PIK addresses crucial scientific questions in the fields of global change, climate impacts and sustainable development. Researchers from the natural and social sciences work together to generate interdisciplinary insights and to provide society with sound information for decision making.
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Humanity has become a geological force capable of suppressing the beginning of the next ice age, according to a study published in the journal Nature. Cracking the code of glacial inception, scientists of the Potsdam Institute ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 13, 2016
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2282
The Atlantic overturning—one of Earth's most important heat transport systems, pumping warm water northward and cold water southward—is weaker today than any time before in more than 1000 years. Sea surface temperature ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 11, 2018
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326
Of the over 400 climate scenarios assessed in the 1.5°C report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), only around 50 scenarios avoid significantly overshooting 1.5°C. Of those only around 20 make realistic ...
Environment
May 14, 2021
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682
CO2 greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere are likely higher today than ever before in the past 3 million years. During this time, global mean temperatures never exceeded preindustrial levels by more than 2 degrees C. The ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 4, 2019
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2366
The Atlantic overturning is one of Earth's most important heat transport systems, pumping warm water northwards and cold water southwards. Also known as the Gulf Stream system, it is responsible for the mild climate in northwestern ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 23, 2015
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1063
66 million years ago, the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs started the ascent of the mammals, ultimately resulting in humankind's reign on Earth. Climate scientists have now reconstructed how tiny droplets of sulfuric acid ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 16, 2017
0
785
In more than 1,000 years, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as Gulf Stream System, has not been as weak as in recent decades. This is the result of a new study by scientists from Ireland, ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 25, 2021
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538
Limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees C requires a decarbonized world by 2050 at the latest, and a corresponding global transformation of the energy and land use systems of societies around the world. To achieve ...
Environment
Jan 20, 2020
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1431
While burning coal today causes Earth to overheat, about 300 million years ago, the formation of coal brought the planet close to global glaciation. For the first time, scientists show the massive effect in a study to be ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 9, 2017
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361
The huge West Antarctic ice sheet would collapse completely if the comparatively small Amundsen Basin is destabilized, scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research find. A full discharge of ice into the ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 2, 2015
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