PRESS RELEASE Alfred-Wegener-Institut for Polar- und Meeresforschung in der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Institute for Polar and Marine Research Stratospheric ozone chemistry plays an important role for atmospheric airflow patterns Still too much uncertainty in today's climate models Interactions between the stratospheric ozone chemistry and atmospheric air flow lead to significant changes of airflow patterns from the ground up to the stratosphere. This is the result of climate simulations, which have just been published in the journal "Geophysical Research Letters" (Brand et al, Geophys. Res. Lett.). Scientists at the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, which is a member of th...

Dear friends, The next International Polar Day, focussing on our Changing Earth, is in two weeks. We have prepared a number of webpages, resources, and links to relevant IPY science. These can all be accessed from the link on www.IPY.org (top right), or directly at http://www.ipy.org/index.php?/ipy/detail/earth/ There are also three aspects of particular interest that I hope you can inform your networks about: 1. EDUCATIONAL FLYERS Flyers can be downloaded from the educators page at ...

Bremerhaven, February 4, 2008: In the Southern Ocean, large quantities of surface-drifting plankton algae are able to significantly reduce the carbon dioxide content of the surface waters, which can affect the global carbon dioxide cycle. This is one of the results from an Antarctic expedition which has just drawn to a close in Cape Town on February 4, and which was led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, part of the Helmholtz Association. On February 5, an international team of scientists will discuss the results obtained to date and pressing questions of Antarctic research as part of a workshop aboard the icebreaker Polarstern. Federal research minister Dr Annette Schavan will use the opportunity to meet representatives of leading research institutions and South African mini...

Tuesday, 29 January On my way to breakfast I meet a smiling Svenja. “Looks like a benthic station today!” she exclaims and disappears in the stairwell to the labs. My heart skips a beat. How wonderful! We start around half past ten, I run a multicorer, the winch control room is humming with happy busy people, outside a bright blue sky spans over a sea of a like colour. The mighty foam-crested swells look beautiful in the sunlight and are not the least bit unnerving anymore. Together with Annika I lower the gear gently on the sea floor (actually, it is Otto at th...

Sunday, 27 January What an exciting day! Not only because of the storm, but especially because of the amphipod traps which we had almost given up on and left on the sea floor for two months. Today we got them back. This was due to the Captain´s great expertise, the board electrician´s genius and a good portion of luck, with the storm allowing us a little time before it pushed the wave heights over 7 metres. It was not easy. When we worked on our first station near the beginning of this voyage, the traps did not respond to the ship’s signals. At that time, they had been on the ground for some 12 hours. There was nothing we could do, time was in short supply, and we proceeded without retrieving the trap. We had planned from the very beginning to revisit thi...

Saturday, 26 January Hi, and good morning. Yaaawn... it’s me again, Nils. Yaaaawn... We had a long night here on board FS Polarstern, followed by a cold, wet and stormy morning. Now it is 11 a.m., I am frozen to the bones, my stomach is unhappy about the waves, and I have been on my feet for 27 hours. Well, about that long. I should tell the story from the beginning. We are on our way home, at a station at 52° southern latitude. Two months ago we have already been here once to take samples. Now, on our way back, we are taking samples again at the same spot to see if anything has change...

Thursday, 24 January and Friday, 25 January The computers on board are working overtime. The tasks are to prepare posters and presentations for the reception on 5 February and to start with the cruise report. What can we report about the things we wanted to find out? Not too much. We all have had to limit our research activities a lot, and we have done so in the spirit of community. Now the shadow of an upcoming storm is hovering over everything. It is going to unfold its force exactly during the days that we wanted to do the only station revisit still left in the proramme, trying to find out wheth...

Wednesday, 23 January This is what I always thought the Antarctic summer should be like: the sun is shining out of a blue sky, the unfathomable water has a beautiful blue colour, and we are surrounded by icebergs displaying a high variety of shapes. So I am standing on the work deck at 7 o’clock in the morning, waiting for my turn. The CTD with 24 water bottles, each closed at a different depth all the way down to the seafloor which here lies more than 5,000 m below the surface, is a sampling device in high demand among oceanographers and biologists. I personally take samp...

Monday, 21 January The mood on the ship is changing. In the stairwell there are sheets of paper on the walls with a red page-size exclamation mark which are very familiar to those who have been on Polarstern before. They announce deadlines for packing and delivering the packing and freight lists. Oh, yes, the packing lists, now where did I put them... After 54 days at sea, some realities of life have vanished into the background as we live in our own small world, despite emails and daily news from the internet. The gods of the weather have been kind to us, the Polarstern is swaying very ge...

Between me and the seafloor there is about 4,000 m of water. A barrier for scientists who want to understand the biology of the water column all the way down to the deep-sea floor, harder and harder to penetrate with increasing depth. Nevertheless, the beginnings of deep-sea research are already a century behind us. The foundation of deep-sea investigations was laid by the Challenger Expedition and the German Deep-sea Expedition. My great-great grandfather Franz Eilhard Schulze was involved in the analysis of these expeditions. He worked on the sponge fauna of the deep sea worldwide. When presenting results from her projects, Dorte Janussen, the sponge expert for this voyage, often refers to his work which is still an important reference for her work today. It is nice to see...