How sensitive is the oceanic conveyor belt to the influx of glacial melt water and/or decrease of seasonal ice formation in the Arctic Ocean/North Atlantic Ocean?

The impact of all other global warming issues may be minimized if there is a threshold of fresh water influx and/or decrease of seasonal ice formation which may soon be exceeded and thus dramatically slow or reverse the trend of global warming.

Can we quantify uncertainties in complex models of the complete Earth System?

The models we are using to base our judgements on are all imperfect. We must acknowledge this and attempt to address quantitatively how these uncertainties affect the judgements we are able to make on the basis of these models. Without uncertainty estimates (error bars if you like) any decision making will be arbitrary. With them it is more complex, remains subjective but at least can be justified and explained. This will be essential if the hard choices that we face are to be effectively communicated and acted on. Addressing uncertainty is central to all aspects of modelling, from the dynamic climate models to models of ecological systems, society and economics. Coupling such models makes uncertainty quantification even more essential. I believe this is a fundamental question to address before we can even start to answer specific questions about the Earth System.

What are the impacts of an ice-depleted Arctic Ocean?

Arctic sea ice extent dropped to record lows during the northern summers of 2007 and 2008—part of a longer-term decline in the summer extent of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean. The impacts have physical, biological, and socio-economic dimensions—and they arise on all scales from local to global and on timeframes from days to decades. For example, the impacts of an ice-free Arctic Ocean have the potential to be quick and global because the effects of changing surface conditions (warmer, darker, more moisture) can be efficiently redistributed by the atmosphere. Shipping routes such as the Northwest passage and Northern Sea Route may become reliably navigable each summer, with attendant economic and environmental benefits and/or costs. And coastal Arctic social-biological systems already face great change and uncertainty as a result of recent trends in sea ice extent. Prediction of sea ice extent is made difficult by incomplete knowledge of sea ice thickness. Furthermore, external factors such as the patterns and trends of ocean and atmospheric circulation are not fully understood but are critical for improving the reliability of predictions.

How will humanity manage peak oil and climate change impacts and promote an ordered and gradual transition to low carbon economies?

The strong environmental effects of greenhouse gas emissions derived from oil use and the negative socio-economic consequences of future oil scarcity make it urgent to shift to alternative affordable energy sources. A recent assessment of the International Energy Agency, an OECD prestigious institution, alerts that oil shortage and increased energy costs can easily be an immediate reality after the current financial crisis if massive and strategic investments in oil industry are not rapidly and massively implemented.

Multiple economic, scientific, technological and political pathways should be implemented to achieve this global energy transition. States should empower their national strategies to improve the efficiency in energy generation, transmission and consumption and thus reduce progressively carbon emissions. States should also facilitate the massive deployment of renewable energies and public transport, promote the progressive electrification of the car industry, and globally shift to sustainable strategies in many other economic sectors. At the international level, governments should rapidly promote multilateral and bilateral cooperative agreements on energy and climate policies. In addition, states might promote the creation of a United Nations international programme to facilitate and coordinate a world-wide ordered and non-traumatic transition to low-carbon and energy-efficient economie. This UN international programme could develop or facilitate multilateral regulatory agreements to avoid the emergence of speculative dynamics and volatility on oil prices that ultimately damage economic stability and increase ongoing global food-security crisis. Finally, I advocate for a much greater scientific effort urgently placed on the interactions between peak oil, climate change and global society change. The scale, urgency and severity of peak oil and climate change mean that no action is too small to matter, too large to contemplate, or too soon to begin. There is not much time left.

What are the levels of sustainable development within each country and can these levels be quantified and compared to other countries?

Although complex, a standardized sustainability index per country, comparable to other countries, should be researched and presented. This would indicate levels of sustainability within countries, taking population growth/age, natural resources, pollution levels, etc. into account. Based on this, areas for education/action can be identified. This is both a earth system & social science topic combined, and the final outcome should be to raise awareness within these problem sectors.

How to deal with the uncertainties associated with Earth system research, especially policy-relevant areas?

In addition to climate change uncertainties, we are still lack of knowledge about interactions of land-atmosphere, Atmosphere-sea, aerosol-climate, chemistry-climate, and more importantly human-environment relationships.

How can we get past the debates between natural and anthropogenic causes of global changes, and shift our attention towards reducing and dealing with the impacts of these changes?

How to minimize the natural vs anthropogenic controversy on global changes/warming issues? It seems that there is no more scientific doubts that climate changes are moving the earth system to a warmer period. It seems that the actual controversy on how much is natural and how much is human related is a worthless discussion in many senses. We have to focus on how to diminish the impacts rather than finding which is the guilty mechanism or process. Whatever the solutions, they have to be implemented in the human dimension first.

How to establish balanced use of agricultural land and better ecological function?

Agricultural land occupies about 10% of total land area, pastures not included. Its ecological influence (nutrient cycles, carbon storage, energy, water, biodiversity) is considerably larger. The sector is growing both in extent and intensity. The world needs good ecological function of this sector.

The main task for agriculture is to produce food for mankind. The present main policy is that agricultural production like other “industries” shall be governed by market forces, in reality price competition on a global scale (within a very weak concept “Good Agricultural Practice).

However, there is a contradiction. Factors favouring market competitiveness are specialization and adaptability ( we could say shortsightedness). Factors favouring ecological function are diversity and longterm consideration, exactly the opposite. There are environmental programs, but they are not accepted world wide. They are criticized for distorting competitiveness in both directions.

With a few sacrifices in economy and production (if any in the long term) agriculture could develop much better ecological function even with present knowledge and technology (Background: www.greengard.se/Eco-efficiency.htm . But for the farm manager such measures compromise shortterm competitiveness. He should not be expected to disobey the rules the society has given him.

The research task (economic/political/agronomic) is to create a background for a framework including “ecological values” as drivers for development. Let market economy work also on the ecological side. It should go beyond present attempts with carbon trading etc, and include for instance nutrient and water efficiency, diversity and landscape function.

Göte Bertilsson, Agr system consultant, Sweden

What are the criteria for assessing the effectiveness of integrated conservation and development practices?

The paradigm shift in conservation and the commitment of international organizations to the goals of sustainable development gave birth to integrated conservation and development practices (ICDP). Naughton-treves et al. (2005) in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources concludes that ICDPs have had limited success in improvement of social welfare and biodiversity conservation. There is confusion in operationalising the multiple objectives, ambiguous mandates, and assessing the effectiveness of parks and reserves.

Contribution of conservation areas to development goals and poverty reduction is a complex endeavor and there is no set of conservation strategies for different regions and sub-regions of the world considering the fundamental differences between their institutional and historical context (Naughton-Treves et al. 2005). Combination of conservation and development without any change in market has an inherent contradiction and seeking a win-win situation might be elusive. Either conservation and development objectives should be separated (Berkes 2004) or there should be trade-offs between the two (Garnett et al. 2007) and the compromise would be development projects that minimize environmental degradation and conservation projects that minimize economic loss (Borgerhoff Mulder and Coppolillo 2005). Holland (2005) suggests that the challenge for ICDPs is shifted from “Parks vs people” to “park insiders vs outsiders” (Naughton-Treves et al. 2005).

Foot Note: Frank and Blomley (2004) describe ICDPs as “…approaches to the management and conservation of natural resources in areas of significant biodiversity value that aim to reconcile the biodiversity conservation and socio-economic development interests of multiple stakeholders at local, regional, national and international levels”.

How will marine communities respond to the interactive effects of ocean temperature change, increasing CO2 levels, decreasing pH, and other human-induced forcing over the next century?

Oceanic autotrophs account for about half of total global primary production. The food webs they support are important for a wide variety of human endeavors involving the sea, ranging from fisheries to coastal protection. Yet little is known about the synergistic effects of ongoing global changes on marine communities. Early evidence suggest that some organisms are highly sensitive to pH changes while others are available to take advantage of higher levels of dissolved carbon dioxide. How will species and communities respond to the sum of all forcing agents and at what timescales?

The principle obstacles to making progress in developing answers to this question revolve around the expense and difficulty of conducting ecological, physiological, and biogeochemical/climatic studies at sea.