New Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity
Marine ecosystems provide us with food and raw materials, they have an impact on air quality and global climate, they break down harmful substances and serve as places of recreation and tourism. The functioning of these ecosystems – and thus also the basis for human well-being – depends on the biological diversity of the oceans. The way climate change and human influences change marine biodiversity will in future be examined by scientists in a new institute: as was recently decided by the senate of the Helmholtz Association, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity will be set up next year in Oldenburg. The new institute will pool and expand the research excellence in this field of the University of Oldenburg and the Alfred Wegener Institute…
An Emerging Global Maritime Hub Halifax, Nova Scotia
A year after Irving Shipbuilding Inc.’s successful bid to build $25B worth of combat vessels for the Royal Canadian Navy and ships for the Canadian Coast Guard, the largest procurement contract ever awarded in Canada, a positive economic buzz continues to grow across the province and throughout the Atlantic region. It’s an optimism not generated by any other project in many years. The multi-billion dollar package provided through the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS)…
Research Icebreaker Sails for Arctic
The research vessel Polarstern has left Bremerhaven on course for the Arctic with 44 expedition participants from institutions from Germany, Belgium, USA and the United Kingdom who will spend around one month on board. Their main study area is the Fram Strait between Spitsbergen and Greenland where they will conduct long-term oceanographic measurements. The Fram Strait is the only deep sea water connection between the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic. How much water is exchanged between these two seas and what heat and salt transport is associated with this?
Northern Sea Route Ice-free Soon?
The Northern Passage, the sea route along the North coast of Russia, is expected to be free of ice early again this summer. The forecast was made by sea ice physicists of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association based on a series of measurement flights over the Laptev Sea, a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. Amongs experts the shelf sea is known as an “ice factory” of Arctic sea ice. At the end of last winter the researchers discovered large areas of thin ice not being thick enough to withstand the summer melt.
