The Alfred Wegener Institute Gears up for the IPY 2007-2008

04 Nov 2005 - Interviews, Logistics

J rn Thiede, director of the Alfred-Wegener-Institut

Sciencepoles interviewed Professor Jorn Thiede, Director of Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), on 12 October 2005 about AWI and its preparations for the coming International Polar Year 2007-2008. The interview took place at the AWI in Bremerhaven.

What are AWI's strengths as a polar research institution?

We are trying to provide a contribution to getting answers about how fast the global environment is really changing at the present time - as it seems to be happening faster than anticipated. In order to do that one needs to take measurements in the best possible place - and that is, of course, the polar regions. We know from geological records that the polar regions are now changing quickly. I feel strongly, given the significance of climate change for humanity, that Germany and AWI has to play its part in international collaborative efforts to monitor how quickly the globe is warming.

The AWI was founded in the mid-1980s when Germany joined the Antarctic Treaty System, which required that consultative members establish a major Antarctic research campaign. Since that time the German science community has benefited from the considerable infrastructure tools developed. The Neumayer research station in Antarctica, the Polarstern research icebreaker and 2 research aeroplanes. The AWI also has access to 15 large Government-funded laboratories, which are combined in the Helmholtz-Association, the AWI being one of them. 90% of its funding comes from the Federal Government and 10% from the local administration. AWI is thus well-supported in its additional task of maintaining the large infrastructure to support the actions of the other German institutes (and European as well) involved in polar research.

What particular research areas is AWI pursuing?

AWI's strength is its inter-disciplinary capacity. AWI looks at global questions - which require the input of geophysicists, marine biologists, climate scientists and related disciplines. It is the task of the larger institutions to bring a holistic "Earth system" approach to the analysis of climate change, in particular to whether the Earth's system can be managed beneficially. Involuntarily mankind is already changing the Earth's system. We have an obligation to find out if we can manage the system or influence what is happening to counteract the non-benevolent aspects of this global change.

So we have decided that this interdisciplinarity should be the thrust of our current efforts. To a large extent these are now contributions to international efforts and not simply German efforts. We've decided to look at the state of change in the Arctic and Antarctic over a variety of timescales. But it's always the dynamics of change (at particular times in the history of Polar Regions) that are looked at. Most of the different scientific disciplines are involved there.

The International Polar Year is coming up in 2007-08. What does that mean for an institution like AWI?

The first IPY was proposed and taken forward in Germany. Georg von Neumayer was head of a large hydrographic office in Hamburg in the 1880s and he knew that many of the properties of the Arctic environment could only be understood if you took observations at the same time from a number of stations. In 1882-83 the first polar research stations were established, mainly in the Arctic. For example there was an Austrian station at the Jan Mayen Island and a Russian station in Northern Siberia (in the Lena Delta) and so on. At that time people understood that it was necessary to cooperate to understand as complex a system as the polar ice caps.

The most recent international polar year was in 1957-58 and was actually called the International Geophysical Year. A major effort was mounted to study the interior of Antarctica. Now we have satellites, research vessels and planes. The coming IPY will provide two full research seasons - in both the North and South. It is crucial for the AWI to be well-integrated into international planning process and so it has worked to be thoroughly involved.

What form does that integration into international planning processes take?

In particular it has an impact on the research scheduling for Polarstern. We've just rescheduled her calendar to make more time for international efforts - both in the Arctic and in the Southern Ocean.

Anything in particular you'd like to mention?

We are making a major effort to investigate the so-called "gateways". In the Arctic and Southern Oceans there are particularly key regions which you have to have a detailed understanding of in order to comprehend the history of circulation in these oceans as well as to understand the development of the ocean basins' physiography. In the North for example, between Greenland and Svalbard, there is the area of the Fram Strait Passage, and in the South we have the Scotia Sea. These areas have not been properly understood and AWI is looking to lead efforts to do so.

Is that being done in collaboration with other European research vessels or is Polarstern taking the major role in these investigations?

In the Southern Ocean, we are trying to combine our efforts with the James Clark Ross from the UK and the Marion Dufresne from France. In the Arctic Ocean it's mainly USCG Healy and the Swedish Oden.

Will there be extra funding involved in the IPY?

While I see a large need for additional funding in the current situation it is not possible to consider putting forward proposals - at least until the Government has been formed following the recent elections.

Are there any particular projects you would describe as IPY projects?

An institute like the AWI believes that we need modern platforms to carry out effective research. In that context, we are mourning the loss of CRYOSAT during its launch last Saturday. It's hitting us hard that the satellite didn't make it. We'll be pushing for a replacement as fast as possible as we urgently need the dataset it was going to provide, in particular on sea-ice thickness.

In this context I'm lobbying for a large European icebreaker that allows a research presence year-round in the central part of the Arctic Ocean (the AURORA BOREALIS project). No single nation has such a plan at present but a new icebreaker on this scale would provide capacity for a number of countries. It's time to have a ship that is run by a consortium of countries. If it is owned by a single nation then its research program will be dominated by that nation's priorities. Europe is a step ahead of other countries in this regard. Europe is trying to promote this plan but is looking to involve Russia and the United States in some capacity as well.

Harking back to the IPY of the 1950s there was also a political legacy when nations' Antarctic territorial claims were set aside following the international collaborative effort by scientists to explore the interior of Antarctica. Do you see any grand legacies coming out of the coming IPY?

You could do a number of things in the 1950s and now we have substantially greater technical abilities. Just a few areas would be: the exploration of the ice sheets, including their historical development; the continuing exploration of the interior of Antarctica; greater use of observational tools, such as satellites, which allow us to monitor the fate of the ice cover in both Polar Regions.

These will provide a strong legacy. The IPY will open up a phase when we will really monitor the Polar Regions for details and really increase our research efforts. We are looking at a time when we see a strong surge in polar research in many countries. I'm sure Europeans will play a major role in this.

One of the key themes of the IPY is communicating the results of polar research to a broad audience. How does AWI approach this?

The AWI certainly anticipated this development. Over the last decade AWI has been going out to the public a lot to explain what it's been doing. The IPY provides a very good opportunity to add to those efforts through communicating further to the public about the findings of polar science. In Germany, in the UK and in other European countries there will be major efforts to do so.

In the most extreme habitats in the world it is important to have the right equipment, the right technology to survive in these areas. We have very gifted young people who are courageous enough to go there. You have to remember that if this technology breaks down our young people are still in a very grave and dangerous situation. Indeed, there are many areas where you cannot go in the winter for this reason. In these times of computers and TV links you can be completely linked to the rest of the world but it still requires courage and psychological stability. It's also important to give the public an appreciation of the efforts being made by polar scientists to obtain vital research results about the Polar Regions.

People wanting to contact AWI to know more about what it is doing - how should they go about it?

Go along to the next Internet café and check out the AWI website. They'll find a vast range of information about AWI and what it is doing right there.

By: Richard de Ferranti