Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top

2001 | Book

Understanding the Earth System — From Global Change Research to Earth System Science Read chapter Read first chapter

Understanding the Earth System

Compartments, Processes and Interactions

Editors: Prof. Dr. Eckart Ehlers, Dr. Thomas Krafft

Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Included in: Professional Book Archive

Login to get access
insite
SEARCH

About this book

This volume includes revised versions of most of the presentations made at the International Conference «Understanding the Earth Sys­ tem: Compartments, Processes and Interactions" held on November 24-26, 1999 in Bonn. The Conference was organized by the German National Committee on Global Change Research as part of the Bonn Science Festival 1999-2000. The Bonn Science Festival (Wissen­ schaftsfestival Region Bonn) was organized and funded by sfg Strukturforderungsgesellschaft Bonn/Rhein-Siegl Ahrweiler mbH. The generous support for organizing the conference and printing this volume by sfg is gratefully acknowledged. Additional financial and organizational support for separate workshop sessions and publica­ tions have also been provided by the German Federal Ministry for Science and Research, BMBF and Germany's major research funding agency, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The editors wish to gratefully acknowledge the help, advice and especially patience of many individuals who have contributed to this volume. The contributions are intended to document the debate on crucial issues of the emerging concept of earth system science and to stimulate the necessary scientific discussion. While every effort has been made on the part of the editors to ensure consistency in termi­ nology, style and methods of quotation, the variety of contributors has inevitably resulted in certain discrepancies. E. EHLERS Bonn, February 2001 T. KRAFFT Contents Part I Panorama: The Earth System: Analysis from Science and the Humanities Chapter 1 Understanding the Earth System - From Global Change Research to Earth System Science . . . . . . . 3 E. EHLERS and T. KRAFFT Chapter 2 Earth System Analysis and Management. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 17 . . .

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Panorama: The Earth System: Analysis from Science and the Humanities

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Understanding the Earth System — From Global Change Research to Earth System Science
Abstract
There is no doubt that “Global Change” and its scientific analysis and interpretation are on the forefront of international research efforts. Since the detection of global warming, first signs of world-wide melting of ice-masses and glaciers, indications of sea-level rises and/or the depletion of the atmospheric ozone-layers, increasing numbers of scientists — meteorologists, physicists, atmospheric chemists, oceanographers and others — have devoted their research to the solution of these and related problems. Global change research and its development over the last 20 or 30 years are testimony not only to the almost unbelievable broadening, widening and deepening of research themes, but also — and likewise — to a shift of scientific paradigms. As a matter of fact: the title of this conference “Understanding the Earth System — Compartments, Processes and Interactions” and the publication of its proceedings are part of this development.
Eckart Ehlers, Thomas Krafft
Chapter 2. Earth System Analysis and Management
Abstract
Understanding the Earth System is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for its management. On the one hand, the present civilizatory interference with the atmosphere demonstrates that bad management, at least, driven by the opportunistic interests of zillions of individual actors unaware of the long-term consequences, is feasible at a planetary scale. On the other hand, we can change our ways for the better even without perfect (predictive) knowledge about the functioning of the global machinery including the human factor. We need to know, however, something, and the production and use of this something is the topic of my contribution.
H. J. Schellnhuber
Chapter 3. The Earth System: A Physiological Perspective
Abstract
A little over thirty years ago mankind had the first opportunity to view planet Earth directly from the Moon. It can be argued that this represented a major turning point in how we have regarded our home planet ever since. Seen from the Moon, several aspects of the Earth, each of which was known in an intellectual way previously, became strongly imprinted on our consciousnesses. Viewing Earth from the Moon strongly reinforced the idea that our planet must be seen and studied as a whole, and not split into component parts, as has been done previously in most academic research. Further, the isolation of the earth in the vast-ness of space was made abundantly clear. In addition, the obvious dominance of the oceans in terms of coverage relative to land led to the idea that the Earth should really have been called ‘Ocean’. Finally, the blue oceans, green/brown land, and white clouds all looked very different from the colouring of the other planets we can see using telescopes from Earth.
Peter S. Liss
Chapter 4. The Earth System: An Anthropogenic Perspective
Abstract
Environmental treaty law has developed most progressively since the beginning of 1970 (Sir Palmer 1992, Kiss 1983, Brown Weiss 1992/93a, pp 675 et seq., Jacobson and Brown Weiss 1995, pp 119, Werksman 1995, pp 30 et seq.).The development of this new body of law is due to the fact that the industrial development, the growth of population, and especially the necessity to safeguard a sustainable development1 for all States and for future generations2 requires States to cooperate more intensively. In particular, the development of new institutional forms of co-operation for the protection of the integrity and sustainability of the environment is necessary.3
Rüdiger Wolfrum
Chapter 5. Man’s Place in Nature — Past and Future
Abstract
Through the evolution of the conscious mind in the human species, nature became aware of itself and can thus, for the first time in more than three billion years of natural evolution, influence and even to some degree take control of its own future development according to intentional goals. Since these goals are at the same time inevitably our own wishful visions, our species becomes not only nature’s managing agent but also morally responsible for the future of nature including our own future.
Hubert S. Markl

Focus: Water in the Earth System: Availability, Quality and Allocation in Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives

Frontmatter
Chapter 6. Global Alteration of Riverine Geochemistry under Human Pressure
Abstract
Riverine geochemistry and material fluxes have already been much altered at the global scale by agriculture, deforestation, mining, urbanisation, industrialisation, irrigation and damming which have generally appeared in this order. The continental aquatic systems (CAS) are now affected by hypoxia, eutrophication, sali-nisation, and contamination by nitrate, metals and persistent organic pollutants. The historical development of these impacts is now being reconstructed by sedimentary archives or assessed by direct measurements for the last 100, 50 or 30 years. The societal responses to these water quality issues can be described by half a dozen typical strategies and their time scales, which generally spread over more than 20 years are controlled by both environmental and societal inertia. Major differences in environmental control efficiencies are expected between industrialized countries, for which control measures adapted to each occurring issue have been gradually set up over last 50 to 100 years, and fast developing countries which are facing these issues in much shorter periods.
M.-H. Meybeck
Chapter 7. Integrated Management of Water Resources
Abstract
It is impossible to understand the working of the earth system without a clear understanding of the role of water as part of both the physical geosystem and of the biosphere. It has become increasingly clear that such scientific knowledge must be supplemented by a clear understanding of the interactive relationship between water resources and social systems. To tackle both of these tasks requires new skills and a new receptiveness if the interdisciplinary effort involved is to prove fruitful.
James C. I. Dooge
Chapter 8. The Challenge of Global Water Management
Abstract
Rising standards of living and growing human population make scarcity of freshwater resources an increasingly serious problem, which can amplify destructive and cruel social conflicts. World-regions where this problem is most relevant include large parts of Africa, the Middle East, China and India.
Carlo C. Jaeger

Perspective: Advancing our Understanding: Reductionist and/or Integrationist Approaches to Earth System Analysis

Frontmatter
Chapter 9. Understanding Climate Variability: A Pre-requisite for Predictions and Climate Change Detection
Abstract
It is interesting to note that the person who has worked over the last five years to strengthen and — if needed — to initiate the joint action of the four major Global Change Research Programmes was asked to speak at the conference on “The Disciplinary Way”. Maybe because without a high profile in disciplinary research all interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research loses its basis and becomes wishful thinking. The content of this contribution is partly a review of the achievements of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the oldest and really globally co-ordinated environmental research programme that attracts the full scientific community. Based on a fore-runner, called Global Atmospheric Research Programme (GARP), and the infrastructure of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of about 185 members of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and jointly sponsored since 1980 by WMO and the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU, now renamed to International Council for Science), WCRP made major steps forward to reach its major goal: To understand and to predict — as far as possible — climate variability and climate change including human influences.
Hartmut Grassl
Chapter 10. Earth System Models
Abstract
Earth system analysis — this term is often associated with the study of the ‘solid’ Earth with its surrounding spheres, the atmosphere, cryosphere, and hydrosphere. However, within IGBP (the International Geosphere — Biosphere Programme) — at least — a more general definition, which has been proposed by Schellnhuber (1998, 1999) and Claussen (1998), for example, seems to be generally accepted. According to the latter, Earth system analysis addresses the feedbacks and synergisms between the ecosphere and the anthroposphere. The eco-sphere or, the natural Earth system, encompasses the abiotic world, the geosphere, and the living world, the biosphere, whereas the anthroposphere includes all cultural and socio-economic activities of humankind which can be subdivided into subcomponents such as the psycho-social sphere etc.
Martin Clussen
Chapter 11. Climate System and Carbon Cycle Feedback
Abstract
Ice core data show a strong correlation between atmospheric CO2 and global temperature over the glacial cycles, indicating that the climate system is closely coupled to the carbon cycle. During the four last glacial cycles, over the past 420,000 years, atmospheric CO2 had excursions from 200 ppmv during cold glacial periods, up to 280 ppmv during warm interglacial periods (Petit et al. 1999) (see fig. 1a). Other trace gases such as methane also show a strong temporal coupling with temperature over glacial cycles (Petit et al. 1999). Over the more recent history, atmospheric CO2 has been recorded to increase from roughly 280 ppmv at the dawn of the industrial revolution, up the 360 ppmv today (see fig. lb) (Etheridge et al. 1996). This sharp increase is due to a) the burning of fossil fuel for energy production (Andres et al. 1996) and b) the intense deforestation, essentially in the tropics, needed to meet the increasing food and fibre demand (Houghton 1995). Many forests have been cut or degraded, and today, a large fraction of the terrestrial ecosystems is directly influenced by human activities. Land use over the past 200 years has caused terrestrial ecosystems to release carbon (mainly to the atmosphere).
Pierre FriedliIngstein
Chapter 12. Global Climate Change and Economic Analysis
Abstract
Although very volatile, the climate system of the earth has been varying within broad but clearly defined bounds (see the chapter by Claussen in this book). It was not until the 18th century when economic activities started to change this. By today the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, and among them carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N20) have surpassed preindustrial levels. The CO2-concentration in the atmosphere has grown from 280 to about 360 ppbv and is approaching 400 ppbv which is far beyond the concentrations that have been observed in the last half million years. CH4 has grown from 700 to 1720 ppbv and N2O from 275 to 310 ppbv (IPCC 1995).
Gernot Klepper
Chapter 13. From Nature-Dominated to Human-Dominated Environmental Changes
Abstract
At this critical moment of Earth’s history, as we move from a century with rapidly growing human impacts on all the different ecosystems of our planet, to a century with a probable further acceleration in the pace of environmental change, resource use, and vulnerability for societies and economies, we have to rethink the changing relationship between nature and human beings from the past, through the present, towards a future full of uncertainty. It becomes more and more evident that major natural processes from the local to the global level are influenced by human activities, creating a much higher degree of complexity through the interaction of processes which are within the domain of both the natural and social sciences. This implies a need to bridge the gulf between the two cultures of science in order to advance our understanding of contemporary driving forces and their rapidly growing impact on earth’s ecosystems. “The biggest changes happened in our century, more precisely in the last 50 years, with a rate unknown before in Earth’s history” (Pfister 1995a). In light of continued population growth, economic development, urbanisation, industrialisation and resource use, it is clear that human impacts on ecosystems world-wide will continue to increase in the next century.
Bruno Messerli, Martin Grosjean, Thomas Hofer, Lautaro Núñez, Christian Pfister

Appendix: Working Group Reports

Frontmatter
Chapter 14. Water Quality and Health Risks
Abstract
The decrease of death as a result of infectious diseases in late 19th century Europe was strongly associated with the sanitation of the cities, namely the implementation of sewage systems and water treatment by sand filtration and disinfection. The availability of water is a prerequisite for improved health and sustainable development. It has social, economic and environmental values. Today, there is no doubt that the quality of water for human consumption is of utmost importance for Public Health.
Thomas Kistemann, Martin Exner
Chapter 15. Urban Thirst for Water and Priorities for Action
Abstract
Water is a fundamental resource on which depend the life support systems and which has to be equitably shared between all those living in a particular river basin (Ayibotele and Falkenmark 1992). It is widely believed that improvement in the supply of water and sanitation can play a major role in improving the lives of the poor in developing countries. The industry sector in the West has realised the importance of depleting fresh water resources for their survival and sustainabil-ity and has given a wakeup call to the sector. The outcome of this realisation is that UNEP and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (SD) have come out with a report “industry, freshwater and SD”. Apparently, the world’s thirst for water is likely to become one of the most pressing resource issues of the 21st century, if the present trends of consumption and management continue (World Resources Institute et al. 1998). During the preparation of Global Environment Outlook-2000 (GEO-2000), a global survey on emerging environmental issues was conducted by ICSU’s Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) as part of the GEO programme. Climate change was the most cited issue in the SCOPE survey although, taken together, water scarcity and pollution ranked higher (UNEP 1999).
Surinder Aggarwal
Chapter 16. Modeling Water Availability: Scaling Issues
Abstract
This report is the outcome of the workshop “Modeling water availability: Scaling issues” which took place on 25 November 1999 within the framework of the international conference “Understanding the Earth System: Compartments, Processes and Interactions”, held in Bonn, Germany. Under chairmanship of Luis J. Mata, five presentations were given by scientists with different disciplinary backgrounds highlighting various aspects of water availability: Jorge A. Ramirez, Hydrologist, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, gave a three part presentation where issues of scale and dimensionality in geophysics were explored and highlighted. Two applications related to 1) the estimation of large scale water balances for the United States and 2) to the modeling of the continental scale dynamics of drought and soil moisture were presented which illustrate the complicating issues of scale and dimensionality in the modeling and prediction of the distribution of water availability.
Nick Van De Giesen, Luis J. Mata, Petra Döll, Arjen Hoekstra, Max Pfeffer, Jorge A. Ramirez
Chapter 17. Precipitation Variability and Food Security
Abstract
The break out group began with a roundtable discussion in response to the question: What are the key issues in understanding the linkage between precipitation variability and food security? The responses included:
  • Agriculture:
    • Property rights
    • Crop selection and rotations
    • Agro-forestry
    • Technology
  • Water:
    • Intensive, efficient use in irrigation
    • Participatory water basin management
    • Long-term changes due to land use and climate
    • Drought and desertification
  • Food security:
    • Traditional means of coping in agrarian societies
    • Global distribution of agriculture and globalisation
    • Urbanisation
  • Uncertainty:
    • Precipitation and nutrient flows
    • Markets
    • Spatial and temporal patterns
  • Research:
    • Barriers to the integration of social and natural science
The group then had five presentations, on themes related to the above issues. A general discussion period followed the presentations. The first two presentations set the scene.
Thomas E. Downing, Fredrick K. Karanja, Mohamed Saïd Karrouk, Fred M. Zaal, Mohamed A. Salih
Chapter 18. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Freshwater: Availability, Quality, and Allocation
Abstract
Freshwater is a fundamental resource and a basic requirement for life on Earth: It is the unifying agent of natural ecosystems, water circulation (e.g. Baumgartner and Reichel 1975) plays a central role in the global cycles of elements (e.g. Degens et al. 1991) and is directly linked to climate. Water is a prerequisite for biomass production which is often limited by local water availability. To man, water not only secures food supply but its quality is also the basis for human health (e.g. Meybeck et al. 1989). Its availability also enables economic development, and thus constitutes a possible cause of political conflicts. Even within societies, water is subject to competing usages (e.g. for irrigation, transportation, energy production, recreation, drinking water and others).
Andreas M. Ernst, Wolfram Mauser, Stephan Kempe
Chapter 19. Water Deficiency and Desertification
Abstract
In a historical perspective, societies seem to have forever struggled to manage their natural resources. Failure to do so effectively and sustainably, ultimately led to the demise of cultures and the displacement of populations (Hillel 1992), an occurrence known today as “environmental refugees”. At stake were largely the resources water and land, with close coupling between them. Water is becoming increasingly scarce (Falkenmark 1997). Not only are the demands placed on water by urban and industrial centers competing with its traditional users, the farmers, but these new type of users are often polluting the water to such an extent that it is not readily reusable. The situation is far from stabilized, with urbanization continuing at unprecedented levels and the effects of fossil energy dependence adding to greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere and to the vagaries of the weather. The working group on “Water Deficiency and Desertification”, with about 25 participants, discussed these issues based on three short introductions by the authors.
Paul L. G. Vlek, Daniel Hillel, J. C. Katyal, Wolfgang Seiler
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Understanding the Earth System
Editors
Prof. Dr. Eckart Ehlers
Dr. Thomas Krafft
Copyright Year
2001
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN
978-3-642-56843-5
Print ISBN
978-3-540-67515-0
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-56843-5