From droughts, to forest fires, to megastorms, the extreme weather we’ve seen in 2018 is becoming an increasing source of concern around the world. People are worried that climate change will be virtually unstoppable without drastic steps such as "climate engineering." But can the Earth really be cooled using artificial means?

Storms, heavy rainfall, droughts – we are all at risk from the disastrous consequences of global warming. The IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C spells it out clearly: We need to act right away.

Björn Fiedler and his family left their home in Kiel, Germany to spend six months in Cape Verde. The marine chemist had been posted at the new Ocean Science Centre Mindelo.

Every year thousands of animal and plant species become extinct; now a world panel of renowned biodiversity scientists, the IPBES, wants to change that. This group of scientists is identifying ways in which the decline in biodiversity might be stopped.

Will the sea level rise by 12, 24, 36 inches, or even more than three feet by the end of the century? Climate models and data studies attempt to predict what awaits humanity. Humanity itself, however, presents the biggest factor of uncertainty in the predictions.

Millions of tons of plastic litter are floating in the world’s oceans, but where is the reliable data documenting this extraordinary phenomenon? Now, for the first time, the online platform ‘litterbase’, assembled by the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany, makes the existing scientific literature on the oceanic litter load widely accessible.

In a little over two years, the research ship Polarstern will be embarking on an adventurous expedition. The ship will be drifting through the Arctic for a whole year, frozen into the ice. Thus, scientists hope to gain new insights into climate change.

The climate summit in Marrakech can by all means put forward a few findings. But all of the uncertainty that was hovering over it concerned how the USA will conduct itself in the future. A commentary by Reimund Schwarze, Environmental Economist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ).

Burkard Baschek from the Helmholtz-Zentrum für Material- und Küstenforschung in Geesthacht has been investigating a mysterious habitat and would like to share his enthusiasm with the public.