Next Events
Stockholm, Sweden
Buenos Aires, Argentina [website]
The published version of the ICSU-IGFA review of IGBP is now available (PDF only - February 2009). To download this report please go to the page on the [ICSU website]
Welcome to IGBP
Call for bids to host the third symposium on the ocean in a high-CO2 world
The Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, and International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme are planning a third symposium on The Ocean in a High-CO2 World, to take place in 2012. The three-day symposium will focus on ocean acidification and its impacts on marine organisms, ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles. It will also cover socio-economic consequences of ocean acidification, including policy and management implications.
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Vacancy announcement: Director, ICSU Regional Office for Africa
The International Council for Science (ICSU) invites applications for the post of Director of its Regional Office for Africa (Sub-Saharan Africa), which was established at the National Research Foundation (NRF), Pretoria, South Africa in 2005.
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Are drylands overlooked in Earth-system research?
A dryland forest in Israel takes up carbon at rates similar to those of pine forests in continental Europe.
Link: Science 22 January
Earth-system science visioning: international consultation
The International Council for Science (ICSU) is inviting organisations and individuals for their input on the challenges in global sustainability research for the next decade, via an online consultation. Deadline: 21 February 2010. ICSU is IGBP's parent organisation.
International conference: ‘Global Change and the World's Mountains’
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change call for nominations for authors of Fifth Assessment Report
Deadline: 12 March 2010
For more information see: IPCC
Major international synthesis - Planet Under Pressure: knowledge and solutions
IGBP is launching a second major international synthesis of key policy-relevant areas within global environmental-change research. Research areas under consideration:
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Nine planetary boundaries identified
An international group of scientists, including two former IGBP directors, has identified nine planetary boundaries. The researchers, led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre with close involvement from the IGBP community, say crossing these boundaries could cause the planet to slide out of the relative stability of the Holocene era. This era has lasted 12,000 years and allowed agriculture and complex society to flourish.
The nine boundaries are climate change, stratospheric ozone, land-use change, freshwater use, biological diversity, ocean acidification, nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans, aerosol loading and chemical pollution. Lead author Johan Rockstöm told the IGBP symposium, Planet Under Pressure, (24 September) that three of these boundaries - climate change, biological diversity and nitrogen input to the biosphere - may already have been transgressed.
IGBP Executive Director, Professor Sybil Seitzinger and Chairman Professor Carlos Nobre, and others in the IGBP community involved in the planetary boundaries concept are presently involved in research to advance this work. The paper was published in Nature, 24 September.
Planetary boundaries powerpoint presentation
Earth System Science: Climate, Global Change and People Open Science Conference
The IGBP project Analysis, Integration and Modelling of the Earth System (AIMES) holds its Open Science Conference 10-13 May 2010 in Edinburgh, UK.