Committed to the Oceans and Climate —
“Alfred-Wegener-Institute”

Four years ago, our fasci­na­tion with the depths of the world’s oceans led us to our name­sake, the research vessel “Valdivia”. In April, we present­ed the work of the Alfred Wegen­er Insti­tute (AWI) and its flag­ship “Polarstern” in our Future news­room section. We are pleased to announce that we will now support the Insti­tute — as a member of the AWI Spon­sors’ Asso­ci­a­tion , which supports scien­tif­ic projects and events, public rela­tions work and teach­ing programmes for schools, among other things.

Why the Alfred Wegen­er Institute

The depths of the world’s oceans have been system­at­i­cal­ly explored for well over a centu­ry. Never­the­less, knowl­edge about them is still limit­ed and many results lead to more new ques­tions than answers. For this reason, marine research is often initial­ly basic research — but it is close­ly linked to our daily lives:

• The water mass­es of the oceans are the most impor­tant CO₂ reser­voir and climate regu­la­tor on Earth. As the link between increas­ing­ly frequent and extreme weath­er events and glob­al climate change, they have a far-reach­ing influ­ence that we still only under­stand incompletely.
• At the same time, the oceans are the largest avail­able resource on our plan­et. They provide food, recre­ation, trans­port routes, biodi­ver­si­ty and raw materials.
• Sadly, man-made pollu­tion of the oceans is now a prob­lem that can hard­ly be solved with­out research.

The Alfred Wegen­er Insti­tute, an inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised centre of excel­lence for polar and marine research, conducts research on all of these topics. The AWI is one of the few scien­tif­ic insti­tu­tions in the world that is equal­ly active in the Arctic and Antarc­tic. It coor­di­nates German polar research, but also research­es the North Sea and its German coastal regions. With its inno­v­a­tive research, excel­lent scien­tif­ic infra­struc­ture and many years of exper­tise, the AWI makes a signif­i­cant contri­bu­tion to under­stand­ing the Earth’s climate — a contri­bu­tion that we believe deserves to be recog­nised and supported.

Polar regions and climate — inter­ac­tion with many ques­tion marks

Heavy rain­fall, hot spells — climate change is now happen­ing before our very eyes. We know that we have to do some­thing about it. But this requires a deep under­stand­ing of the process­es: What exact­ly is happen­ing? What are short-term fluc­tu­a­tions and what are long-term trends? How are the vari­ous caus­es connect­ed? And what are the dynam­ics of these processes?

The polar regions and their oceans in partic­u­lar play a central role in the glob­al climate system. As a Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, the AWI there­fore concen­trates primar­i­ly on the cold and temper­ate regions of the world. Togeth­er with numer­ous nation­al and inter­na­tion­al part­ners, the scien­tists involved are trying to deci­pher the complex process­es in the climate system. Polar and marine research was already a fasci­nat­ing scien­tif­ic chal­lenge in the days of “our” Valdivia. Today, it is an essen­tial piece of future research.

On an expe­di­tion in the Antarc­tic “summer”

One exam­ple of the work of the Alfred Wegen­er Insti­tute is the current expe­di­tion of the Polarstern, the flag­ship of the AWI fleet. From 12/24 it is trav­el­ling in the Weddell sea, an area off the coast of Antarc­ti­ca with a rich, diverse ecosys­tem. Here, the AWI has been lead­ing the “Hybrid Antarc­tic Float and Ocean Obser­va­to­ry” (HAFOS) project for sever­al years. The aim of HAFOS is to observe the complex move­ments of the ice shelf and its inter­ac­tion with the region­al ocean currents. To this end, measure­ments from research vessels, perma­nent­ly installed devices in the ocean and float­ing buoys are combined.

To date, HAFOS has contributed to a better under­stand­ing of ocean currents and helped to docu­ment changes in these currents and thus warm­ing process­es in the ocean. The project was able to show how certain phys­i­cal and chem­i­cal process­es take place in the sea. One impor­tant find­ing, for exam­ple, is how melt­wa­ter from the ice shelf off the coast of the conti­nent influ­ences glob­al ocean circu­la­tion, sea level and carbon storage.

New measur­ing instru­ments are now to be anchored in the Weddell Sea area and the currents will also be measured from the ship. In addi­tion, the scien­tists will take phys­i­cal and biogeo­chem­i­cal samples to analyse the mate­r­i­al cycles of carbon, nitro­gen, sulphur and phos­pho­rus, for exam­ple. Previ­ous­ly, the Polarstern worked as a cargo ship in its “side­line” and supplied the German Antarc­tic stations Kohnen and Neumay­er III with supplies.

Valdivia and the sea — a profound connection

Deep draft in perfor­mance, passion for the sea — that’s how we found our name Valdivia. Because “Valdivia” was the name of the German research vessel that set off on a system­at­ic explo­ration of the deep sea in 1898. The expe­di­tion was led by the zool­o­gist Carl Chun (1852 — 1914) from Höchst, now Frank­furt am Main. Equipped with the most modern research facil­i­ties of the time, the Valdivia was able to plumb ocean depths of up to six kilo­me­tres and more. It also had special nets devel­oped by Carl Chun with which it could collect flora and fauna at almost any depth and bring them to the surface for examination.

Togeth­er with the Alfred Wegen­er Insti­tute, we now invite you to support the research work ((Link 2)) that once began with Carl Chun and is now more impor­tant and topi­cal than ever: If many do a little, a lot is done in the end!

(Image source: Alfred-Wegener-Institut)