Climate Engineering – ein Sammelbegriff für großskalige technische Eingriffe in  das Klimasystem der Erde – wird zunehmend als Option im Kampf gegen den anthropogenen Klimawandel diskutiert. Wie die Definition schon andeutet, hat jeder Einsatz von Climate Engineering potenziell globale Auswirkungen: Weltweit würden das Klima und Ökosysteme verändert, und damit die Umwelt ganzer Gesellschaften. Aus diesem Grund greift eine rein naturwissenschaftliche oder ökonomische Analyse der Thematik viel zu kurz, gerade weil so viele Umweltmedien, Gesellschaften und menschliche Lebensbereiche durch das Climate Engineering tangiert werden. Deshalb kann nur eine interdisziplinäre Herangehensweise, die auch die gesellschaftlichen Aspekte einschließt, eine zufriedenstellende Analyse des Themas gewährleisten.

Ziel des Forschungsprogramms "Herausforderung Klimawandel" ist es die Folgen und mögliche Risiken des Klimawandels für Baden-Württemberg abzuschätzen. Dabei sollen nicht nur Veränderungen der meteorologischen Variablen – wie Temperatur, Niederschlag, Wind – beurteilt werden, sondern auch die Auswirkungen dieser Veränderungen auf die Umwelt eingeschätzt werden.

CONTINENT aims to
(i) reconstruct abrupt climate changes during the Holocene and Eemian and Terminations I and II in Eurasia and
(ii) to compare these records with abrupt changes in Europe. Sediment cores will be selected using seismic survey in Baikal. Biogenic and minerogenic particle fluxes will be monitored through the water column and into the sediments using remote sensing and trap arrays. Attention will be paid to processes occurring at the sediment/water-interface (to produce mass balance models for climate proxies). Climate reconstructions will be based on a multiproxy approach at high time resolution (diatoms, pollen, biomarkers, stable isotopes, photosynthetic pigments and minerogenic particles). Transfer functions will be derived using multivariate techniques. An age model will be constructed allowing the rate of changes to be assessed and compared to European records. Special emphasis will be towards a better understanding of teleconnections.

Over the last century, a considerable increase in global, hemispheric and regional average surface temperatures has been observed, along with trends in temperature and precipitation extremes. The first decade of the 21st century was globally the warmest in the instrumental
temperature record and has brought a number of remarkable weather and climate extremes to European countries and Russia which had considerable impacts on society and ecosystems.
Among the most recent of these extreme events are the cold winter of 2009/2010, the Russian heat wave of 2010 and the flooding in Central Europe in 2010. Further extreme events affecting Europe and Russia are extreme air pollution, strong marine storms and wind waves and fast
permafrost thawing.

In this project, we shall investigate if these extremes are already affected by and in which way they will change in the future in response to global warming. First, we aim to understand individual events such as the Russian heat wave 2010, the cold winter 2009/2010 or the flooding in Central Europe 2010, and the mechanisms underlying extremes in cyclone activity and marine storminess. Second, we aim to determine the influence of external forcing and internal modes of decadal variability, in particular the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation, on extreme events.
Third, we shall assess the representation of extreme events in climate models, in particular as a function of model resolution, and on regional scales. Fourth, we shall develop future scenarios of extreme events in Europe and Russia including the associated uncertainties.
To address these questions, we shall carry out case study simulations, sensitivity integrations and future projections with global and very high-resolution regional climate models in different
forcing and coupling settings. These experiments and additional millennial-long control runs will be validated against observational data by means of modern statistical methods, in particular extreme value theory, vector-generalised regression models and cyclone tracking algorithms.
The regional climate model projections will be bias-corrected with a special focus on correcting the magnitudes of extreme events.
The project will extend the existing collaboration between the participating institutes on largescale climate phenomena towards extreme events on a regional scale. By bringing together expertise in regional climate, global climate as well as statistical modelling and data analysis, a unique research team will be created capable to address a wide range of scientific questions
regarding extreme events under climate change. The project will lead to a direct knowledge transfer from the IFM-GEOMAR to the Russian teams in global climate modelling and extreme value theory, and vice versa in regional climate modelling.

The anticipated results will improve the understanding of the mechanisms underlying extreme events and their variability and can be used to better predict potential future events. The improved predictability on decadal to multi-decadal time scales and the provision of biascorrected scenarios of future climate extremes and their associated uncertainties will help end
users and stake holders to implement adaptation measures to changes in the statistics of extreme events, and will help policy makers to assess the required degree of climate change mitigation.

Orbital variability and high latitude circulation and climate change during the Pliocene-Pleistocene

Changes in atmospheric composition directly affect many aspects of life, determining climate, air quality and atmospheric inputs to ecosystems. In turn, these changes affect the fundamental necessities for human existence: human health, food production, ecosystem health and water. Atmospheric composition change research is therefore fundamental for the future orientation of Europe's Sustainable Development strategy. The overall goals of ACCENT are to promote a common European strategy for research on atmospheric composition change, to develop and maintain durable means of communication and collaboration within the European scientific community, to facilitate this research and to optimise twoway interactions with policy-makers and the general public.

ACCENT will establish Europe as an international leader in atmospheric composition change research, able to steer research agendas through its involvement in major international programmes. ACCENT furthermore aims to become the authoritative voice in Europe on issues dealing with atmospheric
composition change and sustainability.

The ACCENT joint research programme focuses on aerosols, biosphere-atmosphere interaction and transport and transformation of pollutants and it also looks for new partnership in economic and Earth System analysis. Integration will be achieved by creating common facilities and activities including: a dedicated interactive web portal, models, data-bases, measurement platforms, training and education opportunities, quality assurance procedures and facilities, integrated assessment and synthesis of scientific results and an interface with the general public. The excellence and the commitment of the ACCENT Partnership guarantee an effective and durable integration of the European atmospheric composition change research and that it becomes a pillar of the European Research Area.

As the evidence for human induced climate change becomes clearer, so too does the realization that its effects will have impacts on natural environment and socio-economic systems. Some regions are more vulnerable than others, both to physical changes and to the consequences for ways of life. The proposal will assess the impacts of a changing climate on the quantity and quality of water in mountain regions. Modeling techniques will be used to project the influence of climatic change on the major determinants of river discharge at various time and space scales. Regional climate models will provide the essential information on shifting precipitation and temperature patterns, and snow, ice, and biosphere models will feed into hydrological models in order to assess the changes in seasonality, amount, and incidence of extreme events in various catchment areas. Environmental and socio-economic responses to changes in hydrological regimes will be analyzed in terms of hazards, aquatic ecosystems, hydropower, tourism, agriculture, and the health implications of changing water quality. Attention will also be devoted to the interactions between land use/land cover changes, and changing or conflicting water resource demands. Adaptation and policy options will be elaborated on the basis of the model results. Specific environmental conditions of mountain regions will be particularly affected by rapidly rising temperatures, prolonged droughts and extreme precipitation. The methodological developments gained from a European mountain focus will be used to address water issues in regions whose economic conditions and political structures may compromise capacities to respond and adapt, such as the Andes and Central Asia where complex problems resulting from asymmetric power relations and less robust institutions arise. Methodologies developed to study European mountains and their institutional frameworks will identify vulnerabilities and be used to evaluate a range of policy options.

The core objectives of ADAM (ADaptation And Mitigation) are:

To assess the extent to which existing and evolving EU (and world) mitigation and adaptation policies can achieve a tolerable transition (a 'soft landing') to a world  with a global climate no warmer than 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, and to identify their associated costs and effectiveness, including an assessment of the damages avoided compared to a scenario where climate change continues unchecked to 5 C.

To develop and appraise a portfolio of longer term strategic policy options that could contribute to addressing identified shortfalls both between existing mitigation policies and the achievement of the EU's 2 C target, and between existing  adaptation policy development and implied EU goals and targets for adaptation.

To develop a novel Policyoptions Appraisal Framework and apply it both to existing and evolving policies, and to new, long-term strategic policy options, so as to inform: European and international climate protection strategy in post-2012 Kyoto negotiations, a restructuring of International Development Assistance, the EU electricity sector and regional spatial planning.

The ADAM project will lead to a better understanding of the synergies, trade-offs and conflicts that exist between adaptation and mitigation policies at multiple scales. Crucially, ADAM will support EU policy development in the next stage of the
development of the Kyoto Protocol, in particular negotiations around a post-2012 global climate policy regime, and will inform the emergence of new adaptation strategies for Europe. The main impact of the ADAM project will be to improve
the quality and relevance of scientific and stakeholder contributions to the  development and evaluation of climate change policy options within the European Commission. This will help the Commission to deliver on its current medium-term
climate policy objectives and help inform its development of a longer-term climate strategy.

Threats to the environment and natural resources, coupled with poor management, have serious implications for both poverty reduction and sustainable economic development. Degrading natural resources in Africa therefore result in an inreased vulnerability of the poor as a result of ecosystem stress, competition for space, soaring food and energy prices, climate change and demographic growth. Nowadays, it is widely accepted that reversing these trends asks for integrated management frameworks. Despite the availability of many tools, expertise, strategies, local practices and indigenous knowledge, the concept of INRM has hardly been brought into practice and the building blocks of INRM (see description acronym) in many cases still need to be integrated. AFROMAISON will make use of what is available regarding INRM and will contribute to a better integration of the components of INRM. In view of the decentralization policy in Africa, we aim to focus on the operational requirements of INRM for sub-national (or meso-scale) authorities and communities.
The main outputs of AFROMAISON are a toolbox, short-term to long-term strategies, quick wins (much gains with little effort) and operational strategies for adaptation to global change. In order to enhance the potential impact, we will put strong efforts in integrated capacity building and a solid dissemination strategy. In order to do so, we will integrate tools, frameworks, strategies and processes for landscape functioning, livelihood & socio-economic development (incl. vulnerability to global change), local knowledge, institutional strenghtening and improved interaction between sectors, scales and communities. For the development of concrete operational strategies for adaptation to global change, AFROMAISON will focus on the three groups of tools: strategies for restoration and adaptation (including sustainable landscape intensification), economic tools and incentives for INRM and tools for spatial planning.

Verbundprojekt: Berücksichtigung großer Vulkanausbrüche bei mittelfristigen Klimaprognosen (ALARM, Alert for LARge volcanic eruptions in Medium term climate prediction), Teilprojekt 2, (Modul B)