|
[introduction 2001 - meanwhile part of the 'history' of ESPERE]
Why this project?
Leading scientists in the area of climate and environmental research have given the modern era of Earth's history the name "Anthropocene". What they mean by this is that since the beginning of the industrial period, the state of our atmosphere, the worldwide circulation of the oceans, the extent of global glaciation and desertification, as well as changes in wind, weather and cloud coverage have been greatly influenced by man (greek: anthropos). These factors also govern plant growth
Since the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect, we have known that the balance of climate's natural processes is, for the first time in the billions of years of the history of our planet, no longer governed solely by its own laws and regularities but instead is being disturbed by man.
We are changing the factors which govern the balance of the climate system with a speed which has never been seen before. And we are doing this without being able to predict the consequences of our actions for the Earth and ourselves.
An example of this is the increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), a gas, which naturally has a concentration of ca. 0.018-0.028 % (180-280 ppm = parts per million). CO2 plays an important role in the warmth and radiation budget of the Earth, as it hinders the loss of Earth's heat to space. We are therefore talking about a greenhouse gas. Looking back over the last 400,000 years, one sees that a cold periods occurred at times when the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were ca 180ppm and that warm periods occurred at times when carbon dioxide concentrations were ca 280ppm. These two situations alternate approximately every 100,000 years. We realise the acuteness of human intervention when we see that during the last 150 years the production of energy for industry, traffic and house holds has released enough carbon dioxide to increase the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from 280ppm to 370ppm. We have increased an important factor in global climate balance at 100 times its natural speed of increase to about 30% above its preindustrial level. It is easy to see that this will have consequences on the climate system. How these consquences will look is more difficult to imagine- and is something which we will try to make clearer with the creation of this website.
Research into global circulation patterns has never been carried out as intensively as during the last three decades. Today, scientists understand a lot. Nevertheless, the examination of Earth's surface system is like looking into the night sky - the longer we look, the more stars we see. The more complex the interactions, the more we suspect that our ability to make accurate predictions will not make progress as quickly as the grave changes which may occur in the system. Like the wizard's apprentice, Man knows how to set spirits free but not how to manage them.
In a world with so many experts, that whole libraries can be filled with the literature of each particular topic, no-one can understand everything and it's not different in the case of global climate change. However, every one of us is causing the changes and every one of us will either feel their consequences, or hand them on to the next generation. Each of us also votes for the governments which are responsible for environmental policies. As scientists in the area of environmental and climate research, we have a special responsibility. We observe and research processes on our planet which will drastically alter the habitat of its 6 billion people and the plant and animal kingdoms. At the same time we see that the governments have no answers to these problems and that most people have very little knowledge of the situation and in some cases simply prefer not to know.
In this context we would like to mention the "Titanic phenomenon". We measure the temperature and the ocean currents and know that there's an iceberg. We warn the captains in the government. They don't have the courage though to disturb the lively atmosphere on board and close their eyes to the situation. The people on board believe in technology, progress and living standards and hope that nothing bad will happen.
We will not talk about an end-of-the-world scenario and will not spread senseless fears either. We must, however, reckon with climate change occurring in an unknown time frame, which will probably be accompanied by powerful weather phenomena occurring more often, as has been happening over the last few years. We can also have only a presentiment of the potential dangers of the situation. As experts we are neither in a position to predict the consequences of the current change (even though we are already observing them today), nor have we a good enough understanding of our mothership Earth to come up with reliable solutions to enable ourselves steer against problems when they begin to be unbearable and calls for help become louder.
The development of this homepage is an attempt to stand up to our responsibilities to make our knowledge available not only to governments. As far as possible, we will try to inform every person who wants to know about these issues in a matter-of-fact and understandable manner what we have understood so far, what we are observing and what we believe we can expect to see in the future. It is particularly important that the younger generation, i.e. those currently of school or pre- school age, grows up with this knowledge available as they are the ones most likely to be affected.
top
|
