Comparing impacts of global climate change

Climate change impacts many aspects that humans rely on, ranging from the productivity of ecosystems, to water availability and food security. Ryan Pavlick and Axel Kleidon of the Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry were involved in a first, multisectoral impact assessment of climate change that was led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research (PIK). The results of this assessment are compiled in two publications that now appeared in a special issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS).

The study by F. Piontek and others looked at the regional distribution of climate change impacts of the different sections and where these are most severe. A. Friend and others evaluated the uncertainty of global vegetation models and identified the residence time of living biomass as a major uncertainty for carbon cycle projections. For more details, please refer to the press releases of the respective institutions.