Ecology

Nearly half the Earth is covered by areas of the ocean that lie beyond national jurisdictions. Considering the importance of the oceans for our food supplies, preventing climate change, and preserving biodiversity, this is irresponsible. Change is needed, urgently.

Many experts contributed their expertise to the Ocean Atlas, particularly scientists working together at the University of Kiel’s Future Ocean Cluster of Excellence to research the development of our oceans. Here's the who is who.

The ocean is far, far away from Springdale, Arkansas. And yet the city is feeling the effects of the rising sea level. Seeking safety, 10,000 inhabitants of the Marshall Islands have made the city their new home.

Without the ocean, climate change would proceed far more quickly. The massive volumes of water in the seas greatly influence the changes occurring in our atmosphere.

Beaches littered with plastic garbage, seabirds strangled by bits of plastic – these images are ubiquitous today. Yet we also see photos of people cleaning beaches and hear about plans for purifying the ocean. Are things actually improving?

The plants and animals that currently live in the “wilderness” of the ocean or in marine protected areas are just a fraction of what once thrived in the seas. To understand what we’ve lost and what we might be able to recover, we need to know what used to be.

Each summer, a 20,000-square-kilometer dead zone forms in the Gulf of Mexico. The cause of the lifeless water lies not in the gulf itself but on dry land, 2,000 kilometers upriver.

Key insights and policy recommendations for decisionmakers on local, national and European level from a study tour to the North Sea region.

President Barack Obama discusses the long-term potential of renewable energies and sees the global energy transition as irreversible. Now more than ever, the world needs to embrace the opportunity of clean energy and cooperate on its climate goals.

The chosen method - retention of two thirds of nuclear energy - is only at first sight incompatible with the idea of the German energy transition. The objective is strikingly similar.