Max Planck Institutes and Experts

How does the biosphere and biogeochemical cycles react to climate variability? What are the main vegetation and soil processes involved? How can the different observation systems be used at various spatial scales to obtain improved diagnostic capabilities concerning the Earth System? The Biogeochemical Model-Data Integration Group at the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena is dedicated to these and related scientific questions using a highly integrative approach.

Scientists of the Max-Planck-Institute for Chemistry have developed two geochemical databases, GEOROC and GeoReM, which are used by earth and environmental scientists from all over the world. The public databases are available online and contain tens of thousands published chemical analyses of geological and environmental samples as well as of nearly all (1600) international reference materials.

With the launch of the satellite instrument ‘GOME’ in April 1995 it became possible for the first time to measure the distribution of several surface-near trace gases. In the derived ‘trace gas-worldmaps’ various emission sources can be identified and quantified. By comparison with numerical simulations it is possible to test and improve the budgets of atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gases.

Particles suspended in the atmosphere, so-called aerosols, reflect sunlight and alter cloud properties. In the global mean anthropogenic pollution aerosol by these direct and indirect effects cools the climate. The studies presented here in which new comprehensive remote sensing data are used show that for the direct as well as for the indirect effect former estimates for the climate effect of anthropogenic aerosol have been exaggerated.

Many transport processes in the oceans and seas - in the water column and the seabeds - are of physicochemical nature. Small scale hydrodynamic and gasdynamic processes causing global effects play a major role in improving our understanding of marine systems, and hence, of our planet. Research concentrates on numerical simulation of diffusion, advection and chemical reaction processes as well as particle and gas transport in marine systems.