Excellent research: Doctoral prize for Nico Wunderling
01/23/2023 - PIK researcher Nico Wunderling has been awarded by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation for his groundbreaking dissertation on tipping elements.
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Science takes centre stage in Davos
01/20/2023 - PIK Director Johan Rockström participated in the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) Meeting 2023 in Davos this week. In a first, science took centre stage in a Davos plenary session with Rockström outlining how climate change impacts economies around the world.
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Climate, Development, Economics - Kati Krähnert is a Professor at RWI and Bochum University
01/20/2023 - From Potsdam's Telegrafenberg to the Ruhr - since January 1, 2023, Kati Krähnert is Professor of Climate Change and Development at the Faculty of Economics at Ruhr University Bochum. There she researches how the lives of people in the Global South are affected by climate change and how policies need to be designed if they are to improve household climate resilience. She was appointed jointly by the Ruhr University and RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research.
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New study in 'Science' puts a number on what Exxon knew decades ago about climate change
01/13/2023 - Climate projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists between 1977 and 2003 were accurate and skillful in predicting subsequent global warming and contradicted the company’s public claims, shows a new study published in the highly renowned research journal 'Science'.
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Federal Research Minister visits PIK
01/09/2023 - The Federal Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger has visited the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). She spoke for almost two hours with climate economist and PIK Director Ottmar Edenhofer, as well as with Administrative Director Bettina Hörstrup and Gunnar Luderer from the Copernicus research project ARIADNE on energy transition policy. Topics included the federal government's hydrogen strategy and research into economic models for extracting CO2 from the air and storing it underground, as well as research into energy systems.
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3 out of 10 climate science papers most referred to in news and social media feature PIK authors
01/06/2023 - In a ranking of climate science papers most referred to in news and social media, no less than 3 out of the top 10 papers feature authors from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). The ranking is published by the renowned 'Carbon Brief' newsletter and is based on the papers' so-called Altmetric score. While this metric is certainly not perfect, it is a good indicator to help assess public perception of climate science publications.
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Smart nitrogen management can strongly reduce pollution
01/06/2023 - To increase food and feed supply, agriculture has used more and more industrial nitrogen fertilizers and manure. However, over half of these nitrogen inputs to croplands are currently lost to the environment, contributing to air pollution and its related diseases, water eutrophication, soil acidification, climate change, and biodiversity loss. Nitrogen pollution has become a global challenge and next crisis. An international team of researchers explored cost-effective nitrogen mitigation strategies for global croplands in a new study, now published in Nature.
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Climate risk insurance can effectively mitigate economic losses
01/04/2023 - Global warming is expected to lead to an accumulation of particularly intense hurricanes in the United States. This may substantially increase the economic losses caused by these storms. Better insurance could effectively mitigate the climate change-induced increase in economic losses. This is shown in a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research examining the effectiveness of climate risk insurance in the US.
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Overshooting climate targets could significantly increase risk for tipping cascades
12/22/2022 - Temporarily overshooting the climate targets of 1.5-2 degrees Celsius could increase the tipping risk of several Earth system elements by more than 70 percent compared to keeping global warming in line with the United Nations Paris Agreement range, a new risk analysis study by an international team of researchers shows. This tipping risk increases even if in the longer term the global temperature would stabilize within the Paris range. Avoiding an overshoot would hence limit the risks, the researchers conclude.
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Early forests did not change the atmospheric CO2 level as much as previously thought
12/20/2022 - An international team of Earth scientists has discovered that the atmosphere contained far less CO2 than previously thought when forests emerged on our planet. The study published in Nature Communications alters a 30-year-old paradigm with important implications for understanding how land plants affect the climate.
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Carbon dioxide removal should receive additional financial support
12/20/2022 - Cleaning up greenhouse gases after they have been emitted should be incentivized by subsidies. New evidence from an economic analysis considering international markets suggests an important reason why subsidies should be higher than the price put on carbon emissions to incentivize their reduction. In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers analyze policies for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it underground or in products. The suggested different pricing is not due to technological challenges, but linked to an economic effect called leakage.
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European Union to adopt emissions trading system for transport and heat
12/19/2022 - The European Union this weekend came to some decisions related to its climate policy, namely the EU Emissions Trading System. On this occasion, Ottmar Edenhofer, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC), issued a PIK Statement.
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New PIK Podcast: The bitter taste of loss & damage
12/16/2022 - What does coffee have to do with climate change & loss and damage? Koko Warner from the UNFCCC Secretariat and Christoph Gornott from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research PIK dive into the loss & damage debate.
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Europe's forests increasingly under pressure
12/12/2022 - European forests are increasingly affected by natural disturbances, a new monitoring study shows - and climate change is likely exacerbating this, according to the results of an international team of scientists.
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Global inequality prevents effective climate protection in the land sector
12/08/2022 - Land-based climate protection in line with the Paris Agreement can only succeed by overcoming global inequality, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). This requires a shift towards healthier nutrition, less food waste and lower population growth. It is also necessary to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and forestry at the global level.
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“10 Must Dos” from biodiversity science in the run-up to COP15 UN World Conference on Nature
12/05/2022 - By 2030, 30 per cent of the planet's land and sea areas should be protected. All subsidies leading to the degradation of nature should be reallocated. These are two of the recommendations from the Leibniz Research Network Biodiversity's "10 Must Dos". The researchers are publishing their proposals on the occasion of the United Nations’ COP15 World Conference on Nature, which begins Wednesday in Montreal, Canada.
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Award for outstanding commitment: Ottmar Edenhofer receives Bavarian Order of the Constitution 2022
12/02/2022 - For his research on the most pressing challenges of our time, Ottmar Edenhofer is being awarded today the Bavarian Order of the Constitution. The director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) is originally from Gangkofen (district of Rottal-Inn).
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Tipping Points in the Earth System: Potsdam Young Scientist Award for Nico Wunderling
11/25/2022 - Nico Wunderling was awarded the Young Scientist Prize of the state capital Potsdam for his research on tipping points in the Earth system. Mayor Mike Schubert awarded the post-doctoral researcher of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) the prize based on his scientifically and socially relevant work. Wunderling's work on "Nonlinear dynamics and interactions of tipping elements in the Earth system" addresses some of the particularly consequential impacts of human-induced global warming. His findings have been picked up by media around the world - including Guardian, Spiegel and Zeit. Nico Wunderling completed his PhD at the University of Potsdam and at PIK with a position in an international doctoral program and a doctoral fellowship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation.
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COP27 world climate summit: “Results are not good enough”
11/22/2022 – A COP failure was avoided, but it was only a very moderate success for the climate. While 1.5 as a global goal is still there on paper, COP27 does not offer a concrete plan on how to achieve that. These are, in a nutshell, the assessments by PIK Directors Ottmar Edenhofer and Johan Rockström just after the 27th edition of the world climate summit COP concluded on Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Positive outcomes of the summit include a first-of-its-kind set up of a ‘loss and damage fund’ that shall aim at compensating climate impacts for developing countries.
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Finding equity in climate mitigation finance: new study in 'Science'
11/18/2022- Considerations of equity in directing global financial flows for regional climate mitigation investments are critically important. It is in the leading journal 'Science' that team of researchers led by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and including the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) published a new study to help inform climate policy. The researchers explored how global investments could be divided among the countries in the world. The team applied a systematic approach with different equity and fairness considerations and estimated the “fair” financial flows between regions.
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Potsdam researchers amongst top 1% most cited worldwide
11/14/2022 - For the fifth year in a row, researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) are among the top 1 percent of the globally most scientifically influential authors. The renowned "Highly Cited" ranking is published once a year by Clarivate Analytics' science platform Web of Science. The ranking is based on the number of times researchers are cited in other academics' works - one of the most important indicators of scientific relevance. Twelve PIK researchers are listed, just like last year, including the institute's directors, and from all research departments.
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World climate summit COP27: Potsdam researchers highlight need for action
11/11/2022 - Climate policy-makers and experts are gathering in Sharm-el-Sheikh at the world climate summit COP27, amongst them researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The negotiations hosted by the United Nations also make media worldwide reach out to science.
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Astronomical cycles changed the climate 200 million years ago
10/11/2022 - The celestial bodies of the solar system also influence the Earth's climate cycles. The question of how this astronomical "heartbeat" changed the Earth's climate in an early warm period was investigated by an international team of geo- and climate researchers. Using simulations and data from drill cores, they were able to prove that astronomical cycles - in addition to shifts in continental plates and fluctuating CO2 levels in the atmosphere - drove climate changes around 200 million years ago. These new data from past warm climate phases with higher greenhouse gas concentrations can also be interesting for improved forecasts. The results were published in the scientific journal PNAS.
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Fossil fuels threaten health and life: Experts call for massive acceleration of the energy transition
11/03/2022 - The consequences of climate change are one of the greatest health risks of our time. This was stated by the Federal Minister of Health and the President of the German Medical Association together with PIK Director Johan Rockström and the organisation German Climate Change and Health Alliance (KLUG), that had invited to the Federal Press Conference. Together they advocate accelerating the energy transition in Germany and minimising greenhouse gas emissions. The background to this is a recently published report by the leading medical journal The Lancet, which highlights dependence on fossil fuels as a threat to health and life. The experts highlighted the fundamental importance of the report for Germany and what has to follow from it politically and in the German healthcare sector.
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Economic losses from hurricanes become too big to be offset by the US if warming continues
10/17/2022 - Hurricane damages can increase due to increasing global temperatures, caused by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. Computer simulations of regional economic sectors and supply chains in the US now show that the resulting economic losses can at some point not be nationally offset under unabated warming. If too many factories and the like are hit by the hurricane and stop working, other countries will have to step in to provide the supply of goods, according to the scientists who did the study. The hurricane impacts under global warming will thus give the US an economic disadvantage, the warmer the more.
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Register now for first Leibniz Network Integrated Earth System Research Conference
10/15/2022 - The first 'Integrated Earth System Research' Conference 2022, organized by the Leibniz Research Network carrying that same name, will take place in Potsdam on November 8th and 9th. Registration will close on 28 October. The meeting is dedicated to scientific advances towards a coherent understanding of the increasing human impacts on the Earth system, their societal consequences, and respective governance challenges. It brings together researchers from the natural, engineering, social sciences and the humanities for targeted dialogue and to intensify research collaboration.
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Targeted reimbursement: A just price for CO2
09/30/2022 - A price for CO2 can be both highly effective and socially just - if it's well designed. This is the result of a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC). At the heart of the idea: a targeted return of the revenues from CO2 pricing, especially to poorer people who need relatively large amounts of energy and can do little about it. So far, political fears of social hardship and possible uproar stand against the increase of CO2 prices.
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Nature key for climate-safe future: New Exponential Roadmap Initiative for Natural Climate Solutions
09/19/2022 - The land sector, including agriculture, forestry, & natural land protection & restoration, must reach net zero annual emissions by 2030. This is the result of a new report by Conservation International, in partnership with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the WWF, and the Exponential Roadmap Initiative. The report pinpoints actions needed to turn the land sector from a greenhouse gas source today into a carbon sink by 2050 and lays out a new benchmark: the “Carbon Law for Nature".
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Shifting Climate Zones: Sahel might get 50 % more rain by 2040
09/22/2022 - Climate change could turn one of Africa's driest regions into a very wet one by boosting the Monsoon circulation. New computer simulations show a significant future increase in seasonal rainfall in the Sahel under the current trend of global warming. A major increase in average rainfall might kick-in by 2040 already, which means that it is inevitable regardless of how future greenhouse gas emissions develop. Although crossing this new tipping point is potentially beneficial, it comes with substantial unknowns. The change could in fact be so big, it would be a major adaptation challenge for an already troubled region.
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Ukrainian artist in residence at PIK
09/12/2022 - This year's artist in residence at the Potsdam Institute is from the Ukraine. Mariia Mytrofanova, a visual artist and performer from Odessa, was successful in the bidding for the three month residency from September until end of November 2022. During her stay, Mariia Mytrofanova will focus on the impacts of the war in Ukraine on the planet and the world's well-being - and try to implement scientific insights into her art.
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