Human-Earth System Interactions
The human impact on the Earth’s system has been coined anthropogenic climate change. The feedbacks between climate and society have been examined in order to understand how humans can change and improve their behavior to have a better impact on the climate. Greenhouse gas emissions are just one example of human behavior with harmful environmental impacts, but cumulative land use change (LUC) emissions are greater by far. Socio-politico-technical processes will determine policy implementations, climate projections, and feedbacks between climate and society. Solutions to climate change rely on these processes to understand how humans interact within the Earth System. Here we feature a series of talks given at the Aspen Global Change Institute addressing a range of strategies to better understand the interactions and feedbacks between human and earth systems through improved linkages and coupled modeling of human and earth systems.
Complexity and Uncertainty of Human Feedbacks to Climate Change
Speaker: Brian Beckage, University of Vermont
Date aired: 19 July 2021
Land Use Climate Feedbacks- Reconciling Mitigation and Adaptation
Speaker: Julia Pongratz, University of Munich
Date aired: 19 July 2021
Case Study 1 – Climate System: Integrating human and modeling uncertainty, impacts and extreme projections, missing processes, and ensemble limitations
Speaker: Claudia Tebaldi, CGD/NCAR
Date aired: 20 July 2021
Case Study 2 – Mitigation: Afforestation and carbon dioxide removal
Speaker: Sabine Fuss, MCC Berlin
Date aired: 20 July 2021
“Halting Climate Change: Why Zero Emissions Is Only the Beginning”
Speaker: Joeri Rogelj, Imperial College London
Date aired: 20 July 2021
About: The 2015 U.N. Paris Agreement has set a goal of keeping global warming well below 2°C, and preferably to 1.5°C. In this lecture, Dr. Joeri Rogelj of Imperial College London looka at what that means for the amount of carbon dioxide that can still be emitted, the emissions pathways we need to follow, and why reaching net-zero emissions is only the beginning of a much longer journey.
Role of Human-Earth System Interactions in Scenario and Model Development: A CMIP-Focused Discussion
Speaker:Jean-François, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Date aired: 21 July 2021
Representation of Land Use/Cover Change and Land Management in Scenario-Based Modeling
Speaker: Alan Di Vittorio, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Date aired: 21 July 2021
Want to learn more?
If you are interested in this webinar series and modeling earth and human system interactions, take a look at our webpage for the MESH Working Group. You’ll find the group’s objectives and recent developments in the field.