Further press releases from Helmholtz
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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31.03.2021
Jordan’s worsening water crisis a warning for the world
Prolonged and potentially destabilizing water shortages will become commonplace in Jordan by 2100, unless the nation implements comprehensive reform, new research by an international team of…
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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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05.03.2021
UFZ Social Scientist Dr. Silke Beck in portrait
Silke Beck is concerned with the assessment of environmental protection measures at the science-policy-society interface: What consequences can measures have? How do ideas from science and…
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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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22.02.2021
Plant responses to climate are lagged
Plant responses to climate drivers such as temperature and precipitation may become visible only years after the actual climate event. This is a key result of new research by iDiv, MLU Halle…
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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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05.02.2021
Droughts become shorter and more intense
Drought periods in Europe are shorter but more intense since the beginning of the 20th century. Moreover high temperatures cause greater water loss from the soil. This was reported by an…
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04.02.2021
The Marine Soundscape and Anthropogenic Noise
Due to construction work in the sea, shipping, and gas and oil extraction, the oceans are becoming increasingly louder. A comprehensive international study has now shown that this noise affects the…
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03.02.2021
The Arctic Ocean was covered by a shelf ice and filled with freshwater
The Arctic Ocean was covered by up to 900 m thick shelf ice and was filled entirely with freshwater at least twice in the last 150,000 years. This surprising finding, reported in the latest issue of…
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28.01.2021
Climate Research in the Southern Ocean
The Alfred Wegener Institute has risen to the challenge of undertaking an expedition to the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic under pandemic conditions. Consequently, the participants in this year’s first…
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25.01.2021
Complicated Biodiversity Production Mutualism
How can the Earth's resources be managed to produce enough healthy food without destroying the life-support system? For this, agronomic models have to be revised, substantially. UFZ ecologists…
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14.01.2021
Wandering Icebergs
During glacial periods, icebergs from Antarctica drifted much further north than they do today. An international team led by Cardiff University and which included the AWI has now revealed how this…
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06.01.2021
The new face of the Antarctic
In the future, the Antarctic could become a greener place and be colonised by new species. At the same time, some species will likely disappear. 25 researchers recently presented these and many other…
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17.12.2020
Whale Song Reveals Behavioural Patterns of Antarctic Minke Whales and Humpback Whales in the Weddell Sea
Until recently, what we knew about the lives of baleen whales in the Southern Ocean was chiefly based on research conducted during the Antarctic summer. The reason: in the winter, there were…
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14.12.2020
Back to the Roots of Antarctic Research
This year, the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Neumayer Station III will be exclusively supplied by sea. The research vessel Polarstern will transport– as usual – materials and fuel to the Antarctic…
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07.12.2020
Central Europe: Dry Aprils pave the way for summer droughts
In the past 20 years, Central Europe has experienced six summer heat waves and droughts. Until now, however, it was unclear what factors led to these extreme events. Researchers from two Helmholtz…
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01.12.2020
Watching the Arctic Thaw in Fast-forward
The frozen permafrost in the Arctic is thawing on an alarming scale. By analysing an annual record of satellite images, researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute have now confirmed these findings:…
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13.11.2020
Fighting the Salmon Louse
It’s a nightmare for fish breeders, causes damage amounting to millions, and is also a growing problem for wild salmon: the salmon louse is high on the list of notorious fish parasites. In a new…
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26.10.2020
Irregular Appearances of Glacial and Interglacial Climate States
During the last 2.6 million years of Earth’s climate has alterd between glacial and interglacial states. As such, there have been times in which the transition between the two climate states appeared…
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19.10.2020
Depths of the Weddell Sea are warming five times faster than elsewhere
Over the past three decades, the depths of the Antarctic Weddell Sea have warmed five times faster than the rest of the ocean at depths exceeding 2,000 metres. This was the main finding of an article…
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15.10.2020
The future of krill
Krill is rapidly gaining popularity. The small shrimp-like organism from the Antarctic is used as fish food in aquaculture and increasingly in dietary supplements and healing ointments. Although the…
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12.10.2020
The grand finale to the expedition of a century
After more than a year in the Central Arctic, this Monday, 12 October, the research icebreaker Polarstern returned to her homeport in Bremerhaven. Accompanied by a ‘welcome committee’ of ships that…
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23.09.2020
Enhanced warming subtropical ocean is expanding the tropics
The severe droughts in the USA and Australia are the first sign that the tropics, and their warm temperatures, are apparently expanding in the wake of climate change. But until now, scientists have…
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17.09.2020
Model comparison: Experts calculate future ice loss and the extent to which Greenland and the Antarctic will contribute to sea-level rise
Ice-sheet models are an essential tool in making predictions regarding the future of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets. Nevertheless, these models still have a number of weaknesses. In an…
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17.09.2020
Arctic sea ice shrinks to second-lowest summer extent since the beginning of satellite observation
This summer the sea-ice cover on the Arctic Ocean shrank to the second-smallest extent since the beginning of satellite observation in 1979. By mid-September it covered only 3.8 million square…
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16.09.2020
Siberia’s permafrost erosion has been worsening for years
The Arctic is warming faster than any other region on the planet. As a result, permafrost that is thousands of years old is now being lost to erosion. As measurements gathered on the Lena River by…
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31.08.2020
MOSAiC aerial campaign: first aerial survey flights in the Arctic since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic
Following a five-month mandatory delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, on August 30th the two German polar research aircraft Polar 5 and Polar 6 will launch from Svalbard to conduct their first…
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