Bremerhaven, 26 January 2009. The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association can conduct the ongoing Polarstern expedition "LOHAFEX". Independent scientific and legal reviews sought by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety concluded that the iron fertilisation experiment LOHAFEX is neither against environmental standards nor the international law in force. There are thus no ecological and legal reasons to further suspend the iron fertilisation experiment LOHAFEX. Reacting to the positive news from the Federal Ministry of Research Dr. Karin Lochte, Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, said: “We are glad that the experts have fully con...

Bremerhaven, October 17th 2008. The German research vessel Polarstern has returned today to Bremerhaven from the Arctic Sea. It has cruised as the first research vessel ever both the Northeast and the Northwest Passages and thereby circled the North Pole. The third part of the research vessel’s 23rd Arctic expedition, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute in the Helmholtz Association, started its journey on August 12th in Reykjavik and ended it on October 17th in Bremerhaven. The ship travelled a distance of 10.800 nautical miles, equivalent to 20.000 kilometres. On board were 47 researchers from 12 nations, for example from Belgium, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Korea, the Netherlands, Russia and the USA. Because of the small ice cover, the expedition members were a...

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...

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 Half time in the International Polar Year 2007/08 Scientists in Germany present the most important results of polar and climate research at the 23rd International Polar Meeting in Munster from March 10 14, 2008 Press conference on March 10 at 01:00 p.m. A record minimum of Arctic sea ice, new species in the Antarctic deep sea and unexpected insights into past climate these are only some of the re...

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 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 ...

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...