Climate change
Man-made climate change poses a growing threat to our environment, the way we live, and to our economy and security. The remote consequences - the melting of glaciers, for example - are also having an ever greater effect on our day-to-day lives.
Long-lasting heat waves harm plants and soils and lead to crop losses in agriculture. Human and animal health is suffering from record-breaking temperatures. Prolonged precipitation or sudden torrential rain are becoming a serious risk, causing enormous damage. Increasing global warming is also a threat to many animal and plant species.
It is important to have a very good understanding of how our actions impact Earth, the climate and environment. This is why the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has been investing large amounts in climate and Earth system research for many years.
The role of climate research
We need to know which approaches are effective in order to implement effective climate protection and climate adaptation measures and achieve our goal of climate neutrality by 2045.
Climate research therefore provides climate and environmental information as well as data bases for protection and precautionary decisions. In industries such as steel, cement and glass, which produce significant amounts of climate-damaging emissions, research focuses on new, environmentally friendly technologies and processes.
The ocean as climate archive and carbon sink
Marine and polar research is one of the mainstays of climate research. It can, for example, reconstruct climate history by using ice cores collected from the great polar ice sheets. Deep drilling in the sediment on the ocean floor also delivers important information about climate developments. The data collected generates knowledge about the global climate at time scales that go back up to several hundred million years.
Climate change would be much further advanced without the oceans. Oceans can also store vast amounts of heat and gases. So far, they have absorbed some 30 percent of man-made carbon dioxide. Future research will focus on gaining an even better understanding of these processes which are so vital to our existence and to further develop carbon storage capacity via technological means. The BMBF finances this scientific investigation in a broad-based Research Mission of the German Marine Research Alliance (DAM).
The need for a large knowledge base
Marine research is also climate research, which is why the BMBF creates the best possible parameters for top-notch international research. We promote innovative, high-performance tools for exploring the world’s oceans. This includes high-tech equipment as well as research vessels.
More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lowers the pH level of the water, which harms the organisms that live there. Marine and polar research documents the changes in the oceans and seas on the basis of millions of data collected in water bodies, on the ocean floor or in the ice of the polar regions. The larger the knowledge base is, the more targeted our policy decisions can be made to effectively counter the impact of climate change.