Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Biennial
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Potsdam -Institut fur Klimafolgenforschung e.V. Potsdam Institute for C limate Impact Research DISCLAIMER Portions of this document may be illegible in electronic image products. Images are produced from the best available original document. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Potsdam-Institut fur Klimafolgenforschung e.V. P I K Biennial Report Zweijahresbericht 1996 & 1997 Impressum Herausgeber / Publisher. Potsdam-Institut fur Klimafolgenforschung e.V. (PIK) Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) Hausanschrift / mail or packages to Telegrafenberg C4 D-14473 Potsdam Germany Postanschrift / postal address Postfach / P.0. Box 601203 D-14412 Potsdam Germany Telephone: +49(0)331 -288-2500 Fax: +49(0)331-288-2600 e-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://www.pik-potsdam.de Direktor / Director Professor Dr. Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber Stellvertretender Direktor / Deputy Director Dr. Manfred Stock Redaktion / Editors Gabriele Andre, Berlin Sabine vom Bruch, Berlin Technische Betreuung, DTP / Technical realization Dietmar Gibietz-Rheinbay, PIK D&C Department Bildnachweis Umschlag / Credits front and back cover Musee Conde, Chantilly, ms. 65/1284, Seite 1/ front cover: fol. 9 v°, Seite 4 / back cover: fol. 3 v° Pol de Limbourg Tres Riches Heures du due de Berry (Septembre et Mars) Bildrechte / by courtesy of Giraudon, Paris Bildnachweis Fotos Innenteil / Photo credits inside photos on pages 19, 28, 35, 40, 47, 55, 62, 73, 78, 81, 85, 88, 92: Michael Luder, Potsdam photo on page 7, four photos on page 90: Lothar Lindenhan, Potsdam photo on page 93: Vision-Photos, Berlin photo on page 5: Petra Schellnhuber, Berlin figure 1 on page 1: Mariana Winterhager, Berlin Druck und Buchbinderische Verarbeitung / Printing and binding Brandenburgische Universitatsdruckerei und Verlagsgesellschaft Potsdam mbH 1 Table of C ontents Table of Contents Introduction The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 1 \ Global Integrated Modelling and Assessment POEM Potsdam Earth System Modelling 7 QUESTIONS Global Change: Qualitative Dynamics of Syndromes and Transition to Sustainability 19 ICLIPS Integrated Assessment of Climate Protection Strategies 28 Transdiscipllnary Regional Studies___________________________ RAGTIME Regional Assessment of Global Change Impacts Through Integrated Modelling in the Elbe River Basin 35 WAVES Water Availability, Vulnerability of Ecosystems and Society in the Northeast of Brazil 40 EUROPA European Network Activities on Global Change 47 Sectoral Modelling and Assessment AGREC Assessment of Agro-Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Central and Western Europe 55 CHIEF Global Change Impacts on European Forests 62 RESOURCE Social Dimensions of Resource Use: Water Related Problems in the Mediterranean 68 III Table of C ontents jScientific Departments Integrated Systems Analysis 73 Climate Research 78 Global Change & Natural Systems 81 Global Change & Social Systems 85 Data & Computation 88 Scientific Cooperation Unit 92 Zusammenfassung Das Potsdam-Institut fur Klimafolgenforschung 97 Appendix Publications 123 PIK in the Media 135 External Funding 139 Cooperations 144 Acronyms 150 IV Introduction Introduction lEJOBSM) REGIONAL FOCUS mams . DEPARTMENT STRUCTURE « » PROJECT STRUCTURE Fig. 1: Research activities at PIK. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) by Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber and Manfred Stock [The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research tion is capable of interfering significantly with the global was founded in 1992, the year that the Rio Conference atmospheric dynamics had become overwhelming. was expected to grind out the blue-print for global But what should be done about this? Whether you sustainable development^This conference can be want to avoid, mitigate, adapt to or tolerate climate and seen as a reaction to primarily two fundamental Global Change, you have to know much more about changes going on in the world at that time: first, the the potential consequences of these options for plane birth of an awareness that anthropogenic climate tary and regional environmental management: What change may be a threat as real as the ozone depletion will the impacts be on nature, economy and lifestyle? in the stratosphere; second, the opening of a window What kind of scientific approach is appropriate for such for global environment and development governance impacts analysis and assessment? Which disciplines after the end of the Cold War. The foundation of PIK and methods from natural and social sciences have to as recommended by the German Science Council be integrated in order to reach solid conclusions? How (Wissenschaftsrat) is just one tiny facet reflecting the can we avoid the "Babylonian" confusion generally new attitude towards life on Earth emerging in the resulting from unsophisticated integration attempts? early nineties. For the scientific evidence that civiliza- 1 Introduction At PIK we have begun to address these questions whole, consisting of cultures and nations that cannot using standard disciplinary recipes as well as innova always be clearly distinguished from one another and tive transdisciplinary concepts. The scope of the scien yet have particular identities. In fact, without the exist tific challenge which the Institute has to meet is rather ence of such prototypical patterns and functional enti unique, particularly as there are no established models ties we would not be capable of perceiving reality in a or prototypes for conducting impact research in the structured way at all. Such semi-autonomous entities international community. Yet we feel that we have of reality are as a rule of "mesoscopic" character, i.e. made considerable progress along this sparsely popu they form an oligarchy of a finite number of elements lated road in the last years, and the new biennial report on their respective scale levels. is going to demonstrate that. The last remarks may appear as bloodless epistemo logical rhetoric to the reader. Their validity and useful The Conceptual Background of the PIK Approach ness could be demonstrated, however, by inspecting, to Environmental System Analysis say, the perpetual organization of civilization through a J~~The Institute's general philosophy and methodology small set of cultural archetypes, namely the entities have been described before (e.g., in the introduction to "village", "city", "landscape", "region" and "state". the first biennial report 1994/95). Here, wr^juMwaoMn Theoretical analysis of these entities and their inter emphasizeofhat the heterogeneity of the scientific tasks actions reveal the overall structure and dynamics of to be solved by PIK (ranging from empirical time series human settlement, and simulation exercises of any analysis to paradigms for ecosphere management) type and ambition should rather take advantage of the and the complexity of the environmental systems to be "granularity" found in reality. investigated call for a specific research strategy, which The temptation will be strong, of course, to try to con generally compromises between high-precision analy- struct or deduce the respective pattern formation I sis and educated guesswork. quantitatively from "first principles" like the basic laws ^The basic PIK approach is to take up, process, sum of quantum mechanics or of molecular biology. Yet this marize and assess the empirical findings from a broad is an undertaking that is bound to fail. The rigorous variety of disciplines and institutions. Doing this yields theoretical derivation of effective large-scale equations a highly complex and interrelated knowledge base, of motion from microscopic dynamics has been possi from which meteorological, hydrological, ecological, ble so far only for extremely simple or significantly sim socio-economic and transdisciplinary models are con plified systems - often on the basis of rather rigorous structed. In essence, these models and their underly assumptions concerning the space of eligible solu ing data bases constitute the Institute's core capital. By tions. The alternative approach, brute-force computer means of computer simulation, these models are used simulation, is generally inconclusive: how long would it for generating past, present, and future environmental take, for example, to mimic the behaviour of 1030 ele realities and scenarios. mentary particles until the faunic pattern "giraffe" is This concept sounds rather simple and straightfor "invented"? And a computer-assisted individual-psy ward, yet constitutes an extraordinary challenge. For chological reconstruction of the social dynamics of the modelling and simulation becomes unfeasible or inop 20th century is probably not capable of producing erable if too many details are taken into account, and it "Hitler" or "Gorbachev" as emergent types of politi becomes superficial or useless if important aspects cians. are left out. Is there a way out of this dilemma? Recent But even if the bottom-up approach would overcome developments within and outside the Institute have for the limitations in computational resources: it would not tunately demonstrated that such a way indeed exists explain the formation of those patterns. Computations by constructing models of truly intermediate complex are, after all, no more and ho less than a specific kind ity. In the following, this strategy is explained briefly of experiment from which the scientific essence still and its consequences for impact research are indi has to be extracted by (occasionally ingenious) the cated.