Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry

The year 2024 saw Max Planck scientists publishing exceptional research across disciplines. We have selected twelve highlights to share

Max Planck researchers are witnessing first-hand the alarming scale of forest fires in the Amazon

Rescue from the UV catastrophe

Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw) honours the best scientific press releases of the past year.

The devastating storms, rainfall, heatwaves and droughts of the past year have become more likely and more severe as a result of global warming

Drought and heavy rainfall – climate change is altering the planet’s water cycles. That has considerable consequences for ecosystems and thus for our food supply. Max Planck researchers are refining climate models to better understand interrelationships, predict regional impacts, and enable adaptation to changing water availability.

Excessive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer and nitrogen compounds from fossil fuels pollute the soil, air, and water in different ways. But how do these substances affect our climate? An international team led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena has taken stock of the various climate effects of nitrogen compounds.

In the political discussions about the energy transition, half-truths and untruths circulate – something that annoys Axel Kleidon. The physicist, who analyzes the Earth system from a thermodynamic perspective at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, contributes to the debate with scientific facts in an effort to help the energy transition succeed.

No animal, plant, or single-celled organism can do without nitrogen, but humans are putting more and more of it into circulation – with various consequences for health and the environment. Sönke Zaehle, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, is studying the nitrogen cycle and its relationship to the climate. The findings are important for environmental policy.

Over a trillion tons of carbon are sequestered in permanently frozen soils (permafrost), especially in the Arctic Circle. But this frozen ground is steadily thawing as a result of climate change. Whether or not this will lead to the release of large quantities of greenhouse gases is one of the vital unresolved questions in climate research. Mathias Göckede, who heads a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, is among those looking into this question and he has already come up with some surprising answers.

Climate change is devastating forests in Germany and other European regions. Our traditional understanding of which tree species can withstand heat and drought no longer holds true, which is why ecophysiologist Henrik Hartmann is calling for the creation of an interdisciplinary Institute for Forest Conversion. This new institute would provide scientific insights into how forests can be constituted to be able to withstand ongoing global warming.

Climate research is currently mainly carried out using complex models on powerful computers. We are going in the opposite direction and trying to explain the climate as simply as possible using basic physical principles. In doing so, we assume that the complex climate system can be described simply because it operates at its performance limit - it works as hard as it can to keep air moving. This explains, for example, why deserts are warmer than tropical rainforests and makes it possible to describe climate phenomena in a simple but physically sound way.

The harmful greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) enter the atmosphere from both natural and man-made sources. The goal of the CoMet 2.0 Arctic mission with the HALO research aircraft in the summer of 2022 was to find out how much greenhouse gases the various sources actually emit. For this purpose, we equipped HALO with a system for the highly accurate and continuous in-situ measurement of carbon dioxide and methane. Our direct measurements of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere promise more accurate in-situ data than previous models. 

The frequency of extreme weather and climate events increases with each additional degree of global warming.  Such events impact key ecosystem function leaving legacies over several years. As the intervals between stress conditions shorten, the recovery time between two events is limited, threatening ecosystem stability. Remote-sensing is a valuable tool for monitoring vegetation condition and impact/recovery pathways associated with extreme events. Such information can provide important insights into management strategies to mitigate some of the impacts of climate change.

The life and survival of humans on Earth depends on the functioning of the outermost layer of our planet, the "Critical Zone." In the Anthropocene, human actions have interfered with the exchange of matter between organisms and ecosystems, threatening the functioning of the Critical Zone. We examine how biodiversity loss reduces continental carbon storage, accelerating climate change. The world of soil microorganisms is the focus of our interest, as this is where the molecular drive of global matter cycles is hidden.

Climate extremes, in particular heat waves, droughts, and their combination are inevitably increasing as a result of climate change. But little is known about how these events affect the terrestrial biosphere, which ecosystem functions are severely affected, and what feedbacks this may trigger in the climate system. At the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry we are developing new methods for the detection of extreme events in heterogeneous data streams. Our results show, among other things, how differently various ecosystems can react to extreme events.