PIK Biennial Report 2000-2001 - Potsdam Institute for Climate ...

issues, and integration of disciplinary science into a suite
of Earth system models. The development of protocols
for model intercomparison is one of GAIM's most notable
achievements to date. Earth system analysis relies on
a spectrum of simulation models, so these are being
developed across a range of complexity. In order to
explore the relationships between system components
that may determine the behaviour of the system as a
whole, it is necessary to develop models that capture the
critical feedbacks and interactions that drive the highly
nonlinear system to one mode of operation or another.
Consequently it is necessary to develop Earth system
Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs) that can
run quickly on present-generation machines for thousands
of model years.
New Activities
The recently developed 23 fundamental ("Hilbertian")
Earth system analysis questions (cf p. 108) are to be elaborated
by a set of high-quality essays, written by the best
scientists in the respective field, during the year 2002. In
addition, GAIM now embarks on the development of an
Earth system atlas, which is intended to be a one-stop
access point to critical data sets on Earth system conditions,
their past evolution, and state-of-the-art assessments
of their possible future development. An important
feature of this atlas will be the peer review
procedure which will build on the IGBP community for
assurance of quality and relevance of data transported by
the atlas.
IHDP
International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change
IHDP is the smallest amongst the big international global
change research programmes. It addresses the specific
role of humans - social actors and systems - in the
context of global environmental change. Human dimensions
research concerns the causes and consequences of
people's individual and collective actions that lead to
modifications of the earth's physical and biological systems.
Feedback effects that affect the human quality of
life and options for sustainable development in different
parts of the world are included. The major questions are:
How do human actors influence their environment, and
what are the reasons and causes that they do so? How do
global environmental changes affect social actors and
systems? And what actions can be taken and by whom to
respond to, reduce and mitigate the effects of global
environmental change?
The spectrum of disciplines that engage in answering
these questions includes economics, political science,
sociology, psychology, geography, and more. New
research fields such as Integrated Assessment are
becoming more and more relevant to IHDP. Having no
substantial research funding budget of its own, IHDP
operates through other incentives relevant to scientists:
interest, reputation, international networking, interdisciplinarity,
global responsibility of science. Three major
instruments have been developed. Firstly, IHDP organizes
international and interdisciplinary conferences
worldwide. Secondly, it defined and supports four major
fields of research (Industrial Transformation (IT), land
use and land-cover change (LUCC; together with IGBP),
).
Global Environmental Change & Human Security
(GECHS), and Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental
Change (IDGEC)). Finally, IHDP actively
engages in the capacity building of global-change-related
social sciences in the developing world (START, SysTem
for Analysis, Research and Training, a joint WCRP/
IGBP/IHDP programme).
PIK has participated in and co-operated with IHDP
activities in different ways. Carlo Jaeger, Social Systems
Department head at PIK, is a member of the IHDP Scientific
Committee. One of his major areas of work is the
cross-cutting theme ”water” that both PIK and IHDP
will pay increasing attention to in the future.
Members of the Social Systems Department present
their research results at international IHDP meetings on
a constant basis. The last IHDP Open Meeting of the
Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change
Research Community (6-8 October 2001, Rio de Janeiro)
was attended by a number of PIK scientists.
IHDP officials have been involved in the PIK-sponsored
international workshop on a Sustainability Geoscope
workshop held in Berlin in October 2001.
An international conference on the Human Dimensions
of Global Environmental Change, "Global Change and
the Nation State" was held in Berlin, 7-8 December
2001, co-sponsored by PIK, the Institutional Dimensions
of Global Environmental Dimensions (IDGEC)
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