Bright sunshine, intense thunderstorms, storms up to wind force 9 – the weather during the CYRTACI journey M195 is diverse and varied. Observant eyes even witnessed mirages and waterspouts, not to mention colorful rainbows, sunrises, and sunsets, especially captivating due to the mostly unobstructed sea horizon.
Seafaring and weather are traditionally closely intertwined. The success of our research expedition is naturally dependent on the weather. For example, sediment cores cannot be taken in too rough seas. To make the most of the expedition days, there is a Meteorological Office on board from the German Weather Service, providing the ship’s crew and scientists with daily weather observations and forecasts. There, Andreas and Felix work. Andreas has been sailing on various research vessels for 14 years. Felix usually works on land in aviation weather forecasting at Hamburg Airport, and M195 is his first voyage with the METEOR.
Their workday starts every morning at 06:00. First, the overnight data is evaluated to track the weather progress. Onboard, various data such as temperature, humidity, wind, and cloud height are recorded. These automatically collected data are supplemented by observations, such as waves, and regularly sent as weather reports worldwide. After a tour around the ship to get a detailed picture of cloud cover, visibility, weather conditions, and sea state, the observations are complemented with additional data. This includes images from weather satellites and calculations from various weather forecast models, sent multiple times a day from the Marine Meteorological Centre in Hamburg to the ship. A weather forecast for the voyage area is then developed, tailored precisely to the route and research plans. Our “weather frogs” observe the weather all day, and in the evening, there is an updated weather forecast. If we were able to observe unusual weather phenomena, they willingly and vividly explain them to us. So, in addition to our main research, we also learn a bit about meteorology.
When bad weather looms, Felix and Andreas, in cahoots with the captain, tweak our route to navigate safely. We have adjusted the sequence of research stations several times to avoid storms and high waves. The entrance and exit at the Ambrakian Gulf were particularly sensitive. The passage is relatively narrow and shallow, so the 98-meter-long METEOR can only safely navigate it in calm winds and calm seas. In the Gulf, we were able to work well despite an approaching storm and avoid five-meter-high waves that had built up in the Ionian Sea.
While much of Germany has seen the first snowfall, we have weathered our last storm yesterday. With temperatures around 20 degrees Celsius and the sun reclaiming the skies, we enjoy a few more days of escaping winter’s grip in Germany before most of us from the science crew head home on Sunday.
Lasst uns über’s Wetter sprechen
Strahlender Sonnenschein, kräftige Gewitter, Sturm bis Windstärke 9 – das Wetter während der CYRTACI-Expedition ist vielfältig und abwechslungsreich. Aufmerksame Augen konnten sogar Luftspiegelungen und Wasserhosen beobachten. Und natürlich farbenfrohe Regenbögen sowie Sonnenauf- und -untergänge, die durch den freien Horizont auf See besonders gut zu verfolgen sind.
Seefahrt und Wetter sind traditionell eng miteinander verbunden. Selbstverständlich ist auch das Gelingen der CYRTACI-Expedition vom Wetter abhängig. So können z.B. bei zu hohem Seegang keine Sedimentkerne entnommen werden. Um die Expeditionstage bestmöglich ausnutzen zu können, gibt es an Bord eine Wetterwarte des Deutschen Wetterdienstes, von der aus Schiffsführung und Wissenschaft täglich mit Wetterbeobachtungen und -vorhersagen versorgt werden. Dort arbeiten Andreas und Felix. Andreas fährt bereits seit 14 Jahren auf verschiedenen Forschungsschiffen zur See. Felix arbeitet normalerweise an Land in der Flugwettervorhersage am Hamburger Flughafen, für ihn ist M195 die erste Fahrt mit der METEOR.
Ihr Arbeitstag beginnt jeden Morgen um 06:00 Uhr. Zuerst werden die Messdaten der Nacht ausgewertet, um den Wetterablauf zu verfolgen. An Bord werden u.a. Temperatur, Luftfeuchtigkeit, Wind und Wolkenhöhe erfasst. Diese und weitere automatisch erfasste Daten werden durch Beobachtungen z.B. der Wellen ergänzt und regelmäßig als Wettermeldung in die ganze Welt verschickt. Nach einem Rundgang um das Schiff, um sich ein detailliertes Bild von Bewölkung, Sicht, Wetterzustand und See zu verschaffen, werden die Beobachtungen mit zusätzlichen Daten ergänzt. Dies sind u.a. Bilder von Wettersatelliten und Berechnungen verschiedener Wettervorhersagemodelle, die täglich mehrfach vom Seewetteramt in Hamburg zum Schiff geschickt werden. Daraus wird eine Wettervorhersage für das Fahrtgebiet erarbeitet, passgenau zugeschnitten auf die Fahrtroute und die Forschungsvorhaben. Unsere „Wetterfrösche“ beobachten das Wetter den ganzen Tag, am Abend gibt es noch einmal eine aktualisierte Wettervorhersage. Wenn wir außergewöhnliche Wettererscheinungen beobachten konnten, erklären sie uns diese bereitwillig und anschaulich. So lernen wir nebenbei noch ein wenig über die Meteorologie.
Wenn sich schlechtes Wetter abzeichnet, beraten sich Felix und Andreas mit dem Kapitän und der Fahrtleitung und besprechen, wie die Route am besten geplant werden kann. So haben wir mehrfach die Reihenfolge der Forschungsstationen angepasst, um Sturm und hohen Wellen auszuweichen. Besonders empfindlich waren die Ein- und Ausfahrt beim Ambrakischen Golf: Die Fahrrinne, die den Golf mit der offenen See verbindet, ist vergleichsweise eng und flach, so dass die 98 m lange METEOR sie nur bei schwachem Wind und ruhiger See sicher passieren kann. Im Golf konnten wir dann trotz aufziehenden Sturms gut arbeiten und fünf Meter hohen Wellen ausweichen, die sich im Ionischen Meer aufgebaut hatten.
Während in weiten Teilen Deutschlands der erste Schnee gefallen ist, haben wir gestern unseren letzten Sturm überstanden. Bei Temperaturen um 20 Grad Celsius und zunehmendem Sonnenschein genießen wir noch ein paar Tage lang die Flucht vor dem Winter in Deutschland, bevor die meisten von uns aus dem wissenschaftlichen Team am Sonntag nach Hause fahren.
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Sunrise in the Aegean Sea. Sonnenaufgang in der Ägäis. Credit: Felix Herz / OceanBlogs -
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Ocean Acidification
Dr Heidarzadeh’s TV interview with SkyNews on the massive M7.7 Panama earthquake on 9 October 2026
Dr Heidarzadeh’s TV interview with SkyNews on the massive M7.7 Panama earthquake on 9 October 2026. Click here for the full story.
Dr Heidarzadeh’s TV interview with SkyNews on the massive M7.7 Panama earthquake on 9 October 2026
Our ocean is an incredibly vast and mysterious place. And there is no place where that is more evident than the deepest ocean area in the world: the legendary Mariana Trench. Located east of the Philippines, the Mariana Trench lies in the Mariana Archipelago in the western portion of the North Pacific. The greater area of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument is made up of more than 95,000 square miles of ocean. Beneath these waters lie incredibly complex aggregations of submerged islands and volcanoes … and of course, an astoundingly massive trench.
Dive in with us to have your biggest questions answered about the famed Mariana Trench.
How deep is the Mariana Trench?
The deepest part of the Mariana Trench, known as Challenger Deep, is almost 36,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. For context, Mount Everest is about 29,000 feet above sea level, so the Mariana Trench is about 7,000 feet deeper than Mount Everest is tall. For one more comparison, the RMS Titanic lies at a depth of about 12,500 feet below sea level. The Challenger Deep is in waters nearly three times deeper than this ship’s final resting place.
Due to its enormous size, the Mariana Trench has at times been affectionately nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the ocean. This is certainly a picturesque image, but don’t let the mammoth size of this U.S. national terrestrial park fool you into thinking the Mariana Trench matches its size. The trench’s footprint is estimated to be 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon’s, and to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, you’d need to descend through almost six Grand Canyons stacked on top of each other before you’d reach the seafloor.
Oh … and did we mention it’s five times wider than it is deep? It’s about 43 miles wide!
What is Challenger Deep, and how long would it take to reach it?
Challenger Deep is the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. Fewer than 30 people have ever journeyed to this area. The trek below the surface is long, dark and time-consuming, and it’s not an expedition considered lightly by scientists and explorers.
The first people to descend into the depths of this area in 1960 were oceanographers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, and it took them close to five hours to reach Challenger Deep. Since then, more advanced submersibles have been created, but it still takes two to four hours for modern vessels to reach such depths. For example, explorer and filmmaker James Cameron reached the seafloor in a little more than 2.5 hours in the first documented solo submarine dive to the area, and it took oceanographer Dr. Dawn Wright about four hours in 2022. It is crucial that these submersibles descend slowly and steadily beneath the surface, as the immense water pressure compounds with every mile a submersible descends. Speaking of pressure …
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What is the water pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench?
If you thought the depth of the Mariana Trench was its only jaw-dropping feature, think again. Water pressure is one of the most important factors affecting deep-sea life. In the ocean, pressure increases by one atmosphere for every 33 feet (10 meters) of depth. One atmosphere (a unit of measurement for pressure equivalent to average air pressure at sea level) is equal to about 14.7 pounds per square inch (PSI), which is the approximate standard atmospheric pressure at sea level. If you were to convert atmospheric pressure into weight, one atmosphere is about the weight of a bowling ball. Stay with me, friends.
If a vessel were to dive 2,000 feet below the surface, the pressure would equal that of 60 bowling balls stacked atop every square inch of that submersible. But 60 bowling balls is simply nothing compared to the pressure in the Mariana Trench. The atmospheric pressure at the depths of Challenger Deep is equal to about 16,000 PSI. That pressure is about the same as the weight of an entire full-grown elephant on every square inch of a submersible!
Need a more extreme comparison? If a human were to be placed at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the pressure would be equal to that of 50 jumbo jets piled on top of a person!
Do any animals live in the Mariana Trench?
The depths of the Mariana Trench come with immense pressure and extreme darkness, but somehow, life finds a way to survive. Organisms that live at an extreme depth, like that of Challenger Deep, have to be highly adapted to low temperatures (typically just above freezing), high pressure and virtually no light at all.
Species found in the depths of the Mariana Trench might look vastly different from animals from other ocean depths because their anatomy has been refined to thrive in harsh conditions. At such great depths, these animals typically depend on chemosynthesis (using nutrient-rich waters being pumped out of hydrothermal vents) or descending detritus (dead matter that has fallen from higher parts of the ocean) for food, such as whale falls. Just a handful of these animals include species of octopuses and squids, sea cucumbers, amphipods, sea jellies, shrimp, sea worms and some wild-looking fish!
In 2025, more than 7,000 new species were discovered in the Mariana Trench, including the hadal snailfish (Pseudoliparis swirei). This is the deepest-dwelling fish currently known to science. Now, the fish has been dubbed “the Mariana snailfish.”
How was the Mariana Trench formed?
The process by which the Mariana Trench was created is a geologically fascinating one known as subduction. On the Earth’s surface, there are thin plates that cover the planet’s mantle, which is made of molten rock. If two of these plates collide, one pushes down into the Earth’s mantle while the other is pushed over the bottom plate. When this happens, a trench is formed from the drag of the bottom plate. This process can sometimes create incredibly strong earthquakes. The plates that forged the Mariana Trench’s creation are estimated to be up to approximately 180 million years old.
This trench was unknown to scientists until 1875. It was then that a team of explorers on the HMS Challenger measured the depth of the sea by simply lowering a weighted rope into the water. They were baffled when they measured that first portion of the seafloor to be five miles below the surface. And so was born the origin of some of the most daring deep-sea explorations known to mankind to date.
Is the Mariana Trench protected?
The Mariana Trench is in waters off Guam and the Mariana Islands. The region is protected from some human activities under its status as a marine monument. The creation of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument signified that international, national and local leaders all recognize the importance of protecting this area.
However, just because the region is protected does not mean it’s not vulnerable to modern threats to ocean health. Plastic bags have been spotted in the Mariana Trench during several expeditions, highlighting the far-reaching impact of the marine debris problem. No corner of our ocean is safe from the ever-present threat of plastic pollution. The reality of a changing climate makes the future well-being of wondrous places like the Mariana Trench uncertain. What’s more: More than 70% of the global ocean has yet to be mapped. And what we don’t yet know about, we cannot wisely work to protect.
It’s up to us to work together to defend our ocean, from the sandy shores of our favorite beaches to the deepest, darkest parts of the sea. Together, we can work to protect our ocean as a whole, which ultimately helps protect treasured places like Challenger Deep.
Find out how you can join Ocean Conservancy’s wave of momentum to secure a healthy ocean and a thriving planet, forever and for everyone!
The post The Mysteries of the Mariana Trench appeared first on Ocean Conservancy.
Intro
At the western tip of Luzon, which is the biggest island of the Philippines, lies the small coastal town of Bolinao. Tourists seldom find their way here as it takes around seven hours to get here by bus from Manila. Still, you can spot foreigners walking around every now and then, but they really stand out among the Filipinos. A reason for their presence is often that they study or work at the Bolinao Marine Laboratory (BML), which belongs to the University of the Philippines (UP). It is one of the seven research institutions participating in the GAME project 2026. Every year, GAME brings together Master’s students from all over the world to experience different cultures and conduct globally replicated experiments in marine ecology.
This year’s Team Philippines consists of Jona, a Filipino master student of Marine Biology at the University of the Philippines, and Konstantin, a German student who is enrolled in the Master programme „Ecology and Evolution“ at Freiburg University. As part of GAME 2026, we are currently staying at BML for 6 months to run experiments about the influence of underwater soundscapes on the colonization of marine hardbottoms.
Where are we?
At the BML, we live in a dormitory together with many other students and scientists mostly from the Philippi