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Suguta showers (Credit: Annett Junginger, distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

CL Climate: Past, Present & Future Division on Climate: Past, Present & Future

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European Geosciences Union

Division on Climate: Past, Present & Future
cl.egu.eu

Division on Climate: Past, Present & Future

President: Kerstin Treydte (cl@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Irka Hajdas (hajdas@phys.ethz.ch)

The Division on Climate: Past, Present & Future (CL) is one of the larger divisions of the European Geosciences Union. It pools from many disciplines and consequently has many co-organised sessions with other divisions at the EGU General Assembly. The division is very interdisciplinary and covers climate variations on all time scales. CL includes the study of any kind of climate archive from rocks to ocean cores, speleothems, ice cores, chronicles, to instrumental records to name a few. Besides observations, climate modelling on all time scales from the deep past to the future are areas covered by the division. Any aspect of the climate system falls into the realm of the division e.g. atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, cryosphere, and geology. Themes focus on the climate on Earth but may also expand other planets or the Sun.

News

New article on climate tipping points

A recently published article by Armstrong Mckay et al. in Science updates the assessment of major climate tipping elements and their possible tipping points first proposed by Lenton et al. (2008). "Climate tipping points occur when change in a part of the climate system becomes self-sustaining, locking in major negative impacts affecting millions of people. Our results provide strong scientific support for rapid emission cuts in line with the Paris Agreement's more ambitious aim of limiting warming to 1.5°C, which would reduce the chances of triggering multiple climate tipping points" says lead-author Armstrong McKay. There have been major scientific advances since the original paper and several new tipping elements have been proposed (e.g. the East Antarctic ice sheet). The article identifies nine global “core” tipping elements and seven regional “impact” tipping elements, along with their climate tipping point thresholds. With further warming heading towards 1.5 - 2°C above preindustrial levels, the authors determine that at least six of these tipping elements will likely pass their critical thresholds. These include the collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, the demise of low-latitude coral reefs and widespread abrupt permafrost thaw.

References

Armstrong McKay, D.I., Staal, A., Abrams, J.F., Winkelmann, R., Sakschewski, B., Loriani, S., Fetzer, I., Cornell, S.E., Rockström, J., Lenton, T.M., 2022. Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points. Science 377, eabn7950. doi:10.1126/science.abn7950 Lenton, T.M., Held, H., Kriegler, E., Hall, J.W., Lucht, W., Rahmstorf, S., Schellnhuber, H.J., 2008. Tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, 1786–1793. doi:10.1073/pnas.0705414105

Climate Scientists win Nobel Prize for Physics

Climate system is one of the most complex physical systems on this planet. To understand what changes in our climate system can trigger an event, we require excellent understanding of various sub-systems of Earth, an outstanding modelling framework that combines these sub-systems, and enormous computational power. Today we have several coupled Earth system models that can simulate the climate of our planet. This would not have been possible without the pioneering efforts of Prof. Syukuro Manabe and Prof. Klaus Hasselmann, who have driven the climate research and demonstrated that the greenhouse gas emissions is responsible for climate change. For their ground-breaking research that has helped us model and understand one of the most complex systems on this planet, both of them have been awarded 1/4th of the 2021 noble prize for Physics.

This is for the first time that climate scientists have been awarded the most prestigious award in sciences. As climate scientists, we are proud and thrilled to receive this news. The award is timely and it demonstrates the importance of climate research for society. We hope that this award will ignite and enhance public debate on climate change, which should push our leaders to take strong steps in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions, protecting the vulnerable, and ensuring a safer planet for everyone. More news can be found here: EGU press release (7.10.2021) and in a blog post of NP division

Recent awardees

Michael Sigl

Michael Sigl

  • 2024
  • Hans Oeschger Medal

The 2024 Hans Oeschger Medal is awarded to Michael Sigl for his innovative contributions, which improved ice core chronologies and illuminated the impacts of volcanic eruptions on climate and societies.


Peter U. Clark

Peter U. Clark

  • 2024
  • Milutin Milanković Medal

The 2024 Milutin Milanković Medal is awarded to Peter U. Clark for exceptional contributions to reconstructing and understanding how the past climate, ice sheets and sea level responded to perturbations, with a perspective on future committed changes.


Maria A. A. Rugenstein

Maria A. A. Rugenstein

  • 2024
  • Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award

The 2024 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Maria A. A. Rugenstein for outstanding research in climate dynamics and the ocean’s influences on atmospheric feedbacks.


Bette L. Otto-Bliesner

Bette L. Otto-Bliesner

  • 2023
  • Milutin Milanković Medal

The 2023 Milutin Milanković Medal is awarded to Bette L. Otto-Bliesner for her exceptionally outstanding contribution to modelling the earth system from deep-time to glacials and interglacials, and leading pioneering work to use palaeoclimate for better future projection.


Hugues Goosse

Hugues Goosse

  • 2023
  • Hans Oeschger Medal

The 2023 Hans Oeschger Medal is awarded to Hugues Goosse for wide and significant contributions to palaeoclimate modeling and pioneering work in data assimilation in palaeoclimatology.


Ali Serkan Bayar

Ali Serkan Bayar

  • 2023
  • Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award

The 2023 Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award is awarded to Ali Serkan Bayar Greater rate of climate zone change in CMIP6 Earth System Models due to stronger warming rates


Anika Donner

Anika Donner

  • 2023
  • Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award

The 2023 Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award is awarded to Anika Donner Warmer and wetter past interglacials in northeast Greenland recorded in speleothems


Wim Thiery

Wim Thiery

  • 2023
  • Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists

The 2023 Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists is awarded to Wim Thiery for his broad-ranging research contributions on the topics of extreme climate events, climate change impacts, energy meteorology, water resources, and land-atmosphere interactions.

Latest posts from the CL blog

Misinterpretation of glacial aridity in subtropical environments in the Southern Hemisphere

To understand Earth’s changing climate, scientists often examine how the climate has varied in the past, by studying geological records. These records allow us to reconstruct past climates and help us predict planet’s responses to different climate forcings. In this context, it has long been thought that past ice ages on Earth were relatively dry, whereas the warm periods between ice ages were believed to be comparatively wet. For many years, this paradigm has shaped the interpretation of habitat availability …


Spotlighting the Climate Division’s sessions for EGU24

Dear community of climate enthusiasts and EGU lovers, We know that being part of the EGU is not just about staying in the loop with the latest geoscience works – especially when it comes to our all-time favorite realm of sciences: climate sciences 🤩. It is also an amazing opportunity to spark exciting collaborations and expand your network with scientists from all over Europe and the world. EGU is not just a congress; it is it’s a vibrant community powered …


The Walker Circulation: what is it and why does it matter

What is the Walker Circulation? The El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ‘ENSO’, is one of the major causes of year to year variability in Earth’s climate. ENSO is characterised by: changes in the temperature of the ocean’s surface in the tropical Pacific Ocean, and by changes in atmospheric circulation in an east-west direction above the Pacific Ocean. Number two in that list is what makes ENSO so impactful. Because the Pacific Ocean is so enormous, changes in atmospheric circulation over …


Why would anyone care about an ‘Anthropocene’?

– A debate among scientists and its impact on us The epoch of humans (and their obvious intervention in the Earth system) In order to understand what the ‘Anthropocene’ means for us, we need to define first what it actually is. This poses a rather complex question in itself, as various disciplines have given the term rather different and alternative definitions. For instance, the public media uses the term ‘Anthropocene’ to describe the undeniable impact of humans on the environment …

Current issue of the EGU newsletter

How do you get more people to care for the geosciences – a field that affects and influences all of life itself? Scientists across the EGU network share their stories!

Friedrich Barnikel outlines how, since 2003, EGU brings together scientists and teachers for capacity-building workshops, while Evi Nomikou takes us through EGU’s third Geoscience Day, highlighting volcanic geohazards to over 260 school students.

We also hear from Grace Skirrow who breaks down a seemingly complex subject like fluvial geomorphology and the role that it can play in policy decisions. Meanwhile, geologist Sinelethu Hashibi explains why she’s driven to translate geoscience for isiXhosa-speaking communities. And for those of you fond of card games, don’t miss the launch of QUARTETnary: a game about the geological time scale, developed by Iris van Zelst and Lucia Perez-Diaz and partly funded by the EGU Public Engagement Grant 2021.

Finally, don’t forget to visit our EGU24 page to stay up-to-date with information on the upcoming General Assembly this April. You can also subscribe to receive monthly updates in your inbox at the beginning of each month.