Bremerhaven, August 19th 2008. German research vessel Polarstern, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, transits the Northwest Passage for the first time. Polarstern left the port of Reykjavik on August 12th, sailed around Greenland on a southern course and is located right now at the beginning of the Northwest Passage. Its destination is the East Siberian Sea where geoscientific measurements at the junction between the Mendeleev Ridge and the East Siberian Shelf are at the focus of the participants of this expedition. The measurements striven for in the framework of the International Polar Year shall help to understand how the undersea ridges and basins were built. This expedition takes the researchers in 68 days around the No...

Press release Bremerhaven August 7th 2008. The German Research Vessel Polarstern had to prove its ice breaking capabilities in Arctic waters to gain data on two series of long-term research measurements. After working in regions up to latitude 82

From the mountains to the coast - the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research based in Bremerhaven inherits the World Radiation Monitoring Center, Switzerland The international archive for radiation data, the World Radiation Monitoring Center (WRMC), provides climate research with high-precision meteorological series of measurements. After a term of fifteen years at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ), the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association ensures the successful continuity and enhancements of this unique archive. These data serve the monitoring of the climate, the surveillance of anthropological influence on the earth's surface as well as the improvement of climate forecasts. ...

How will the Arctic sea ice cover develop this summer? ­ Climate scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute present their own prognosis for the first time Bremerhaven, July 7, 2008. The ice cover in the Arctic Ocean at the end of summer 2008 will lie, with almost 100 per cent probability, below that of the year 2005 ­ the year with the second lowest sea ice extent ever measured. Chances of an equally low value as in the extreme conditions of the year 2007 lie around eight per cent. Climate scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association come to this conclusion in a recent model calculation. They participate with their prognosis in an international scientific contest, in which some of the most renowned institutes on ...

International Award for Information Technology Goes to Research Institutions in the German Federal State of Bremen for the Data Library PANGAEA® The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association (AWI) and the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) received the 21st Century Achievement Award of the Computerworld Honors Program in the category Environment, which is one of the most prestigious awards in information technology. The award has been granted in response to PANGAEA¹s implementation and successful operation of a unique information system for archiving, publishing and processing of earth system data. Designed to support an integral view on earth, this information system was named after the supercontinent, combining all ...

An international team of researchers was able to provide evidence of explosive volcanism in the deeps of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for the first time. Researchers from an expedition to the Gakkel Ridge, led by the American Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), report in the current issue of the journal Nature that they discovered, with a specially developed camera, extensive layers of volcanic ash on the seafloor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption. ³Explosive volcanic eruptions on land are nothing unusual and pose a great threat for whole areas,² explains Dr Vera Schlindwein of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association. She participated in the expedition as a geophysicist and has been, together with her tea...

Press release: Bremerhaven, June 9th 2008. Research ice breaker Polarstern of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research of the Helmholtz Association puts out to the Arctic on June 12th after three weeks in the dockyards. The expedition of four months length is divided into three stages and leads via the Greenland Sea to Spitsbergen and up to the Fram Strait. The journey through the Northwest Passage up to the East Siberian Sea is planned as the third stage. Two days earlier, on June 10th, the research vessel Heincke leaves the island of Helgoland towards the Orkney Islands. Research is centred on marine biological investigations in the North Atlantic. The emphasis of research of the first part of Polarstern's journey are oceanographic read...

On the occasion of the 31st Antarctic Treaty Consultative meeting held in Kiev, Ukraine, from the 2nd to the 13th of June 2008, SciencePoles looks at one of the lasting legacies of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-08: A series of high-tech scientific research stations recently completed, or in the process of being constructed in Antarctica. Never since the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58 has the frozen continent seen suc...

May 26, 2008. Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) through human activities have a well-known impact on the Earth's climate. Its other, less well-known impact is ocean acidification, with uncertain consequences on marine organisms and ecosystems. The European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA) will be launched on 10 June 2008. Its goal is to document ocean acidification, investigate its impact on biological processes, predict its consequences over the next 100 years, and advise policy-makers on potential thresholds or tipping points that should not be exceeded. The World's oceans cover over 70% of the planet's surface, contribute half of its primary production and contain an enormous diversity of life. Thus it is not surprising that they provide i...

PRESS RELEASE Alfred-Wegener-Institut for Polar- und Meeresforschung in der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Institute for Polar and Marine Research Communications Dept. Postfach 12 01 61, 27515 Bremerhaven/Germany Tel. ++49 471 4831-1376, Fax ++49 471 4831-1389 email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it The Antarctic deep sea gets colder RV Polarstern finished first Antarctic field season within the International Polar Year Bremerhaven, April 21, 2008. The Antarctic deep sea gets colder, which might stimulate the circulation of the oceanic water masses. This is the first result of the Polarstern expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association that has just ended in Punta Arenas/Chi...