Science

Closing the loop: Reconnecting social-technologial dynamics to Earth System science

Saal Borg
Jonathan Donges
International commitment to the appropriately ambitious Paris climate agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 has pulled into the limelight the urgent need for major scientific progress in understanding and modelling the Anthropocene, the tightly intertwined social-techno-ecological planetary system that humanity now inhabits. The Anthropocene qualitatively differs from previous eras in Earth’s history in three key characteristics: (1) There is planetary-scale human agency. (2) There are social and economic networks of teleconnections spanning the globe. (3) It is dominated by planetary-scale social-ecological feedbacks. Bolting together old concepts and methodologies cannot be an adequate approach to describing this new geological era. Instead, we need a new paradigm in Earth System science that is founded equally on a deep understanding of the physical and biological Earth System – and of the economic, technological, social and cultural forces that are now an intrinsic part of it. It is time to close the loop and bring socially mediated dynamics and the technosphere explicitly into theory, analysis and computer models that let us study the whole Earth System.

Additional information

Type lecture
Language English

More sessions

12/27/17
Science
hanno
Saal Clarke
We're supposed to trust evidence-based information in all areas of life. However disconcerting news from several areas of science must make us ask how much we can trust scientific evidence.
12/27/17
Science
Saal Clarke
Quantitative science evaluation, such as university rankings, rely on man-made algorithms and man-made databases. The modelling decisions underlying this data-driven algorithmic science evaluation are, among other things, the outcome of a specific power structure in the science system. Power relations are especially visible, when negotiated during processes of boundary work. Therefore, we use the discourse on 'citation cartels', to shed light on a specific perception of fairness in the ...
12/27/17
Science
manuel
Saal Clarke
For a few decades by now, satellites offer us the tools to observe the whole Earth with a wide variety of sensors. The vast amount of data these Earth observations systems collect enters the public discourse reduced to a few numbers, numbers like 3 or even 300. So, how do we know the amount of ice melting in the arctic or how much rain is falling in the Amazon? Are groundwater aquifers stable or are they are being depleted? Are these regular seasonal changes or is there a trend? How can we even ...
12/27/17
Science
Steini
Saal Clarke
Jeder kennt sie, kaum jemand versteht sie wirklich, die vielleicht berühmteste Gleichung der Welt: E=mc^2 Was hat es damit auf sich, was ist die spezielle- und was die allgemeine Relativitätstheorie? Wie kann man sicher sein, dass das wirklich stimmt? Bleibt die Zeit stehen, wenn man sich mit Lichtgeschwindigkeit bewegt? Was ist das Zwillings-Paradoxon und dehnt sich das Universum aus, oder werden wir einfach nur immer kleiner?
12/28/17
Science
Saal Adams
Eine wissenschaftliche Perspektive auf die achtlose Anwendung der Algorithmen des maschinellen Lernens und der künstlichen Intelligenz, z.B. in personalisierten Nachrichtenempfehlungssystemen oder Risikosoftware im US-Justizsystem.
12/28/17
Science
Thorsten
Saal Dijkstra
Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a microscope which allows scientists to map atomic details of viruses, film chemical reactions, or study the processes in the interior of planets? Well, we’ve just built one in Hamburg. It’s not table-top, though: 1 billion Euro and a 3km long tunnel is needed for such a ‘free electron laser’, also called 4th generation synchrotron light source. I will talk about the basic physics and astonishing facts and figures of the operation and application of these ...
12/29/17
Science
Friedemann Reinhard
Saal Dijkstra
Holography of Wi-Fi radiation Philipp Holl [1,2] and Friedemann Reinhard [2] [1] Max Planck Institute for Physics [2] Walter Schottky Institut and Physik-Department, Technical University of Munich When we think of wireless signals such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, we usually think of bits and bytes, packets of data and runtimes. Interestingly, there is a second way to look at them. From a physicist's perspective, wireless radiation is just light, more precisely: coherent electromagnetic radiation. It ...