million Euros of Funding for Arctic Project
The European Union will provide 15 million euros from the Horizon 2020 Programme to fund the Arctic PASSION project for the period 2021 to 2025. Under the leadership of the Alfred Wegener Institute,…
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15.06.2021
Oldest permafrost in Siberia discovered
While determining the age of a permafrost layer in Siberia, an international team of experts set a new record: at its deepest point, the soil is at least 650,000 years old. Yet the team’s findings,…
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15.06.2021
Heat from Below: How the Ocean is Wearing Down the Arctic Sea Ice
The influx of warmer water masses from the North Atlantic into the European marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean plays a significant role in the marked decrease in sea-ice growth, especially in winter…
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10.06.2021
Climate protection, biodiversity, social justice
These challenges can only be overcome together, say Hans-Otto Pörtner (AWI) and Josef Settele (UFZ). They are co-authors of the first joint IPCC and IPBES workshop report.
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10.06.2021
Climate change, biodiversity loss and social justice – these challenges can only be overcome together
The fight against global warming and for sustainable development can only succeed if, from now on, humankind considers the issues of climate change, biodiversity loss and social justice together, and…
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08.06.2021
CO2-neutral on the North Sea
The Alfred Wegener Institute is setting new standards for sustainability in German maritime shipping. On 8 June 2021 the keel for the successor to the research cutter Uthörn will be laid at the…
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02.06.2021
Salps fertilise the Southern Ocean more effectively than krill
Experts at the Alfred Wegener Institute have, for the first time, experimentally measured the release of iron from the fecal pellets of krill and salps under natural conditions and tested its…
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27.05.2021
Antarctic hotspot: Fin whales favour the waters around Elephant Island
During the era of commercial whaling, fin whales were hunted so intensively that only a small percentage of the population in the Southern Hemisphere survived, and even today, marine biologists know…
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21.05.2021
Polarstern Sets Sail for the Arctic
On Whit Monday, 24 May 2021, the Polarstern will set sail for the Arctic. In Fram Strait, between Greenland and Svalbard, more than 50 participating scientists will resume the long-term observations…
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20.05.2021
Less Forest, More Species
Normally, mountain forests are among the most diverse habitats in alpine regions. Yet, as a team from the Alfred Wegener Institute discovered in the Tibetan Plateau, the higher, treeless areas are…
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13.05.2021
Carbon emissions from dams considerably underestimated so far
Until now, it had been assumed that dams act as net carbon stores. However, researchers at the UFZ, in cooperation with Spanish scientists, have now shown that dams release twice as much carbon as…
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11.05.2021
AWI Technical Centre: The Shell is Complete
Roughly two years after the groundbreaking ceremony on 18 April 2019, the shell for the AWI Technical Centre in the Klußmannstraße, Bremerhaven is now complete. Since the ongoing pandemic made a live…
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26.04.2021
Surprise in the deep sea
Sponges: They are considered to be one of the most primitive forms of animal life, because they have neither locomotion organs nor a nervous system. A team around deep-sea scientist Antje Boetius has…
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06.04.2021
Assessing the Impacts of Nodule Mining on the Deep-Sea Environment
Scientists of the JPI Oceans project “MiningImpact” are embarking on a 6-week expedition to the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific. Their goal is to carry out independent…
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19.03.2021
Droughts in Germany could become more extreme
In the future, droughts could be even more severe than those that struck parts of Germany in 2018. An analysis of climate data from the last millennium shows that several factors have to coincide to…
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17.03.2021
Polarstern expedition investigates massive calved iceberg
Roughly two weeks ago, a massive iceberg calved from the Antarctic Ice Sheet. As the only research vessel nearby, the Polarstern took the opportunity to enter the area between the iceberg and the…
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23.02.2021
‘Missing Ice Problem’ Finally Solved
During glacial periods, the sea level falls, because vast quantities of water are stored in the massive inland glaciers. To date, however, computer models have been unable to reconcile sea-level…
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18.02.2021
42,000-year-old sub-fossil trees allow more accurate analysis of the last reversal of the Earth's magnetic field
The last complete reversal of the Earth's magnetic field, the so-called Laschamps event, took place 42,000 years ago. Radiocarbon analyses of the remains of kauri trees from New Zealand now make it…
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17.02.2021
Alfred Wegener Institute Now Also Represented in Lower Saxony
As of 1 January 2021, Lower Saxony is part of the federal and state financing for the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). The inclusion of the Helmholtz…
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