Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

About: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research is a facility organization based out in Potsdam, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Climate change & Global warming. The organization has 1519 authors who have published 5098 publications receiving 367023 citations.

Projecting the future distribution of European potential natural vegetation zones with a generalized, tree species-based dynamic vegetation model

Abstract: Aim To assess the extent to which climate change might cause changes in potential natural vegetation (PNV) across Europe.

Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia

Abstract: We present new sea-level reconstructions for the past 2100 y based on salt-marsh sedimentary sequences from the US Atlantic coast. The data from North Carolina reveal four phases of persistent sea-level change after correction for glacial isostatic adjustment. Sea level was stable from at least BC 100 until AD 950. Sea level then increased for 400 y at a rate of 0.6 mm/y, followed by a further period of stable, or slightly falling, sea level that persisted until the late 19th century. Since then, sea level has risen at an average rate of 2.1 mm/y, representing the steepest century-scale increase of the past two millennia. This rate was initiated between AD 1865 and 1892. Using an extended semiempirical modeling approach, we show that these sea-level changes are consistent with global temperature for at least the past millennium.

‘Earth system’ analysis and the second Copernican revolution

Abstract: Optical magnification instruments once brought about the Copernican revolution that put the Earth in its correct astrophysical context. Sophisticated information-compression techniques including simulation modelling are now ushering in a second ‘Copernican’ revolution. The latter strives to understand the ‘Earth system’ as a whole and to develop, on this cognitive basis, concepts for global environmental management.

Assessing Vulnerabilities to the Effects of Global Change: An Eight-Step Approach

Abstract: In the recent years, global environmental change research has seen increased attention to the concept of vulnerability. There have been a growing number of vulnerability assessments, but relatively little discussion on appropriate and common methods. Here we propose a method to guide vulnerability assessments of coupled human–environment systems toward a common objective: informing the decision-making of specific stakeholders about options for adapting to the effects of global change. We suggest five criteria vulnerability assessments must at least possess to achieve this objective. They should have a knowledge base from various disciplines and stakeholder participation, be place based, consider multiple interacting stresses, examine differential adaptive capacity, and be prospective as well as historical. On the basis of these criteria, we present a general methodological guideline of eight steps. To examine whether these eight steps, if attentively coordinated, do in fact achieve the criteria, and in turn satisfy the objective of the assessment, we discuss two case studies. We expect most readers to identify some of the steps as part of their well-established disciplinary practices. However, they should also identify one or more steps as uncommon to their research traditions. Thus taken together the eight steps constitute a novel methodological framework. We hypothesize that if researchers employ this framework, then the products of the research will (1) achieve the objective of preparing stakeholders for the effects of global change on a site-specific basis, and (2) further the “public good” of additional insights through cross-study comparisons of research projects designed according to common principles.