Press releases
IGBP statement supporting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's process for assessing climate change, its causes, its impacts and responses, is reliable.
Major global change conference focusing on solutions announced
The UK has successfully bid to host a major international science conference in 2012. The London conference, Planet Under Pressure: new knowledge, new solutions, aims to attract 2500 of the world's leading thinkers on global-change research.
IGBP Climate-Change Index
The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme launches the IGBP Climate-Change Index at the United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen on 9 December (COP15).
The index brings together key indicators of global change: carbon dioxide, temperature, sea level and sea ice to give an annual snapshot of how the planet's complex systems - the ice, the oceans, the atmosphere - are responding to the changing climate. More
Scientists at climate talks say major changes to the nitrogen cycle cannot be ignored
An international group of scientists say there is an immediate need for a global assessment of the nitrogen cycle and its impact on climate.
On a planetary scale, human activities, especially fertiliser application, have more than doubled the amount of reactive nitrogen in circulation. This massive alteration of the nitrogen cycle affects climate, food security, energy security, human health and ecosystem health. The long-term consequences of these changes are yet to be fully realised, but the human impact on the nitrogen cycle has so far been largely missed in international environmental assessments.
Nitrogen's role in climate change will be highlighted at an event on 7 December at the COP-15 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Economic crisis makes discernible dent in emissions growth
Global carbon budget 2008
The global recession probably explains the modest 2% growth in carbon dioxide emissions in 2008 compared with 2007 according to the 2008 global carbon budget, published in the journal Nature Geoscience 17 November. Between 2000 and 2007, the average growth rate of emissions was 3.4% a year.
The new budget from the Global Carbon Project, an IGBP joint project, shows the human impact on the carbon cycle continues to grow strongly, tracking the most carbon intensive scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's leading authority on climate.
The research also shows the amount of atmospheric CO2 absorbed by the land and oceans has declined during the last 60 years, so more emissions from human activities remain in the atmosphere.
Developing countries must prepare for large-scale change (Joint IPCC/IGBP workshop)
Impact, adaptation and vulnerability
Joint IPCC/IGBP workshop 4-6 November 2009
Brazil
This week, an international group of experts meet in Brazil to discuss how global change will affect nations with a focus on developing countries.
The researchers will talk about the most effective ways societies might respond to the inevitable temperature rise and related global environmental changes. In particular, world-leading natural- and social scientists will consider the best ways to identify and address societal vulnerabilities and adapt to change.
Open Science Conference: Analysis, Integration and Modelling of the Earth System (AIMES), Edinburgh, 10-13 May 2010
Earth System Science: Climate, Global Change and People
Open Science Conference, Edinburgh, 10-13 May 2010
The AIMES Open Science Conference will present recent advances in the understanding of Earth-system dynamics and highlight new directions in analysing the interactions between humans and their environment. It is intended the conference will help build bridges between the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities, and between policy, assessment and research.
Has northern-hemisphere pollution affected Australian rainfall?
New research announced at the international Water in a changing climate science conference in Melbourne 24-28 August, implicates pollution from Asia, Europe and North America as a contributor to recent Australian rainfall changes.
Call for proposals to host a major international global-change Open Science Conference in 2012
Planet Under Pressure: new knowledge, new solutions
IGBP is seeking sponsors and a host city for its 2012 Open Science Conference, Planet Under Pressure: new knowledge, new solutions. The three-day science conference will attract around 2500 world-leading environmental-change scientists. It will be followed by a day dedicated to discussing the findings with policymakers, the public, and funders of environmental science.
The deadline for applications is 30 October 2009.