12 March 2019
The Bering Sea showed the most dramatic development this month. Normally the amount of sea ice in the Bering Sea continues to grow until late April / early May; the ice is unstable and reacts to the effects of wind and waves. According to Dr Monica Ionita-Scholz, a climatologist at the AWI: “It’s an impressive and very rare situation that we’re currently witnessing in the Bering Sea. Although “atmospheric rivers” do reach the Bering Strait in some cases, it is extremely rare, possibly even unprecedented, to see three consecutive episodes of warm intrusions over this region in less than 10 days.” Find out more…

26 February 2019
Since being launched in 2013, the information and data portal meereisportal.de has provided, for the first time, a central German-language source of scientific findings on the topic of sea ice for all levels of society and in various levels of detail. meereisportal.de is a knowledge transfer project jointly created by the research network REKLIM, the AWI and its Climate Office, and the University of Bremen (IUP). But who’s actually at work behind the scenes at meereisportal.de? Read on to find out…

12 February 2019
Snow on Arctic sea ice plays an important role in the Arctic climate system. It reflects the majority of the incoming solar radiation and isolates the sea ice from warm air in summer and therefore slows down its melting. In addition, information about snow depth is needed for sea ice thickness retrievals based on satellite altimetry. Read more here...

30 January 2019
If we review the sea-ice extent in the Antarctic over the past few weeks, we can see an exciting trend – and not just in our potential interpretations, but also when we compare the current situation to sea-ice conditions in previous years. Chief Scientist Dr Olaf Boebel from RV Polarstern expedition reports: “This year we’ve actually had difficulties finding suitable ice floes where we could conduct the planned marine biology experiments. But in terms of our plotted course and staying on the Polarstern’s schedule, the conditions are of course excellent.” Read more here…

11. January 2019
In order to arrive at a better understanding of the processes at work, as well as the seasonal and interannual changes in the fast ice of Atka Bay, sea-ice measurements have been taken there on a regular basis since 2010. The fast ice in Atka Bay is predominantly seasonal. The routine measurements in Atka Bay are taken by the overwintering team at the Neumayer Station from early spring to the thawing of the bay in January / February. Essentially, they gather measurements of snow, fast-ice and platelet-ice thickness along a uniform 24-km transect that covers the entire bay from west to east. Read more here ...