Polar aircraft Polar5 and Polar6 operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute

Due to the remoteness and difficulty to access the snow covered polar regions, ski-equipped aircraft are an indispensable tool for polar research. The Alfred Wegener Institute has a long tradition in airborne polar science – starting with the aircraft Polar1 and Polar2 in 1983. In 2007 the first Basler BT-67 (Polar5) and in 2011 the second Basler BT-67 (Polar6) were brought into service and replaced Polar2 and Polar4. They carry a variety of scientific equipment for investigation of the lithosphere, atmosphere and cryosphere and all their interactions. Beside being deployed for science missions, the aircraft are also part of the Dronning Maud Land Air Network (DROMLAN), a logistical partnership to transport equipment and personnel to various stations in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica

Expedtion program ANT-Land 2018/19 - Land activities and flight missions

The season ANT-Land 2018/19 is scheduled for the period from 31 October 2017 until 28 February 2019. Most of personnel will be flown into the Antarctic and back via the air link from Cape Town within the frame of Dronning Maud Land Air Network (DROMLAN). Ship calls are scheduled for RV POLARSTERN between 5th and 7st January 2019, to supply the majority of cargo for NEUMAYER STATION III and aircraft operations. A further ship call is MARY ARCTICA between 17th and 18th January 2019. Logistics will focus on two periods of lifting of the station. Furthermore a construction team will be onsite for maintenance of the station facilities. In the vicinity of NEUMAYER STATION III geophysical, glaciological, geological, biological and atmospheric projects are planned during the summer season. Medical studies of the Berlin Centre for Space Medicine (ZWMB) and University of Munich (LMU) will be continued and extended by the station staff during the winter period. In parallel, station facilities will be used to operate the Basler BT-67 aircraft POLAR 6. The regular weather forecast service (AWI/DWD) will be provided to all aircraft operations within the Dronning Maud Land region, in particular as a contribution to DROMLAN. KOHNEN STATION will be visited by the participants of six scientific projects and maintenance work such as lifting up the station and construction work. A traverse to KOHNEN STATION including supply goods will start from NEUMAYER STATION III will start mid of November. The DALLMANN LABORATORY at Base CARLINI (Argentina) will be opened at the beginning of November 2018. It is operated in cooperation with the Instituto Antártico Argentino (IAA). During the season 2018/19 German and international scientists (one scientific group) will work at the Potter Cove and the station area

Joint AWI-NIPR airborne operations in the past and the future

The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) has in the past operated two ski equipped aircraft (Dornier Do228-101) for scientific and logistic purposes in polar regions-called POLAR 2 and POLAR 4. Both aircraft are easily able to be adapted to different science programs. Aero-geophysical instrumentation and various atmospheric systems are available. In recent years, a long and fruitful cooperation with the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR), Tokyo, has been established, whereby so far three joint airborne campaigns have been already performed in the Arctic, namely ASTAR 2000 (Arctic Study of Tropospheric Aerosol and Radiation), AAMP 2002 (Arctic Airborne Measurement Program), and ASTAR 2004. The ANTSYO (Antarctic flight missions at Syowa region: Airborne Geophysical, Glaciological, and Atmospheric Research in East Antarctica) operations of the AWI research aircraft, POLAR 2, started in the season 2005/06, from S17, near Syowa Station in December 2005. Running such surveys presents a logistical challenge that can only be met with the combined support of Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven, and the NIPR, Tokyo. Therefore, both national Antarctic programs put their logistical capabilities together in order to perform the first extensive airborne missions in this area over a period of three Antarctic summer seasons (2005/06 till 2007/08)

The MOSAiC ice floe: sediment-laden survivor from the Siberian shelf

In September 2019, the research icebreaker Polarstern started the largest multidisciplinary Arctic expedition to date, the MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) drift experiment. Being moored to an ice floe for a whole year, thus including the winter season, the declared goal of the expedition is to better understand and quantify relevant processes within the atmosphere–ice–ocean system that impact the sea ice mass and energy budget, ultimately leading to much improved climate models. Satellite observations, atmospheric reanalysis data, and readings from a nearby meteorological station indicate that the interplay of high ice export in late winter and exceptionally high air temperatures resulted in the longest ice-free summer period since reliable instrumental records began. We show, using a Lagrangian tracking tool and a thermodynamic sea ice model, that the MOSAiC floe carrying the Central Observatory (CO) formed in a polynya event north of the New Siberian Islands at the beginning of December 2018. The results further indicate that sea ice in the vicinity of the CO (<40 km distance) was younger and 36 % thinner than the surrounding ice with potential consequences for ice dynamics and momentum and heat transfer between ocean and atmosphere. Sea ice surveys carried out on various reference floes in autumn 2019 verify this gradient in ice thickness, and sediments discovered in ice cores (so-called dirty sea ice) around the CO confirm contact with shallow waters in an early phase of growth, consistent with the tracking analysis. Since less and less ice from the Siberian shelves survives its first summer (Krumpen et al., 2019), the MOSAiC experiment provides the unique opportunity to study the role of sea ice as a transport medium for gases, macronutrients, iron, organic matter, sediments and pollutants from shelf areas to the central Arctic Ocean and beyond. Compared to data for the past 26 years, the sea ice encountered at the end of September 2019 can already be classified as exceptionally thin, and further predicted changes towards a seasonally ice-free ocean will likely cut off the long-range transport of ice-rafted materials by the Transpolar Drift in the future. A reduced long-range transport of sea ice would have strong implications for the redistribution of biogeochemical matter in the central Arctic Ocean, with consequences for the balance of climate-relevant trace gases, primary production and biodiversity in the Arctic Ocean

Protective immune trajectories in early viral containment of non-pneumonic SARS-CoV-2 infection

The antiviral immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection can limit viral spread and prevent development of pneumonic COVID-19. However, the protective immunological response associated with successful viral containment in the upper airways remains unclear. Here, we combine a multi-omics approach with longitudinal sampling to reveal temporally resolved protective immune signatures in non-pneumonic and ambulatory SARS-CoV-2 infected patients and associate specific immune trajectories with upper airway viral containment. We see a distinct systemic rather than local immune state associated with viral containment, characterized by interferon stimulated gene (ISG) upregulation across circulating immune cell subsets in non-pneumonic SARS-CoV2 infection. We report reduced cytotoxic potential of Natural Killer (NK) and T cells, and an immune-modulatory monocyte phenotype associated with protective immunity in COVID-19. Together, we show protective immune trajectories in SARS-CoV2 infection, which have important implications for patient prognosis and the development of immunomodulatory therapies

Integrating Data Science and Earth Science

This open access book presents the results of three years collaboration between earth scientists and data scientists, in developing and applying data science methods for scientific discovery. The book will be highly beneficial for other researchers at senior and graduate level, interested in applying visual data exploration, computational approaches and scientifc workflows

Loss of Secreted Frizzled-Related Protein 4 Correlates with an Aggressive Phenotype and Predicts Poor Outcome in Ovarian Cancer Patients

Background: Activation of the Wnt signaling pathway is implicated in aberrant cellular proliferation in various cancers. In 40% of endometrioid ovarian cancers, constitutive activation of the pathway is due to oncogenic mutations in β-catenin or other inactivating mutations in key negative regulators. Secreted frizzled-related protein 4 (SFRP4) has been proposed to have inhibitory activity through binding and sequestering Wnt ligands. Methodology/Principal Findings: We performed RT-qPCR and Western-blotting in primary cultures and ovarian cell lines for SFRP4 and its key downstream regulators activated β-catenin, β-catenin and GSK3β. SFRP4 was then examined by immunohistochemistry in a cohort of 721 patients and due to its proposed secretory function, in plasma, presenting the first ELISA for SFRP4. SFRP4 was most highly expressed in tubal epithelium and decreased with malignant transformation, both on RNA and on protein level, where it was even more profound in the membrane fraction (p<0.0001). SFRP4 was expressed on the protein level in all histotypes of ovarian cancer but was decreased from borderline tumors to cancers and with loss of cellular differentiation. Loss of membrane expression was an independent predictor of poor survival in ovarian cancer patients (p = 0.02 unadjusted; p = 0.089 adjusted), which increased the risk of a patient to die from this disease by the factor 1.8. Conclusions/Significance: Our results support a role for SFRP4 as a tumor suppressor gene in ovarian cancers via inhibition of the Wnt signaling pathway. This has not only predictive implications but could also facilitate a therapeutic role using epigenetic targets