Earth system analysis for sustainability

Environment

Volumn 47, Issue 8, 2005, Pages 10-25

  Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim ^a,b,c,d   Crutzen, Paul J ^e,f,g   Clark, William C ^h   Hunt, Julian ^i,j,k,l,m,n  

^a POTSDAM INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE IMPACT RESEARCH   (Germany)

^b UNIVERSITY OF POTSDAM   (Germany)

^c TYNDALL CENTRE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH   (United Kingdom)

^d UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA   (United Kingdom)

^e MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR CHEMISTRY   (Germany)

^f UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^g UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^h HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

ⁱ UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

^j UCL

^k TRINITY COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

^l UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

^m DELFT UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY   (Netherlands)

ⁿ Lighthill Institute of Mathematical Sciences

more..

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ACIDIFICATION; ASTRONOMY; BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLING; CLIMATE CHANGE; ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY; GLOBAL CHANGE; MARINE ENVIRONMENT; NANOTECHNOLOGY; REVIEW;

EID: 26244461229     PISSN: 00139157     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3200/ENVT.47.8.10-25     Document Type: Review

References (53)

1. The four international research programs that endorsed the Amsterdam Declaration and now make up the Earth System Science Partnership are the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and the international biodiversity program DIVERSITAS. For more information on the partnership, see http://www.essp.org/;
2. and B. Moore III, A. Underdal, P. Lemke, and M. Loreau, "The Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change," in W. Steffen, J. Jäger, D. J. Carson, and C. Bradshaw, eds., Challenges of a Changing Earth: Proceedings of the Global Change Open Science Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 10-13 July 2001 (Berlin, Heidelberg, and New York: Springer, 2002).
3. For more information on the term "second Copernican Revolution," see H. J. Schellnhuber, "'Earth System' Analysis and the Second Copernican Revolution," Nature, 2 December 1999 (Millennium supplement), C19-C23.
4. J. Lovelock, "The Living Earth," Nature, 18 December 2003, 769-70.
5. H. J. Schellnhuber, "Coping with Earth System Complexity and Irregularity," in Steffen, Jäger, Carson, and Bradshaw, note 1 above, page 151.
6. H. Nowotny, P. Scott, and M. Gibbons, Re-Thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2001).
7. Steffen, Jäger, Carson, and Bradshaw, note 1 above.
8. J. Lubchenco, "Entering the Century of the Environment: A New Social Contract for Science," Science, 23 January 1998, 491-97.
9. P. J. Crutzen, "Geology of Mankind," Nature, 3 January 2002, 23.
10. See, in particular, the recent IGBP book series published by Springer (Berlin). The series' flagship volume is W. Steffen et al., Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure (Berlin: Springer, 2004).
11. An excellent review of global impacts of land use is provided by J. A. Foley et al., "Global Consequences of Land Use," Science, 22 July 2005, 570-74.
12. For a fuller examination of the effects of ozone pollution and policy challenges to combat it, see M. Bernstein and D. Whitman, "Smog Alert: The Challenges of Battling Ozone Pollution," in this issue (Environment, October 2005), pages 28-41.
13. J. Kaiser and M. Enserik, "Treaty Takes a POP at the Dirty Dozen," Science, 15 December 2000, 2053.
14. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report: Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). See, in particular, page 5.
15. J. R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000).
16. R. W. Kates and T. M. Parris, "Long-Term Trends and a Sustainability Transition," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 100, no. 14 (2003): 8062-67.
17. National Research Council, Board on Sustainable Development, Our Common Journey: A Transition toward Sustainability (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999), 20.
18. J. E. Hansen, "A Slippery Slope: How Much Global Warming Constitutes 'Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference'?" Climatic Change 68, no. 3 (2005): 269-79;
19. and M. Oppenheimer and R. B. Alley, "The West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Long Term Climate Policy," Climatic Change 64, no. 1-2 (2004): 1-10.
20. J. Hansen, "Defusing the Global Warming Time Bomb," Scientific American, March 2004, 68-77.
21. See, for example, M. F. Loutre and A. Berger, "Future Climatic Changes: Are We Entering An Exceptionally Long Interglacial?" Climatic Change 46, no. 1-2 (2000): 61-90. Note that the "natural" climate development is largely determined by the Milankovich mechanism, that is, the quasi-periodic variation of planetary insulation as governed by the laws of astrophysics.
22. H. J. Schellnhuber, note 1 above, C19;
23. H. J. Schellnhuber and V. Wenzel, Earth System Analysis: Integrating Science for Sustainability (Berlin: Springer, 1998);
24. and H. J. Schellnhuber and D. Sahagian, "The Twenty-Three GAIM Questions," Global Change Newsletter, April 2002, 20.
25. The Dahlem Conferences are a special-format workshop series, dedicated to the most advanced frontiers of interdisciplinary science and named after their traditional venue, a district of Berlin.
26. st Dahlem Workshop (Cambridge, MA, and London: The MIT Press in cooperation with Dahlem University Press, 2004).
27. See, for example, J. Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Environment published a vivid debate of the Gaia theory in its May 1990 issue.
28. See S. H. Schneider, "Debating Gaia," Environment, May 1990, 4-9, 29-32.
29. For a thorough discussion of this matter, see T. M. Lemon, et al., "Group Report: Long-term Geosphere-Biosphere Coeveolution and Astrobiology," in Schellnhuber, Crutzen, Clark, Claussen, and Held, note 21 above, pages 111-40.
30. A stylized summary of that discussion is given in T. M. Lenton, H. J. Schellnhuber, and E. Szathmary, "Climbing the Co-evolution Ladder," Nature, 21 October 2004, 913.
31. A. J. Watson, et al., "Group Report: Possible States and Modes of Operation of the Quaternary Earth System," in Schellnhuber, Crutzen, Clark, Claussen, and Held, note 21 above, pages 189-210.
32. A promising approach employs Earth System models of intermediate complexity (EMICs) like the CLIMBER family operated at the Potsdam Institute. For an interesting recent result, see G. H. Haug et al., "North Pacific Seasonally and the Glaciation of North America 2.7 Million Years Ago," Nature, 24 February 2005, 821-25.
33. See also W. Steffen et al., "Abrupt Changes: The Achilles' Heels of the Earth System," Environment, April 2004, 8-20.
34. K. Zickfeld, B. Knopf, V. Petoukhov, and H. J. Schellnhuber, "Is the Indian Summer Monsoon Stable against Global Change?" Geophysical Research Letters 32, no. 15 (2005): L15707.
35. A full account of this landmark meeting will be given in H. J. Schellnhuber et al., eds., Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2005).
36. K. Caldeira and M. E. Wickett, "Oceanography: Anthropogenic Carbon and Ocean pH," Nature, 25 September 2003, 365.
37. See, for instance, T. Radford, "Huge Rise in Siberian Forest Fires Puts Planet at Risk, Scientists Warn," The Guardian, 31 May 2005, 2.
38. Note that lax laws are likely to aggravate the problem, since many fires in Siberia appear to have been set by arsonists for creating more salvage timber as reported by BBC News, "Fire Threat to Siberia's Forests," BBC News Online, 31 May 2005, http://news .bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4596651.stm.
39. A. Sen, Inequality Reexamined (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
40. See, for example, United Nations Secretary-General, In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All: Report of the Secretary-General to the UN General Assembly, 21 March 2005, http://www.un.org/largerfreedom/;
41. and C. Narbona Ruiz, S. Lepeltier, and J. Trittin, "Die Umwelt muss in den Mittelpunkt" ("The Environment Must Take Center Stage"), Frankfurter Rundschau, 27 May 2005, 7.
42. Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen (WBGU) (German Advisory Council on Global Change), World in Transition: New Structures for Global Environmental Policy (London and Sterling, VA: Earthscan, 2001).
43. 35: UN Millennium Project, Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals: UN Millennium Project, Report to the UN Secretary-General (New York: United Nations, 2005), http://www. unmillenniumproject.org/.
44. Note that a revival of the "Rio spirit" must have major institutional implications, such as the replacement of the increasingly inadequate UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) by a "Council for Global Development and Environment." (See WBGU, World in Transition: Fighting Poverty through Environmental Policy (London: Earthscan, forthcoming 2005.)
45. In the summer of 2003, a total of 20,000-30,000 people died in Europe-mainly in the big cities and particularly the elderly and vulnerable-as a result of extremely high temperatures. See R. S. Kovats, T. Wolf, and B. Menne, "Heatwave of August 2003 in Europe: Provisional Estimates of the Impact on Mortality," Eurosurveillance Weekly, 11 March 2004. Yet much higher temperatures are likely to become standard in Asian cities in the wake of climate change.
46. For instance, on 5 June 2005, mayors from around the world signed the Urban Environmental Accords. See United Nations World Environment Day 2005 news release, "Mayors Sign Historic Environmental Accords," http://www.wed2005.org/5.1.php?news_id=30.
47. The Royal Society, Ocean Acidification Due to Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, policy document 12/05 (London: The Royal Society, 2005).
48. A. Jolly, "The Fifth Step," New Scientist, 25 December 1999, 78-79.
49. S. H. Schneider, "Geoengineering: Could-or Should-We Do It?" Climatic Change 33, no. 3 (1996): 291-302.
50. 2 Sequestration," Science, 13 June 2003, 1677-78.
51. P. J. Crutzen, "Towards a Global Experiment on Climate Control?" Climatic Change, forthcoming 2005.
52. Schellnhuber, note 1 above, page C19;
53. and W. Lucht and R. K. Pachauri, "The Mental Component of the Earth System," in Schellnhuber, Crutzen, Clark, Claussen, and Held, note 21 above.