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Speaker: Stephen Sitch
stephen.sitch<at>pik-potsdam.de
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Telegrafenberg C4, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
Title of the talk: Carbon cycle and global
vulnerability (pdf: 1,5 Mb)
Summary of the talk by a student: Students´
summary (pdf)
Ever since the advent of the industrial revolution human societies have been
steadily
increasing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) through fossil fuel combustion.
Alongside these
direct emissions of gases into our atmosphere, indirect emissions associated
with the large-scale
human modification of our land cover and its resources, have caused the
atmospheric
concentration of the most important GHG, CO2 to nearly double over the 20th
Century. An
overview of our current understanding of the global carbon cycle, emissions and
feedbacks
between the different components in the natural system with links to the
current political climate
debate, will be given in the first part of the presentation. After giving a
grounding of the carbon
cycle and climate change in a “natural sciences” context, the second part of
the presentation will
focus on the carbon cycle from a more “human point of view”. Here we will look
into closer
depth and identify vulnerable ecosystems, which in turn are important in terms
of their role in the
carbon cycle and climate change. Vulnerability in these ecosystems will be
expressed in terms of
their exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to current and projected
future climate changes.
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