The new research project "PollenNet" aims to use artificial intelligence to accurately predict the spread of pollen. In order to improve allergy prevention, experts are bringing together the latest interdisciplinary findings from a wide range of fields.
If rivers overflow their banks, the consequences can be devastating. Using methods of explainable machine learning, researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) have shown that floods are more extreme when several factors are involved in their development.
Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world. According to the European Environment Agency’s assessment, many of these risks have already reached critical levels and could become catastrophic without urgent and decisive action.
Plant observations collected with plant identification apps such as Flora Incognita allow statements about the developmental stages of plants - both on a small scale and across Europe.
We have gained a new external member: Prof. Dr. Christian Wirth has been appointed by the Senate of the Max Planck Society as External Scientific Member. As a former group leader and later fellow at the institute, Prof. Wirth initiated and supported the development of the TRY database, the world's largest collection on plant traits.
Removing a tonne of CO2 from the air and thus undoing a tonne of emissions? Doesn't quite work, says a study. And provides four objections in view of Earth systems.
The new report by the Global Carbon Project shows: Fossil CO2 emissions will reach a record high in 2023. If emissions remain this high, the carbon budget that remains before reaching the 1.5°C limit will probably be used up in seven years. Although emissions from land use are decreasing slightly, they are still too high to be compensated by renewable forests and reforestation.
Global experts have unveiled the annual 10 New Insights in Climate Science report. The report equips policymakers with the latest and most pivotal climate science research from the previous 18 months, synthesised to help inform negotiations at COP28 and policy implementation through 2024 and beyond.
In the annual ranking of the world's most cited and thus most influential scientists, five authors from our institute are once again represented in 2023.
Vegetation can respond to drought through different mechanisms, including changes in the plants’ structure and physiology. By analyzing state-of-the-art satellite-derived datasets with explainable machine learning methods, an international team around Wantong Li and René Orth showed that the vegetation’s physiology in many ecosystems has deviated from its structure under drought on a global scale.
Carbon sinks on the land surface mitigate the greenhouse effect. An international team of scientists has now determined that the vast majority of Europe’s total above-ground carbon storage is provided by the forests of Eastern Europe. However, this carbon sink has declined, mainly due to changes in land use.