30 April 2026 / Kiel / Mindelo. Tomorrow, fourteen Master’s students in the West African Master’s programme ‘Climate Change and Marine Sciences’ will begin their two-week training and research voyage aboard the research vessel POLARSTERN. Travelling from Mindelo in Cabo Verde to Bremerhaven, Germany, they will carry out physical, biogeochemical and biological measurements together with ten experienced scientists. This is the fourth time that the Floating University is taking place under the leadership of GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. This initiative significantly contributes to the goals of the UN Decade of Ocean Science and is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) as part of the WASCAL programme (West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use).

An international team of earth scientists led by Utrecht professor Douwe van Hinsbergen has developed an online tool that allows you to see, for any given location on Earth, what latitude it occupied in the distant past, right back to the heyday of the supercontinent Pangaea 320 million years ago. The basis for this is the Utrecht Paleogeography Model, which enables by far the most detailed reconstruction of complex mountain ranges and vanished tectonic plates. The unprecedented accuracy of this tool offers countless possibilities, such as for reconstructions of the development and resilience of biodiversity and lays the foundation for our understanding of climate evolution. “Next time you go on a trip, take a look at Paleolatitude.org to see the journey your destination has taken itself.”

A new study led by the University of Oxford and ETH Zurich reveals that a key part of the climate system - the large-scale wind patterns that determine where rain falls – can be underestimated by current climate models, helping explain why forecasts of regional rainfall remain uncertain. Ultimately, this insight could enable more confident projections of future rainfall patterns, supporting better preparation for floods and droughts.