June 24th | Jörg Knieling, HCU Hamburg

Climate Adaptation Governance of "Water from 4 Sides": Of wicked problems and metropolitan complexities in urban systems

"Water from 4 Sides" is one of the projects of CLICCS. In an interdisciplinary team of researchers it looks at climate adaptation in urban systems with regard to different water issues: river flooding, storm surges, heavy rain events, and ground water. For handling these challenges in the societal and political context the governance research provides a broad range of analytical and conceptual approaches including different steering modes and reaching from regulative and informal to economic instruments. However, governance arrangements are challenged by phenomena which complicate 'simple solutions', such as uncertaintiy, multi-level-responsibilities or diverging stakeholder rationalities. The presentation explores how those wicked problems and complexities refer to climate adaptation governance and could be considered in metropolitan strategies.

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June 17th | Johanna Baehr, Universität Hamburg

Back to the future: a guided journey through Earth system predictions

Skilful Earth system predictions for a season or a decade ahead remain in many cases a formidable challenge. I will present recent progress in predicting climate and Earth system variability using prediction systems based on the Max-Planck-Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM). I will also challenge the current practice to focus on the ensemble mean and suggest a less-is-more approach instead.

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June 10th | Grischa Perino, Universität Hamburg

Climate Protest Mobilization is a Strategic Game: Theory, Econometric Application, and Experimental Evidence from the Field

Considering private and collective goods supplied by political mass protest, we model how beliefs regarding the participation of others are critical in protest formation. We test the hypotheses with data from a field experiment that uses an information treatment to identify the effect of beliefs on participation. The study was conducted around the “Third Global Climate Strike” (20.9.19) with adults from the largest four German cities, which was the first attempt to reach out beyond the youth. We find robust evidence that participation decisions are causally related to beliefs about participation of others in a way consistent with “free riding”.

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June 3rd | Hartmut Graßl, MPI-M Hamburg

Scientific highlights and major structural changes at MPI for Meteorology since 1975

(as seen by Hartmut Graßl)

Starting in 1975 as a small MPI with one director of (Klaus Hasselmann) and one director at (Hans Hinzpeter), our institute is now among the leading Earth system modelling centres worldwide and also adds new observations for the improvement of models. When I started as a group leader in 6/1976 the scientists and technicians of the institute occupied less than 2 floors in Geomatikum, in close cooperation with the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg. Now we can look back to many early achievements, here mentioning only very few: First coupled atmosphere/ocean/land-model in Europe, first global satellite-based energy flux climatology at the ocean surface, detection of the anthropogenic climate signal. I will also include the stories about the structural changes (foundation of the German Climate Computing Centre in Hamburg) and the threat to close the institute at the turn of the century.

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May 27th | Corinna Schrum, HZG Geesthacht

Between Climate Change and fairway deepening: How do models contribute to the development of sustainable future scenarios for the Elbe estuary and the region?

How will climate change impact the Elbe estuary and what are the implications for the city of Hamburg and the port? This is a central question for long-term planning and climate adaptation measures of Hamburg. The Elbe estuary and the harbor is a system, that is influenced by different socio-economic and climate drivers. Climate drivers control the dynamics of the estuary through the water balance in the catchment area and through sea level at the river mouth. Biogeochemical dynamics and sediment transport are moreover controlled by temperature and nutrient loads.  However, climate pressures are not the only drivers of the Elbe estuary, the estuary is also a massively engineered system. Substantial fairway deepening over more than a century but also coastal protection, dikes, punctures and changes of the course of the estuary represent an even stronger control of the Elbe estuarine dynamics.

Today`s management of the estuary takes place in a framework characterized by different federal-state responsibilities. In addition to coastal protection needs and economic objectives it also needs to serve ecological objectives. Conflicting interests and trade-offs often exist and the complex and sometimes unpredicted behavior of the estuarine system complicates management and implementation of climate adaptation measures.      

We here present a model framework that can support the exploration of adaptation options.

The framework couples a global climate model with regional focus and additional sea level rise contributions to a high-resolution estuary model. The framework resolves the most important drivers and feedbacks and meets the level of detail and accuracy requirements needed for planning processes.  

This event was not recorded.

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May 20th | Martin Wickel, HCU Hamburg

The German Climate Protection Law after the Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court

Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat mit seinem Beschluss zum Klimaschutzgesetz den verfassungsrechtlichen Kerngehalt des Klimaschutzrechts konkretisiert. Stichworte sind die grundrechtlichen Schutzpflichten, das Staatsziel Umweltschutz und vor allem die intertemporale Freiheitssicherung durch die Grundrechte. Damit ändern sich die (verfassungs-)rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen für den Klimaschutz in Deutschland. Der Vortrag wird beleuchten, welche Erwägungen hinter dem Beschluss stehen, welche Schlussfolgerung das Gericht zieht und wie der Gesetzgeber darauf reagieren muss.

This event took place as a CLICCS Convent instead of the KlimaCampus Colloquium. The recording will be published soon.

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April 22nd | Lars Kutzbach, Universität Hamburg

Methane flux dynamics in permafrost landscapes of the Arctic

Increased methane release from a warming Arctic is expected to be a major feedback on the global climate. However, due to the complex effects of climate change on arctic permafrost landscapes, projections of future land-atmosphere fluxes of methane are highly uncertain. At the same time, empirical data covering the pronounced spatio-temporal variability of methane fluxes is rare due to the logistic and technical difficulties associated with experimental investigations in the Arctic. In this talk, I will present our studies on methane flux variability on spatial and temporal scales conducted in the Siberian Lena River Delta (72.4° N, 126.5° E) between 2002 and 2019.

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April 8th | Guy Brasseur, MPI-M

An unintended worldwide experiment: Impact of COVID-19 on the global chemical composition of the atmosphere

The reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants during COVID-19 offers a glimpse into a potential future in which air quality would be improved. With a global Earth system model, we assess the response of primary and secondary chemical species of the atmosphere to this global atmospheric experiment. We highlight the nonlinear behavior of the chemical system, which makes air pollution mitigation policies difficult to implement. Meteorological variability produces anomalies, sometimes larger than the perturbations attributed to changes in the emissions. This worldwide experiment provides information that should help improve air quality on the different continents.
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February 18th | Stefan Aykut, Universität Hamburg

Global climate summits, international cooperation, and the prospects of collective action on the climate crisis

Since the 1990s, global climate summits federate each year delegates from virtually all countries on the planet. They produced a series of treaties, from the 1992 Climate Convention to the 2015 Paris agreement. Increasingly, they also try to facilitate and orchestrate decentralized climate action by firms, investors or municipalities. But what are the results of almost 30 years of global ‘summitry’ in terms of forging an international response to the climate problem? And how do social scientists observe, analyze and assess transnational mega-events that gather tens of thousands of delegates, activists, lobbyists and journalists? In this talk, I present a social science perspective on global climate politics, explain with which methods we study global climate summits, and share some insights from ongoing research.

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February 4th | Bjorn Stevens, MPI-M Hamburg

Clouds, Circulation and Climate Sensitivity — EUREC4A!

The response of shallow clouds over the tropical oceans to warming has proven pivotal for assessments of Earth's equilibrium climate sensitivity.  Models that project a strong future warming invariably show a marked reduction in clouds in the trades.  Studies over the past decades have not only helped identify the important role of these clouds for a model's response to radiative forcing (i.e., greenhouse gases), but also the mechanisms underpinning such responses.  By exploiting advances in measurement science, EUREC4A, a Barbadian-German-French led field campaign, collected observations to test these mechanisms.  By demonstrating an ability to measure both clouds, and the circulations in which they were embedded, EUREC4A also made it possible to also address a wide range of additional questions related to the physics that regulate cloud amount in the trades, and to provide benchmark measurements for a new generation of climate models. In this talk, I will present the science behind EUREC4A, its execution, and some snapshots of results emerging less than one year since the campaign's conclusion.

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January 28th | Daniela Jacob, GERICS Geesthacht |

Challenges for Climate Services

The need to adapt to climate change has led to the establishment of a new research and service field, called Climate Services, encompassing a variety of activities and formats. It is clear that Climate Services need to be context specific, non-uniform and often cross-sectoral, ‘fit for purpose’ with science-society dialog as a key to develop usable climate services. However, Climate Services still face some challenges. They do not exist in all sectors, exchange with practitioners could be enhanced, sharing experiences world-wide is difficult and clear carrier paths to climate service experts are lacking. The talk will elaborate on these challenges and the needs for climate service in an era of transformation! 

January 30th | Felix Riede, University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Felix Riede is guest of the MPI-M.

Volcanoes, climate and societal change in the prehistory of northern Europe – does the past hold lessons for the future?

Climate change and extreme or compound events are today recognized as major societal challenges yet they play little role in classic ideas of how societies changed in the past. In my presentation, I will present the results of recent research investigating the long-range impacts of volcanic eruptions on climate and, importantly, also on societies in northern Europe. Moving from the still rather close-to-home eruption of the Laacher See volcano in the Eifel to more distant eruptions in the Mediterranean to those located in the far-away reaches of Alaska and Central America, these case studies range from the Late Pleistocene Stone Age to the Bronze and Iron Ages. While covering different sorts of interactions between volcanism, climate and society, we may ask: Does the past hold lessons for the future?

December 19th | Felix Landerer, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Felix Landerer is guest of the MPI-M.

Weight-Watching from Space – tracking changes in Earth’s groundwater, glaciers, ice sheets and sea level rise in the last two decades

Earth's distribution of water - in the form of ice, snow, soil moisture, groundwater, lake and sea level - is undergoing profound changes as the climate changes over seasons to decades. The original Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, launched in early 2002, has enabled a unique and valuable data record to study changes in our global water cycle, and allowed precise determination of sea-level rise, polar ice-cap mass loss in Greenland and Antarctica, and large-scale water storage changes over land. By measuring small month-to-month changes in Earth's gravity field, these observations provide a unique window into Earth's evolving climate and water stores, and a glimpse into possible future impacts. The twin satellites of the GRACE Follow-On mission, in operation since early 2018, continue and extend this valuable data record. I will describe the fascinating technology behind gravity measurements from space, and present some first new science findings from the new joint US-German GRACE Follow-On mission, such as the variable ice mass loss over Greenland in 2018 and 2019, and the record-low land water storage in Europe during the 2018 drought.

December 5th | Trude Storelvmo, University of Oslo

Trude Storelvmo is guest of the MPI-M.

State-dependent cloud feedbacks make equilibrium climate sensitivities > 5°C plausible

For decades, global climate models (GCMs) have produced equilibrium climate sensitivities (ECSs) between 2 and 4.5°C, but interestingly that is now about to change: a subset of state-of-the-art GCMs participating in the 6th coupled model intercomparison project is producing ECSs well above 5°C. Here, I present analyses based on one such high-ECS model. In the past, it has been assumed that such very high simulated ECSs would make it practically impossible for GCMs to reproduce the historical temperature record, but that turns out not to be the case. This is because the model in question has a net positive cloud-climate feedback that grows with warming - in other words: the warmer it gets, the more clouds change in a way that further amplifies the warming, while for modest warming the amplification is much smaller. In this presentation I will explain the underlying physical mechanism responsible for the simulated state transition and discuss its general validity and broader implications.

November 14th | Ricarda Winkelmann, Potsdam-Institut für Klimaforschung

Ricarda Winkelmann is Guest of the MPI-M.

Beyond gradual change – Antarctic ice dynamics and tipping points

The Antarctic Ice Sheet is by far the largest potential source of future sea-level change, holding enough water to raise global sea level by 58 m. To this day, the complex dynamics of the ice sheet and its surrounding ice shelves are one of the key challenges for sea-level projections. Recent observations show that part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is rapidly retreating, and that this retreat is likely irreversible on human timescales. Other regions are currently protected by ice plugs, hindering the onset of a dynamic instability.

In her talk, Ricarda will discuss the underlying mechanisms and critical thresholds for triggering persistent ice discharge from Antarctic basins. As a consequence, sea-level might continue to rise for centuries or even millennia to come. This long-term perspective illustrates that policy decisions made in the next years to decades will have profound impacts on global climate and sea-level - not just for this century, but for the next millennia and beyond.

May 9th | Alexander Proelß, Juristische Fakultät, Uni Hamburg

Alexander Proelß is guest of Hauke Schmidt

International Environmental Law and the Challenge of Climate Change

In view of the epochal challenges of climate change, international environmental law stands at a crossroad. Current regulatory principles and strategies mostly focus on the protection of individual environmental goods and are often distinguished by their fragmentary, or general, character. This also applies for the 2015 Paris Agreement, which pursues the aim of halting the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and of pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Notwithstanding all efforts that have been taken so far, it seems highly questionable whether this objective can be achieved by the present (but partly unsuccessful) attempts to drastically reduce global carbon dioxide emissions. Against this background, international environmental law will also have to address the implementation of supplementary (“secondary”) climate measures in future. This does not only imply the need to improve the implementation and enforcement of the law as it stands today, but also to develop it further in order to provide an effective as well as legitimate normative answer to the “grand challenges” of international environmental politics.

May 23rd | Amanda Maycock, University of Leeds, UK

Amanda Maycock is guest of Jochem Marotzke (MPI-M).

ENSO teleconnections to the extratropics: role of El Niño amplitude and seasonal cycle

ENSO is a key driver of interannual climate variability in many regions of the world. However, disentangling the dependence of ENSO teleconnections on the specific characteristics of events is challenging given the relatively small number of observed events and multiple sources of internal variability.

In this talk I will present recent work from my group using targeted climate model experiments to investigate the mechanisms underpinning ENSO teleconnections to two extratropical regions spanning both hemispheres: the North Atlantic and the Amundsen sea low. I will focus on how the tropical-extratropical teleconnections vary as a function of ENSO amplitude and the role of the seasonal cycle.

In contrast to some previous studies, we show that the influence of El Niño on the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is approximately linear over the range of observed El Niño amplitudes. The NAO response is tied to a weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex and an increase in the frequency of major sudden stratospheric warmings. In the Southern hemisphere, the El Niño teleconnection to the Amundsen Sea region is largest in austral winter, despite the fact El Niño typically peaks in austral spring/summer. In austral winter, the region of strong absolute vorticity near ∼30°S provided by the subtropical jet, in combination with the changes to upper tropospheric divergence due to the El Niño perturbation, acts as an anomalous Rossby wave source that is largely absent in austral summer. Furthermore, in austral summer the poleward propagation of tropically-sourced Rossby waves into the Amundsen sea region is inhibited by the strong polar front jet in the south Pacific sector, which leads to Rossby wave reflection away from the Amundsen sea region.

I will conclude by giving some ideas for key outstanding questions in understanding ENSO teleconnections to the extratropics.

October 18th | Oliver Fuhrer, Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology Meteo Swiss

Oliver Fuhrer is guest of Bjorn Stevens (MPI-M).

High performance computing for weather and climate: Learning how to forget

The weather and climate community has set ambitious goals to reach global km-scale modeling capability on future exascale high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Reducing the horizontal resolution to the kilometer-scale holds the promise of reducing some of the long-standing biases and uncertainties. But how far are we from achieving this goal?

The weather and climate community is struggling to keep up with the fast-paced developments as HPC system designs strive towards the Exascale. Only few production-ready community codes are able to leverage emerging hardware architectures. This has become known as the software productivity gap.  While novel programming models - such as OpenACC or CUDA - are available to target these hardware architectures, they further increase the complexity of the code and thus exacerbate the problem.

In this talk, we give an introduction to some of the challenges we are facing. Further, we discuss the experience of a re-design effort for a regional weather and climate model to illustrate a possible alternative pathway. Significant parts of the code have been rewritten based on a domain-specific language (DSL) specifically targeted to the key algorithmic motifs in weather and climate models. The DSL allows a high-level, hardware agnostic formulation of the model which then can be compiled to different hardware targets. Finally, we will demonstrate the capability of the refactored code on the leadership-class heterogeneous HPC system Piz Daint and discuss the implications for global km-scale climate simulations.

November 8th | Philip Stier, Department of Physics, University of Oxford

Philip Stier ist guest of Bjorn Stevens (MPI-M).

Observational constraints on clouds, aerosols and their interactions

Clouds, aerosols and their interactions arguably remain the single greatest uncertainty in our understanding of Earth’s climate response to anthropogenic perturbations. In particular the effects of aerosol-cloud interactions on global and regional radiation budgets and the hydrological cycle remain highly uncertain.

This presentation will critically review some of the achievements made towards quantifying aerosol-cloud interactions, with a particular focus on the role of observations in the evaluation of models across scales.

Starting from the local scale, we will explore model-data synergies in the assessment of the representativeness of observations, an assessment of the suitability of remote-sensing retrievals as well as novel Lagrangian constraints from geostationary satellites.

November 15th | Erich Fischer, Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich

Erich Fischer is guest of Nicola Maher (MPI-M) and Jochem Marotzke (MPI-M).

A plethora of noise: Quantifying changes in extremes in the presence of large internal variability

Decision makers express a need for reliable information on changes in climatic extremes in the coming decades. However, projections at these time scales involve large irreducible uncertainties due to internal variability. I will demonstrate that despite large uncertainties at local scale, projections in an aggregated spatial perspective are consistent even for the coming decades. Furthermore, models agree reasonably well on the forced response of temperature and heavy precipitation extremes, the pattern of change in the absence of internal variability. Thus, I argue that it is vital to specify whether model agreement refers to the forced response or for individual realization. However, ultimately our confidence in changes of extremes does not only depend model agreement but the consistency between different lines of evidence — the combination of process understanding, agreement across a hierarchy of models and the wealth of observational evidence.

December 6th | Alexis Hannart, Ouranos, Montreal, Canada

Alexis Hannart is guest of Sebastian Sonntag (MPI-M).

Climate change and causal attribution: an overview

Have human emissions been the dominant cause of the observed climate warming? Extremely likely so of course (IPCC, AR5) but what is this statement based upon? And also, what about last summer’s European heatwave? And the wildfires recently affecting western North America, are they also attributable to human influence? How certain are we? And what about the Montreal flood of spring 2017? And the progression of the Lyme disease in some regions? And the trend in agricultural yields? And the hurricane Florence hitting North Carolina last September? And so on.
 
Such causal questions are more and more frequently asked to scientists by various sectors of society. Answers partly condition adaptation measures, mitigation policy as well as legal liability. How does science approach them? This seminar will attempt to give an overview of this question.

January 24th | Stefan Kollet, FZ Jülich

Stefan Kollet is guest of Bjorn Stevens (MPI-M).

Groundwater-to-atmosphere simulations including human water use: sustainability concepts revisited

Groundwater-to-atmosphere simulations are useful for closing the terrestrial water and energy cycles at the continental scale and interrogating anthropogenic impacts at different space and time scales.  We want to understand how human water use, in this case groundwater pumping and irrigation, changes the natural terrestrial cycles over the  European continent including local effects, such as changes in water table depths, evapotranspiration, and air temperature, and non-local effects, such as base flow, continental discharge and precipitation. In particular, we study whether these changes are systematic in space and time, and ultimately impact and potentially redistribute water resources across the continent. We present technical aspects of our work related to model coupling and high-performance computing technologies, and results illustrating the significant impact of human water use beyond individual watersheds.

January 31st | Alberto Garabato, University of Southampton

Alberto Garabato is guest of Jochem Marotzke (MPI-M).

The power of the small: The emergent role of submesoscale turbulence in shaping ocean circulation and climate 

Submesoscale turbulence is made up of oceanic currents with horizontal scales on the order of 1 km and time scales similar to an inertial period. This class of ocean flows has been traditionally ignored, because it is often less energetic than other types of ocean currents, and because it has only just started being partially resolved by some ocean circulation models in the last few years. In this talk, I will argue that submesoscale turbulence is important in shaping ocean circulation in key places at the ocean’s boundaries, where the ocean interacts with other elements of the climate system. To do this, I will draw on three recent observational experiments at the ocean’s interface with the atmosphere, the cryosphere and the Earth’s topography – and show that, in all three cases, submesoscale turbulence governs a significant aspect of the ocean’s climatic role.

April 5th |Pierre Gentine, Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University

What do we need to know about weather and climate extremes in a warming world?

Pierre Gentine is a guest of Cathy Hohenegger (MPI-M).

With rising CO2 concentration, the continental hydrological and carbon dioxide cycles are going to become more coupled. Predicting whether we will live in a drier or wetter world, with more or less droughts, is a relatively simple question, which has however widespread implications. Yet, we are not in a position to clearly answer this simple question. Models predict that surface CO2 physiological effects will dominate the future continental hydrological cycle. Those effects appear critical to explain whether we will live in a drier or wetter world... Read the Abstract (PDF)

April 12th | Oliver Geden, German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin - (Guest Researcher at the MPI-M and the CGG from April – October 2018)

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Oliver Geden is a guest of Jochem Marotze (MPI-M).

Scenarios meeting the Paris Agreement’s temperature targets envisage a major and imminent deployment of technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, of which there has been almost no practical implementation to date. The talk explores the political dimensions and policy implications of expectations for ‘negative emissions’ in the European Union, considering its largely successful leadership role in mitigation action and corresponding low-carbon technology development and deployment...Read the Abstract (PDF).

April 19th |Christian Beer, Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University

Importance of temporal and spatial variability of environmental conditions for land-atmosphere interactions in permafrost landscapes

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundesstraße 53 (ground floor)

Christian Beeris a guest of Victor Brovkin (MPI-M).

Northern permafrost soils are a huge reservoir of carbon that has been accumulated during the Pleistocene and Holocene. Climate-change induced permafrost thawing will make this carbon available for decomposition, initiating a positive feedback mechanism. However, future projections of high-latitude greenhouse gas balances remain highly uncertain. This talk will review recent advancements of our understanding of vegetation and soil carbon turnover processes with a special focus on the production of methane versus carbon dioxide...Read the Abstract (PDF).

April 26th | Sharon Nicholson from the Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Science, Florida State University

The myth of the ITCZ over equatorial Africa and other myths concerning African climate

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundesstraße 53 (ground floor)

Sharon Nicholson is guest of M. Claußen (MPI-M).

African climate is frequently a topic of discussion because of the devastating droughts that affect much of the continent.  Much of the discussion is in the lay press and rumors abound. Unfortunately, many have been believed by the scientific community and get repeated in journal articles.  This talk exposes some of the myths and makes the more serious claim that issues concerning the ITCZ should be included in the category of "myths".  The common explanation for the progression of the rainy season over Africa is the seasonal excursion of the ITCZ. The ITCZ paradigm stems from a time when tropical rainfall was assumed to be associated mainly with localized convection. Its development was also linked to the emergence of mid-latitude frontal concepts. The paradigm has numerous shortcomings, including the diversity of definitions and the large number of parameters used to identify the ITCZ... Read the Abstract (PDF)

May 3rd |Pierre Friedlingstein, University of Exeter

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Pierre Friedlingstein is a guest of Victor Brovkin (MPI-M).

The terrestrial carbon cycle plays a central role in the climate system. On the average, about 30 % of the anthropogenic emissions of CO₂ are being absorbed by terrestrial ecosystems, the rest being taken by the ocean or remaining in the atmosphere and contributing to climate change. The land carbon sink is a complex combination of ingoing and outgoing natural fluxes (photosynthesis, respiration, fires, etc) as well as fluxes from land use changes. These processes are being affected by changes in environmental drivers, atmospheric CO₂ being probably the main driver of land sink, modulated by climate, nutrient limitation...Read the Abstract (PDF)

May 17th |David Tyfield, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

David Tyfield is guest of Anita Engels (Universität Hamburg).

Will Chinese (E-mobility) Innovation Lead in Global Low-Carbon Transition?

In the last couple of years, however, an alternative future has emerged into global consciousness, regarding a new and unlikely hero for global environmental challenges in the 21st century: China.  China’s severe environmental challenges, including those of GHG emissions and air pollution, have long had negative international public attention.  But more recently, spectacular developments in a number of domains of low-carbon technology have begun to seed a new celebratory narrative.  This sees Chinese low-carbon innovation as an exceptional force that will both continue an apparently exponential rate of improvement while simultaneously spreading rapidly around the world with unrivalled government support.  In short, China’s national project of ‘Ecological Civilization’, it is argued, may yet ‘save the planet’. 
This talk will explore evidence from the key arena of urban mobility innovation – arguably the ‘hardest case’ for low-carbon transition and one in which the new narrative is particularly significant.  We will explore the confusing dynamics of low-carbon innovation China and how they illuminate profound social and (geo-) political changes that are taking place in parallel with the rise of Chinese environmental technologies… and which must be taken into account when forecasting their possible future impact, both environmentally and socially.
Full Abstract (PDF)

May 31st | Benjamin Murray, University of Leeds

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Benjamin Murray is guest of Bjorn Stevens (MPI-M).

The Seeds of Ice in Clouds

The formation of ice in clouds is fundamentally important to life on our planet since cold clouds play a central role in climate and the hydrological cycle. Despite the significance of ice formation, our quantitative understanding of sources, properties, mode of action and transport of Ice-Nucleating Particles (INP) is remarkably poor. In this seminar I will review some of the advances we have made over recent years, focusing on improving knowledge of mineral dust INPs from deserts through laboratory and modelling work as well as using aircraft and ground stations on either side of the tropical Atlantic. As part of this, I will illustrate how we cross scales from laboratory research where we can identify nanoscale ice nucleation sites through to planetary scale modelling of INP and interaction with cloud fields... Read the Abstract (PDF)

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June 21st | Sarah Kang, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Korea

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Sarah Kang is a guest of Bjorn Stevens (MPI-M).

Distinct tropical climate response to subpolar energy perturbations from the Northern or Southern Hemisphere

The energetics framework predicts how climatic asymmetry develops in response to interhemispheric differences in energy flux into the coupled ocean-atmosphere system. Indeed, the late 20th century anthropogenic aerosol emissions, mostly concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), forced an interhemispheric Hadley circulation that displaces the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) southward. Confusions arise, however, from recent climate model experiments that utilize realistic dynamical oceans, in which radiative perturbations over the Southern Ocean fail to significantly displace the ITCZ. Using a hierarchy of coupled models, here we demonstrate a previously unrecognized sensitivity that the tropical response is intrinsically distinct depending on whether the subpolar energy perturbation comes from the NH or Southern Hemisphere (SH)... Read the Abstract (PDF)

July 12th | Douglas Maraun, Karl-Franzens-Universität, Graz

Douglas Maraun is guest of Hermann Held (Universität Hamburg).

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor).

Understanding regional weather extremes in a changing climate

Regional weather extremes often have severe impacts on society and ecosystems. There is evidence that the character of events such as heatwaves or heavy precipitation has been changing already in response to anthropogenic global warming, and will continue to change. Yet our ability to simulate these changes is limited. In particular regional information about future extremes is affected by substantial uncertainties. These uncertainties stem from mainly four sources: internal climate variability fundamentally limits the signal to noise ratio of climate projections, in particular at the regional scale. Current generation general circulation models have too coarse a resolution to realistically represent large-scale circulation features associated with extreme events, and their response to climate change... Read the Abstract (PDF)

November 2nd | Ben Marzeion, University of Bremen

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Ben Marzeion is a guest of Martina Neuburger (CEN)

Even though glaciers store less than 1% of the global ice mass, they have probably been the strongest contributor to sea-level change in the 20th century. While mass loss from the ice sheets and thermal expansion of the ocean water are quickly increasing, glaciers will continue to play an important role in sea-level change in the 21st century. Understanding the causes, mechanisms and time scales of glacier change is therefore of paramount importance for identifying successful strategies for mitigation of, and adaption to, climate change....Read the abstract (PDF).

November 9th |Jana Sillmann, CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Norway

What do we need to know about weather and climate extremes in a warming world?

Jana Sillmann is a guest of Detlef Stammer (CEN)

One of today’s major challenges in climate sciences is how to use our state-of-the-art models and climate system knowledge to inform decision making regarding societal responses to climate change. Among the five key reasons for concern, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), are the risks from weather and climate extremes. Severe impacts could be prevented or alleviated through appropriate adaptation measures and better preparedness. Weather and climate extremes are influenced by a complex interplay of natural and anthropogenicfactors that determine their occurrence, frequency, and intensity. Adaptation planning is challenged to take into account near- and long-term variability and changes in weather and climate extremes and associated uncertainties... Read the Abstract (PDF)

November 16th | Andy Pitman, University of New South Wales, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, Australia

Drought in climate models: what can we do about the uncertainty in climate projections?

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundesstraße 53 (ground floor)

Andy Pitman is a guest of Martin Claußen and Victor Brovkin (MPI-M).

There is no agreement on how best to define droughts. They can occur over multiple temporal and spatial scales with significant Australian droughts lasting a decade. We name them in Australia: the Federation Drought, the World War II drought, the Millennium Drought and they are written into our music, literature and poetry.

No CMIP5 climate model simulated an event with the duration of the Millennium Drought; there is something missing in the models in terms of the large-scale forcing. In uncoupled simulations, land surface schemes tend to dry too quickly, and remain dry too long in comparison to observations. In short, CMIP5 simulations of long-term/large scale forcing and seasonal/regional scale forcing are inconsistent with observations. Projections of future interannual droughts are uncertain to a degree that the sign of the change in future drought is unknown reliably... Read the Abstract (PDF)

November 23rd |Piotr Smolarkiewicz,ECMWF, UK

A finite-volume module for cloud-resolving simulations of global atmospheric flows

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundesstraße 53 (ground floor)

Piotr Smolarkiewicz is a guest of Peter Korn (MPI-M)

The talk highlights the development of the Finite-Volume Module (FVM) of the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) at ECMWF. FVM represents an alternative dynamical core that enhances the spectral dynamical core of the IFS with new capabilities, such as a compact-stencil finite-volume discretisation, flexible meshes, conservative non-oscillatory MPDATA transport, and all-scale nonhydrostatic governing equations...Read the Abstract (PDF).

November 30th | Kirstin Krüger, University of Oslo, Norway

Does the ocean impact the ozone layer?

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Kirstin Krüger is a guest of Hauke Schmidt (MPI-M)

Natural, halogenated very short-lived substances (VSLS) with an atmospheric lifetime τ<0.5 yr play an important role in the stratospheric ozone budget besides the anthropogenic long-lived chlorine- and brominefluorocarbons. The tropical oceans are a known source of reactive iodine and bromine to the atmosphere such as the VSLS methyl iodide (CH3I), bromoform (CHBr3), and dibromomethane (CH2Br2). They contribute to the halogen loading of the stratosphere if they are transported fast enough within, i.e., deep tropical convection. The tropical West Pacific and Indian Ocean are of special interest since the oceanic compounds of the VSLS are projected to have hot spots for both their emissions and transport pathways to the stratosphere. This study will give an overview of 10 years of research work on VSLS sources in the tropical oceans and their transport pathways and contribution to the stratospheric halogen level to answer the question. Poster (PDF)

December 14th |Roda Verheyen, Rechtsanwälte Günther, Hamburg

Climate change impacts – the role of the law: who is liable?  The example of the case Lliuya ./. RWE

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Roda Verheyen is a guest of Martin Claußen (MPI-M)

In this talk, lawyer Dr. Roda Verheyen will present the case of the Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya who took legal action against the energy company RWE. In his lawsuit he argues that Lake Palcacocha which is located above his hometown Huaraz in the Andes is at risk to “spill over” caused by glacier melting. In such a case his property would be damaged. Lliuya claims that this melting is caused by climate change which in turn RWE has contributed to through its operations. To protect his house, Lliuya has already invested in appropriate safety precautions. He now requests RWE to cover parts of his expenses – proportionate to RWE’s level of impairment.
Poster (PDF)

January 25th |Laurent Bopp, LSCE, IPSL, France

The ocean carbon sink, today and tomorrow

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Laurent Bopp is a guest of Tatiana Ilyina (MPI-M)

The ocean is currently absorbing one quarter of all anthropogenic carbon emissions due to fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, thus significantly limiting the pace of increasing atmospheric CO2 and anthropogenic climate change. For the next decades, ocean models indicate that ocean carbon uptake will continue under all scenarios to 2100 (very high confidence, IPCC, 2013). There is also high agreement between models that climate change, through ocean warming and circulation changes, will partially offset this increase caused by rising atmospheric CO2.

Yet, there are still some severe inconsistencies between model simulations and carbon cycle observations over the last decades, very large regional differences in future projections performed with ocean carbon cycle models, and important processes that are still missing in the models. In this presentation, I review some of these shortcomings and present some on-going work aiming at resolving these issues, focusing on (1) unrepresented processes related to marine ecosystems, (2) the contribution of coastal ocean processes, and (3) the potential large variability in air-sea carbon fluxes, as shown by observations and underestimated by ocean models.

February 1st | Kevin Heng, University of Bern, Center for Space and Habitability

Remote Sensing of Exoplanetary Atmospheres

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Kevin Heng is a guest of Bjorn Stevens (MPI-M).

Short of interstellar travel, understanding the nature of exoplanets and potential habitats beyond the Solar System must necessarily proceed via remote sensing.  Specifically, the problem reduces to measuring and interpreting spectra of exoplanetary atmospheres, which is currently one of the frontier topics in astronomy and astrophysics.  The specific format of the data measured implies that the traditional methods of the Earth and planetary sciences cannot be imported without modification and generalisation.  In the current talk, I will focus on the physics of radiative transfer concerning transmission spectroscopy, which quantifies the variations in the amount of starlight occulted by an exoplanet, across wavelength, due to the varying opacity of its atmospheric constituents.

April 6th | Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

This talk will discuss our recent field work in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in the ocean, acidification in the broader context of the global climate system, and the need for the development of near-zero emission global energy and transportation systems.

We have conducted the first-ever experiments in which a plume of water with high carbon dioxide concentrations was allowed to flow over a natural coral reef community without any artificial confinement. Our preliminary results indicate that the carbon dioxide harmed coral reef growth by increasing the rate of dissolution of the calcium carbonate minerals that make up much of the coral reef....Read the abstract (PDF).

April 13th | Chris Bretherton, University of Washington

Insights from high-resolution simulation of cloud feedbacks

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Cloud feedbacks are a leading source of uncertainty in the climate sensitivity simulated by global climate models (GCMs). Low-latitude boundary-layer and cumulus cloud regimes are particularly problematic, because they are sustained by tight interactions between clouds and unresolved turbulent circulations.This talk reviews cloud feedbacks simulated by high-resolution models that simulate the dominant cloud-forming eddy motions in such regimes...Read the Abstract (PDF)

April 20th | David Keith, Harvard University

Assessing and Reducing the Risks of Solar Geoengineering

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundesstraße 53 (ground floor)

I will discuss new results suggesting it may be possible to implement solar geoengineering using stratospheric aerosols without ozone loss while significantly reducing some other important side effects....Read the Abstract (PDF)

May 4th | Carl Friedrich Gethmann, Universität Siegen

Please note: The talk will be held in German.

Einige wissenschaftsphilosophische Fragen zur epistemischen Qualitätssicherung von Klimamodellen

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundesstraße 53 (ground floor)

Die Herausforderungen der Menschheit durch „kollektive Handlungsprobleme von globalem Zuschnitt“, zu denen neben einer Reihe von anderen auch die Folgen der anthropogenen Erderwärmung gehören, erfordern einen neuen Typ von Wissenschaft, der unter unterschiedlichen Stichwörtern schon mehrfach beschrieben worden ist. Dabei steht die Wissenschaft unter besonderen Bedingungen des Nichtwissens (durch Ungewißheit, Unsicherheit und systematische Beschränktheit), die eine besondere methodologische Sorgfalt bei der Hypothesenbildung erfordern... kompletter Abstract (PDF)

May 11th | Kaoru Sato, University of Tokyo

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

No Video available

The meridional circulation of the middle atmosphere is maintained by angular momentum deposition associated with waves. The summer-to-winter circulation in the mesosphere is mainly driven by gravity-wave forcing (GWF). However, GWF is not uniformly distributed, reflecting source distribution and filtering by Rossby waves...Read the Abstract (PDF)

May 18th | Dania Achermann, University of Aarhus

Changing Cultures of Climate Understanding: A historical perspective on climate modelling

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)
Today, climate research is dominated by the use of computer models. Introduced in the 1950s and 60s they have since gained high epistemic authority in producing climate knowledge. As this talk will show, the emergence of climate modelling as a hegemonic research tool and the shaping of modern climate science was not a linear development but a result of a competition between various approaches from different disciplines and “cultures” within climate research... Read the Abstract (PDF)

June 15th | Georg Kaser, University of Innsbruck

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Slide no. 11 had to be deleted since it has not been published yet.

There are approximately 200.000 individual glaciers globally, scattered from low-latitude high mountains to high-latitude islands and to the fringes of the ice sheets. Each one adapts to changing climate conditions individually, not only causing effects of different kind and magnitude but also telling different stories about the drivers for their change... Read the Abstract (PDF)

June 29th | Toshiro Tanimoto, University of California, CA

Time: 3:15 PM, Room 22/23 Bundestraße 53 (ground floor)

Our study of the Earth has been compartmentalized by traditional disciplines such as atmospheric science, ocean science, and solid-earth science. However, seismic and acoustic waves refract and propagate through the whole Earth system, not being confined to any one of the medium...Read the Abstract (PDF)

April 7th | David W. J. Thompson, Colorado State University

"Quantifying the role of internal variability in climate change"

Internal climate variability gives rise to substantial uncertainty in projections of future climate change. One popular method for estimating the uncertainty in future climate due to internal climate variability is to run "large ensembles" of climate change simulations, in which all aspects of the experiment set-up are held fixed from one ensemble member to the next but for small changes in the initial atmospheric state...read the abstract

April 28th | Geoffrey Vallis, University of Exeter

"Response of the General Circulation of the Atmosphere to Global Warming"

Global warming is one of the least controversial phenomena in science. We are as sure that it is happening, and what the main cause is, as we are about almost anything. Unfortunately, this knowledge does not translate to being able to predict what will happen to the climate and weather. The thermodynamic response is well understood ...read the abstract

"Using Regional Climate Projections for Asia and the Pacific"

Access to scientifically credible climate change information and guidelines have been identified as strong impediments for the robust assessment of risks related to climate change and for effective adaptation planning. To support better knowledge of and adaptation to climate change risks, the Asian Development Bank funded a project for Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand ...read the abstract

May 26th | John Broome, University of Oxford

"Climate change: life and death"

Climate change raises important and difficult issues of ethics. Broadly they fall into two classes. There are issues of justice concerned with how the effort of dealing with climate change should be shared among countries and people. And there are issues of value concerned with judging the harm that climate change will do, and the benefits of measures to control it ...read the abstract

June 30th | Weiqing Han, University of Colorado at Boulder

"Regional decadal sea level variability associated with internal climate modes"

Sea level rise (SLR) can exert significant stress on highly populated coastal societies and low-lying island countries around the world. Regionally, SLR can deviate considerably from the global mean due to various geophysical processes, including changes of ocean circulations, which can be partly attributed to natural, internal climate modes of the climate system. ...read the abstract

July 14th | Sonia Seneviratne, ETH Zürich

"Determining allowable CO2 emissions from regional- and impact-related climate targets: The role of land processes"

Global temperature targets, such as the widely accepted “2° target”, may fail to communicate the urgency of reducing CO2 emissions because they are disconnected from their implications. The translation of CO2 emissions into regional- and impact-related climate targets is more powerful because such targets are more directly aligned with individual national interests. ...read the abstract

October 29th | Prof. Alan Plumb, MIT, USA 

"Dynamical Climate Perturbations and the Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem"

Models indicate that much of the dynamical response of the atmosphere to imposed perturbations displays the same spatial patterns as those that dominate temporal fluctuations of the unperturbed climate. E.g., model responses to both increased GHGs and Antarctic ozone depletion show a poleward shift of the midlatitude jet in the southern hemisphere, ...read the abstract.

November 12th | Prof. Matt McDonald, University of Queensland, Australia

"Ethics and Climate Security"

The way the relationship between climate change and security is understood in academic and policy circles varies significantly, with different discourses of climate security encouraging different policy responses. Given these differences, it becomes important to identify progressive security discourses: discourses underpinned by defensible ethical assumptions and encouraging effective practical responses to environmental change ...read the abstract.

November 26th | Prof. Rupert Klein, Freie Universität Berlin

"Multiscale asymptotics, balanced models and related numerics"

Atmospheric flows cover spatio-temporal scales from raindrops to the Madden-Julian-Oscillation. Theoretical meteorology offers reduced descriptions of scale-dependent phenomena that capture the underlying dominant balances and mechanisms. Part I of the lecture will cover a systematization of such reduced models based on asymptotic analysis ...read the abstract.

December 3rd | Prof. Peter Thorne, Maynooth University

"GAIA-CLIM: Improving the usefulness and utility of non-satellite data for satellite characterisation"

The aim of the Gap Analysis for Integrated Atmospheric ECV CLImate Monitoring (GAIA-CLIM) project is to improve our ability to use ground-based and sub-orbital observations to characterise
satellite observations for a number of atmospheric Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) ...read the abstract.

January 14th | Dr. Edwards, The Open University

"Quantifying uncertainty in Antarctic ice sheet instability"

Antarctic marine ice sheet instability (MISI) – a proposed self-sustaining retreat of the grounding line triggered by oceanic or atmospheric changes – may have the potential to cause substantial sea level rise ...read the abstract.

January 21st | Prof. Oschlies, GEOMAR

"Climate Engineering – research and responsibility"

The realization that mitigation efforts have, until now, been relatively ineffective in slowing down the speed of atmospheric CO₂ increase, has led to an increasing interest in climate engineering as a possible means of preventing potentially dangerous consequences of climate change ...read the abstract.

Dr. Cécile Blanchet, GEOMAR, Kiel | Lecture held on May 7th 2015

The Nile River during the Holocene: Environment, Climate and the Humans

As being one of the longest rivers on Earth, and having nurtured the development of highly complexhuman societies, the Nile River is a key location to study the environment-human interactions, and the response of the geosystem to climatic changes. In this regard, the Holocene period is a particularly relevant time interval as it encompasses large-scale environmental changes, such as the waxing and waning of the so-called Green Sahara as well as crucial evolutions in human populations ...read the abstract (PDF).

Prof. Vally Koubi,  ETH Zürich, Switzerland | Lecture held on May 21st 2015

Environmental Change and Migration

Environmentally induced migration has gained a lot of attention in the climate change context. While there is a broad consensus that environ-mental factors might play an important role on human mobility, the ex post empirical evidence is inconclusive. We contribute to the emerging empirical literature in this fi eld by focusing on the micro-level ...read the abstract (PDF).

Prof. Helmuth Thomas,  Dalhousie University, Canada | Lecture held on May 28th 2015

Regulation of CO2 air-sea fluxes and pH in the North Sea

In 2001, a large scale multiannual study of the CO2 and pH system of the North Sea has been initiated, comprising basinwide observations in 2001, 2002, 2005, 2008 and 2011, and complementing modelling activities. The ongoing studies have been carried out by an international consortium, comprising colleagues from Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and Canada. These investigations describe the North Sea, as part of the NW European Shelf, as a strong continental shelf pump, facilitated through ...read the abstract.

Prof. Ted Shepherd,  University of Reading, United Kingdom | Lecture held on June 4th 2015

Atmospheric circulation as a source of uncertainty in climate change projections

The evidence for anthropogenic climate change continues to strengthen, and concerns about severe weather events are increasing. As a result, scientific interest is rapidly shifting from detection and attribution of global climate change to prediction of its impacts at the regional scale. However, nearly everything we have any confidence in when it comes to climate change is related to global patterns of ...read the abstract.

Dr. Christoph Krupp, Senatskanzlei Hamburg, Germany | Lecture held on June 25th 2015

Klimaforschung, Klimaschutz und die Politik in Hamburg und Berlin

Hamburg ist das wichtigste Zentrum der Klimaforschung in Deutschland und deshalb auch für den Hamburger Senat ein Schwerpunktbereich der Wissenschaftspolitik. Die Hamburger Klimaforscher haben aber auch immer wieder Anstöße für das politische Handeln gegeben und ...read the abstract.

Dr. Olivier Boucher, Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique | Lecture held on December 04th 2014

From Aerosol Forcing to Climate Sensitivity

The radiative forcing by aerosols remains a very uncertain quantity, which prevents an unambiguous estimate of the climate sensitivity from the observational record of surface temperature. In this talk we will revisit the radiative forcing by black carbon aerosols and explain ...read the abstract (PDF).

Prof. Mike Hulme, King's College London | Lecture held on December 11th 2014

The Dangers of Climate Emergencies

Emergencies are dramatic, crisis-fuelled constructions, and they can take on many shapes and guises: humanitarian, public health, security, environmental, political. Emergencies and the language and imagery they conjure shape the way we see the world, our place in it and the possibilities ...read the abstract (PDF).

Klaus Maurer, Leiter der Berufsfeuerwehr Hamburg, Behörde für Inneres und Sport der Stadt Hamburg | Lecture held on December 18th 2014

If Natural Disasters Wreak Havoc: The United Nations Assessment and Coordination Team (UNDAC) - Organisation, Methodology and Requirements for Support

Natural disasters such as earth quakes, volcano eruptions and hurricanes do not only claim dead or injured people, they also often damage the infrastructure. It is the task of the UNDAC team as the fi rst foreign rescue crew to go to the crisis area and ...read the abstract (PDF).

Prof. Darrel Moellendorf, Cluster of Excellence “Normative Orders”, Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main | Lecture held on January 15th 2015

Energy Poverty and Dangerous Climate Change

The chief objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system” (Article 2). Attempts by natural and social scientists to identify dangerous climate change have failed to appreciate that danger ...read the abstract (PDF).

Prof. Gregory Flato, Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (Victoria, BC) | Lecture held on January 22nd 2015

The Changing Arctic: From Science to Scenarios

The Arctic is experiencing climate change that is much larger and more rapid than the global mean. This is having, and will continue to have, profound impacts on the ecology, inhabitants and industry. Adaptation will be necessary, and ...read the abstract (PDF).

Prof. Pavel Kabat, Director General and CEO of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria | Lecture held on January 29th 2015

Principles and Benefits of Systems Science: The Case of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

This International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis was created in the peak of the Cold War during the 1970s and it became a world leading institute for trans-disciplinary and cross-sectorial systems science applied towards multiple aspects of global and regional transformations ranging from environment, energy and climate to ...read the abstract (PDF).

15. August
Climate Risk Management in the Anthropocene:
From Basic Science to Decisionmaking (and Back)
Prof. Klaus Keller, FH Potsdam

10. Juli
Reconsidering the Relationship between Climate Science and Policy-Making
Dr. Oliver Geden, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik

03. Juli
Clouds, Aerosols and Climate
Dr. Andrew Gettelman, University of Washington

Dr. Philippe Ciais, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Paris | Lecture held on June  26th 2014

Attribution of Climate Change to Long-Lived and Short-Lived Forcers

A simple, but fully coupled model is used to attribute the climate feedbacks of temperature changes induced by emissions of a range of long-lived greenhouse gases and short-lived species, aerosols and tropospheric ozone precursors... read the abstract (PDF).

Prof. Dr. Frank Biermann, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | Lecture held on June 19th 2014

Earth System Governance: World Politics in the Anthropocene

The presentation critically discusses current conceptual developments in the field of global environmental governance, including new paradigms such as the “Anthropocene”, “planetary boundaries”, and “earth system governance”... read the abstract (PDF).

Prof. Dr. Yukio Tamura, Tokyo Polytechnic University | Lecture held on June 5th 2014

Wind Resistant Design of Tall Buildings and Relevant Emerging Issues

The lecture discusses various topics related to wind-resistant design of buildings and structures. Starting from some historical matters including statistics of economic and human losses... read the abstract. (PDF)

22. Mai
Conflicts of Governance and Scale in the Acceptance
of Distributed Generation in Smart Grids
Prof. Maarten Wolsink, University of Amsterdam

15. Mai
Turbulence Without Linear Instability: The Transitions in Pipe Flow and Boundary Layers
Prof. Dr. Bruno Eckhard, Philipps-Universität Marburg

08. Mai
Assessing the Future Sea Level Contributions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet: Modelling
Challenges and Potential Solutions
Prof. Tony Payne, University of Bristol

24. April
Sea Level Projections: Why Are Uncertainties so Large?
Prof. Detelf Stammer, CEN

10. April
Expansion of global drylands under a warming climate
Prof. Quiang Fu, University of Utah