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2011

Climate dents in humankind´s family tree: new correlations discovered

12/05/2011 - Climate changes in Earth’s history have influenced the fate of modern man´s ancestors, but until now it has not been clear why some evolutionary variations developed or disappeared. Scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Potsdam University have now provided a novel view on human evolution during the past five million years. A nonlinear statistical analysis of sediments taken from the seafloor near Africa indicates that abrupt changes in climate variability could have had a significant impact on human evolution. In the first instance, the scientists have spotted three primeval tipping points.

Stiftung Mercator and PIK initiate new institute with EUR 17m budget

11/28/2011 - Today Stiftung Mercator and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) announced the foundation of a joint institute for research and policy advice in Berlin. The Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) will address interdisciplinary research on questions of sustainable growth in a finite world. The MCC will be run by Prof. Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer, who will also remain as Deputy Director at PIK. Stiftung Mercator is providing financing of around EUR 17m over eight years. This is the largest individual funding contribution ever provided by a private foundation in the field of climate research in Germany. Up to 40 jobs will be created over the course of the coming year. The institute is likely to be located at the Euref site in Schöneberg, Berlin.

Growing world trade makes food production cheaper – at the expense of the environment

11/22/2011 - Further opening of the markets for agricultural products leads to lower production costs for food. This will happen at the expense of the environment though, if for example forests are turned into cropland. The conflict of interests between food production and climate protection is now shown by scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in calculations for the years 2005 to 2045. For the first time, the effects of an advancing liberalization of agricultural trade were comprehensively analyzed through computer simulations, focusing both on the economic impacts and on those on land use and nature. This is one of the important issues to be discussed at the UN summit in Durban next week.

Eliminating subsidies harmful to the climate: “We have a vast number of possibilities"

11/14/2011 - With tens of billions some states subsidize fossil fuels like oil. This was dubbed “an absurdity of our economic system” by Achim Steiner, Head of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) during his Climate Lecture at Technische Universität Berlin (TUB). To stop these subsidies of more than 500 billions US$ a year could be a great chance for global climate protection; just one of many. “We have a vast number of possibilities – if we succeed to mobilize decision-makers in economy and politics,” Steiner told more than a thousand listeners. The world should listen more closely to science. It consolidates its findings more and more. Despite remaining questions and uncertainties, climate protection is simply “reasonable risk management”.

Where does tomorrow’s energy come from? Researchers explore new pathways

11/09/2011 - In just a few weeks´ time the European Union will present its scenarios for tomorrow’s energy, the “Energy Roadmap 2050” – and already there is some excitement about the question of price increases. Behind such estimates, however, there are scientific models: computer simulations of real world processes. They are the tools to assess costs and benefits of a transformation of our energy system in line with climate change mitigation. This week, the most relevant developers of such models assembled under the umbrella of the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum (EMF), met for the first time at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). The new analyses they are preparing are about data and formula – but in the end also about euros and cents for industry and households.

More heat waves: increase of extremes due to climate change

10/24/2011 - The Moscow heat wave last year was, with high probability, the result of climate change – contrary to what some have assumed. With a likelihood of 80 percent, it was not natural short-term climatic variability but the long-term warming trend that caused the temperature record in the region surrounding the Russian capital in July 2010, according to scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). They developed a formula for calculating how frequently weather extremes occur in a changing climate. This week their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Climate change: A risk for plants and animals worldwide

10/07/2011 - Climate change entails a risk for ecosystems on all continents. Scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) have now identified the scale of danger for animals and plants in a worldwide analysis. For that purpose, they developed a novel measure that for the first time systematically quantifies the impacts of changes in CO2 concentration in the air as well as in temperature and rainfall on terrestrial ecosystems. Computer simulations show that global warming could lead to an expansion of the Kazakh steppe but also lets forests grow in the presently treeless tundra. If global mean temperature rises more than two to three degrees, the impacts in many regions can be drastically amplified.

A ‘carbonizing dragon’: China’s growing CO2 emissions due to investments in construction, not just exports

10/05/2011 - Constructing buildings, power-plants, roads is what drives the substantial increase in China’s CO2 emission growth, a new study finds. Fast growing capital investments in infrastructure projects have led to the expansion of the construction industry and its energy and CO2 intensive supply chain including steel and cement production. As a result of this transformation of China’s economy, more and more CO2 is released per unit of gross domestic product recently – a reversion of a long-term trend. Previously China’s greenhouse gas emission growth was driven by rising consumption and exports. Today this emission growth is offset by emission savings from efficiency increases. This now is thwarted by the building of infrastructure – which is even more important as it dictates tomorrow’s emissions, the international team of researchers concludes.

Mapping the future: new pathways for greenhouse gas concentrations

09/26/2011 - Behind grand projections of global warming’s impacts and recommendations for mitigation, there is huge not-so-glamourous research. Four new benchmark scenarios for future climate change are being presented now, ranging from – for the first time – a low emission scenario assuming ambitious mitigation action, which would keep temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, to a very high scenario. These so-called Representative Concentration Pathways, also for the first time, have been extended to the year 2300. This is more than just an update of the previously used scenarios.

Technology funding makes climate protection cheaper

09/19/2011 - To cost-effectively protect the climate, not only an emissions trading scheme but also financial support for new technologies is needed. Economising on targeted funding, for example for renewable energies, makes climate protection more expensive – as scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) now calculated for the first time, using a complex computer simulation that spans the entire 21st century. Without funding, energy technologies with high cost reduction potentials will hardly stand a chance, since they require a significant initial investment: a case of market failure.

Pioneering climate researcher: Schellnhuber receives highest-ranking awards

09/08/2011 - For his world-leading contributions to Earth system science and for the transfer of scientific insight into policy, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), will this autumn receive several awards. The Volvo Prize, considered to be the highest-ranking distinction for environmental research, will be presented to Schellnhuber in early November in Sweden. The President of Germany will bestow upon him the Federal Order of Merit, first class, in October in Berlin’s Bellevue Palace. And the renowned University of Copenhagen will honour him with an Honorary Doctorate.

Study on the Little Ice Age: Low solar activity just marginally cools the climate

09/01/2011 - The weakening sun was not the determinant factor for the Little Ice Age. Strong volcanic eruptions in particular, but also a smaller amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were important factors during this period of cooler climate in the 16th and 17th century, a new study shows. This implies that low solar activity, which is expected by some researchers for the coming decades, cannot considerably slow down global warming caused by humankind’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Penalizing free-riders: game theory could help climate negotiators

08/29/2011 - All international efforts to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions are hampered by "free-riding" countries. A new approach on how to deal with such countries is given by a study using economic game theory which is to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week. In the study, scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research show how - at least on paper - a greater degree of international cooperation can be achieved.

Energy from biomass pays even with forest protection in the long term

08/18/2011 - Forest protection – safeguarding woodland from being cleared and converted to fields for energy crops – reduces the global economic potential of bioenergy only in the short term. If less additional land is available for cultivation, this can be compensated by higher rates of yield-raising investments. This is shown by a new study. However, following this scenario global food production prices could rise considerably.

Sea levels rising at fastest rate in 2000 years

06/20/2011 - The rate of sea-level rise since the beginning of industrialization is greater than ever before in the last two thousand years. After many centuries with stable or slowly increasing sea level, around the year 1900 the data curve starts to rise steeply. This is shown by an analysis of sediments from the US Atlantic coast – it is the first continuous sea-level reconstruction covering such a long time span.

Researchers refine assessment of tipping elements of the climate system

06/23/2011 - The West Antarctic ice sheet is a potential tipping element of the climate system that might have partially tipped already. According to a study now published in Climatic Change, experts can not rule out that ice masses in the Amundsen Sea sector of Antarctica have already begun to destabilize. This is one of the results of a new assessment of the current state of six potentially unstable regions in the climate system with large direct impacts on Europe. The likelihood of climatic transitions of these elements generally increases as global mean temperature increases due to greenhouse gases emitted by human activity.

Exit from nuclear power is affordable – but entering a new energy system is challenging

06/10/2011 - The much debated date for phasing out nuclear power in Germany has little impact on consumer prices of electricity, according to scientists. An exit before 2020, however, could push up emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2 in the short term. Yet security of supply is the crucial point. This security can only be guaranteed if both renewable energies and fossil power generation along with power grids are scaled up, shows a study which for the first time presents a comprehensive calculation of the effects. Deploying power plants fired by gas instead of coal could, at an equal price, lead to less emissions and more competition.

Good progress on the road to 100 percent renewable electricity – despite obstacles

05/31/2011 - Progress towards achieving one hundred percent renewable electricity in Europe and North Africa by 2050 is largely good, according to a report released on may 31st in Brussels. However, in the cross-border grid development, little progress has been made on the ground. This is due to a lack of regulatory harmonization and a lack of mechanisms to deal with growing public opposition to infrastructure projects, the report shows. The report – a collaboration of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), the International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA) and the advisory firm PwC – is building a bridge between science and the business and investment community to investigate the transformation of the power sector. (Joint Press Release by PIK, IIASA, PwC, SEFEP)

Nobel Laureates hand over recommendations to UN High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability

05/18/2011 - The Stockholm Memorandum concludes that the planet has entered a new geological age, the Anthropocene. It recommends a suite of urgent and far-reaching actions for decision makers and societies to become active stewards of the planet for future generations. (This press release has been drafted by the Swedish organizers of the symposium - the PIK sent out it's own press release only for German language media.)

UN High-level Panel joins Memorandum signing ceremony

05/16/2011 - President Tarja Halonen, Gro Harlem Brundtland and Kevin Rudd among members of the UN High-level Panel on Global Sustainability to participate at the presentation of the results from the Nobel Laureate Symposium on 18 May. (This press release has been drafted by the organizers in Stockholm - the PIK sent out it's own press release only for German language media.)