Press Release Archive

19.02.2019

BRIESE Prize 2018: Focus ocean acidification – Great progress in Baltic Sea pH monitoring and more

Jens Daniel Müller from the IOW has been awarded this year's BRIESE Prize for Marine Research. The jury honours his research on the distinctive features of ocean acidification in marginal and coastal seas. Müller used the Baltic Sea as an example to show that acidification takes place under fundamentally different conditions there than it does in the open ocean. With the advancement of a high-precision optical pH measuring method, which until now could only be used at high oceanic salinities, but which now can also be applied in less salty water, he also created the basis for making pH changes in brackish water comparable worldwide.

30.01.2019

Raising data treasures with ODIN 2 by easily surfing through over 60 years of Baltic Sea monitoring

This year, the first international agreement on joint monitoring of the Baltic Sea marine environment turns 50: As early as 1969, the riparian states for the first time carried out measurements along a coordinated station network as part of a so-called “Baltic Year”. The Warnemünde oceanographers have been involved ever since and are making a significant contribution to this valuable long-term data set. Their more than 70 million data, some of them even dating back to 1951, are now freely accessible and can be visualised user-friendly with the ODIN 2 research tool developed by the IOW: https://odin2.io-warnemuende.de.

17.01.2019

Bad food?
How mesozooplankton reacts to blue-green algae blooms

A group of marine researchers around the IOW biologist Natalie Loick-Wilde has succeeded in deciphering the mysterious feeding behaviour of mesozooplankton in the presence of cyanobacterial blooms by analysing stable nitrogen isotopes in amino acids. They found that contradictory observations, according to which both the dominance of herbivorous and carnivorous diets occurred, can be explained by the aging process of a blue-green algal bloom. In view of an assumed future worldwide increase in such blooms, their findings open up new perspectives on potential developments within a key group of the marine food web.

14.01.2019

Model results: Baltic Sea could return to a good environmental status

In the largest model comparison ever carried out for the Baltic Sea region, an international team of authors led by Markus Meier, oceanographer from Warnemünde, came to the conclusion that a good status of the Baltic Sea environment can be achieved if the measures planned in the Baltic Sea Action Plan to reduce nutrient discharges are consistently implemented. They thus contradicted the view that climate change in general makes it impossible to achieve this goal. At the same time, however, they confirmed that climate change would lead to an increase in eutrophication if the nutrient load remains high.

07.01.2019

Is climate change a threat to marine ecosystems in the Benguela upwelling system? New project kicks off

The three-year research project EVAR to investigate possible climate change impacts on key biogeochemical processes in the Benguela upwelling system off South West Africa, a very important fishing ground, was launched on January 2, 2019. The project is funded by the German Ministry of Research with about 3 Mill. euros and is headed by the IOW. Scientists from the MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at Bremen University and the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel are also participating, together with their colleagues from the University of Namibia and the National Marine Information and Research Centre NatMIRC.

11.12.2018

New climate report for the Baltic Sea region (BACC III) underway

The Second Assessment of Climate Change in the Baltic Sea Region (BACC II) of 2015 is currently being updated by scientists from the international Baltic Earth network. As for the previous two BACC reports (2008, 2015), Baltic Earth experts from various research fields such as meteorology, hydrology, oceanography, biology and biogeochemistry will compile the updated report. Furthermore, there will again be a close cooperation with HELCOM (Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission - Helsinki Commission).

15.11.2018

Turbulent Jubilee Expedition: FS ELISABETH MANN BORGESE starts 200th research cruise

On November 17, 2018, the research vessel ELISABETH MANN BORGESE will leave its home port Rostock Marienehe for its 200th cruise. The destination is the Gotland Basin in the central Baltic Sea. Here, the scientific team headed by the oceanographer Lars Umlauf from the IOW will be investigating small-scale turbulent mixing processes, which play an important role in the oceans’ energy budget. A better understanding of these processes by will ultimately contribute to the improvement of climate predictions.

22.10.2018

Enabling a plastic-free microplastic hunt: "Rocket" improves detection of very small particles

Environmental researchers at the IOW have developed a novel mobile device for recording microplastics in surface waters. They call it the “Rocket”, a design with which depending on the amount of suspended matter in the water up to 60 litres per minute can be sucked through four cartridge filters, and which is particularly advantageous for sampling the fine fraction of the microplastic in the range down to 10 µm. The scientists were specially challenged by the fact that plastic had to be avoided as far as possible.

28.09.2018

Summer School on the topic “Coastal Dynamics – Consequences for Coastal Protection and Ecology”

Today, the 17th Coastal Summer School came to an end. 19 young scientists from 11 nations visited the Baltic Sea island of Hiddensee for 12 days to deepen their knowledge of coastal research. On Hiddensee and on the research vessel ELISABETH MANN BORGESE they gained insights into geological processes of coastal dynamics, the resulting requirements for coastal protection and the ecological consequences of human interventions in natural dynamics. They were guided by 21 experts, who interdisciplinarily presented them with the latest findings on the main topic and discussed future challenges of coastal research with them.

19.09.2018

Is the Baltic Sea acidifying? IOW researcher adapt optical pH measurement method for brackish waters

Great advancement for pH-monitoring in the Baltic Sea: For a better observation of possible acidification trends in brackish waters, Jens Müller, marine chemist at the IOW, for the first time adapted a highly precise optical pH measurement technique for the use at low salinities, which until now was only applicable at high salinity levels of the open ocean. The newly adapted method, for which a market-ready device has already been designed, is therefore highly suitable for routine use within the framework of the Helsinki Commission's (HELCOM) Baltic Sea environmental monitoring.