I G B P N E W S L E T T E R 4 1

Will Steffen
References IGBP Secretariat, The Royal Swedish
Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S. and Hughes, M.K. (1998) Global-scale temperature patterns and climate
Academy of Sciences, S104 05
forcing over the past six centuries. Nature 392: 779-787 Stockholm,
Petit, J.R., Jouzel, J., Raynaud, D., Barkov, N.I., Barnola, J.-M., Basile, I., Bender, M., Chappellaz, J., SWEDEN
Davis, M., Delaygue, G., Delmotte, M., Kotlyakov, V.M., Legrand, M., Lipenkov, V.Y., Lorius, C., Pepin, L., E-mail: will@igbp.kva.se
Ritz, C., Saltzman, E. and Stievenard, M. (1999) Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000
years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica. Nature 399: 429-436.

The “Anthropocene”
by Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer

The name Holocene (“Recent Whole”)for panied e.g. by a growth in cattle popu- groves. Finally, mechanized human pre-
the post-glacial geological epoch of the lation to 1400 million (6) (about one cow dation (“fisheries”) removes more than
past ten to twelve thousand years seems per average size family). Urbanisation 25% of the primary production of the
to have been proposed for the first time has even increased tenfold in the past oceans in the upwelling regions and 35%
by Sir Charles Lyell in 1833, and adopted century. In a few generations mankind in the temperate continental shelf re-
by the International Geological Congress is exhausting the fossil fuels that were gions (10). Anthropogenic effects are also
in Bologna in 1885 (1). During the generated over several hundred million well illustrated by the history of biotic
Holocene mankind’s activities gradually years. The release of SO2, globally about communities that leave remains in lake
grew into a significant geological, mor- 160 Tg/year to the atmosphere by coal sediments. The effects documented in-
phological force, as recognised early on and oil burning, is at least two times clude modification of the geochemical
by a number of scientists. Thus, G.P. larger than the sum of all natural emis- cycle in large freshwater systems and oc-
Marsh already in 1864 published a book sions, occurring mainly as marine dime- cur in systems remote from primary
with the title “Man and Nature”, more thyl-sulfide from the oceans (7); from sources (11-13).
recently reprinted as “The Earth as Modi- Vitousek et al. (8) we learn that 30-50% Considering these and many other
fied by Human Action” (2). Stoppani in of the land surface has been transformed major and still growing impacts of hu-
1873 rated mankind’s activities as a “new by human action; more nitrogen is now man activities on earth and atmosphere,
telluric force which in power and univer- fixed synthetically and applied as ferti- and at all, including global, scales, it
sality may be compared to the greater lizers in agriculture than fixed naturally seems to us more than appropriate to
forces of earth” [quoted from Clark (3)]. in all terrestrial ecosystems; the escape emphasize the central role of mankind
Stoppani already spoke of the into the atmosphere of NO from fossil in geology and ecology by proposing to
anthropozoic era. Mankind has now in- fuel and biomass combustion likewise use the term “anthropocene” for the cur-
habited or visited almost all places on is larger than the natural inputs, giving rent geological epoch. The impacts of
Earth; he has even set foot on the moon. rise to photochemical ozone (“smog”) current human activities will continue
The great Russian geologist formation in extensive regions of the over long periods. According to a study
V.I.Vernadsky (4) in 1926 recognized the world; more than half of all accessible by Berger and Loutre (14), because of the
increasing power of mankind as part of fresh water is used by mankind; human anthropogenic emissions of CO2, climate
the biosphere with the following excerpt activity has increased the species extinc- may depart significantly from natural
“... the direction in which the processes tion rate by thousand to ten thousand behaviour over the next 50,000 years.
of evolution must proceed, namely to- fold in the tropical rain forests (9) and To assign a more specific date to the
wards increasing consciousness and several climatically important “green- onset of the “anthropocene” seems
thought, and forms having greater and house” gases have substantially in- somewhat arbitrary, but we propose the
greater influence on their surroundings”. creased in the atmosphere: CO2 by more latter part of the 18th century, although
He, the French Jesuit P. Teilhard de than 30% and CH4 by even more than we are aware that alternative proposals
Chardin and E. Le Roy in 1924 coined the 100%. Furthermore, mankind releases can be made (some may even want to
term “noösphere”, the world of thought, many toxic substances in the environ- include the entire holocene). However,
to mark the growing role played by man- ment and even some, the we choose this date because, during the
kind’s brainpower and technological tal- chlorofluorocarbon gases, which are not past two centuries, the global effects of
ents in shaping its own future and envi- toxic at all, but which nevertheless have human activities have become clearly
ronment. led to the Antarctic “ozone hole” and noticeable. This is the period when data
The expansion of mankind, both in which would have destroyed much of retrieved from glacial ice cores show the
numbers and per capita exploitation of the ozone layer if no international regu- beginning of a growth in the atmos-
Earth’s resources has been astounding latory measures to end their production pheric concentrations of several “green-
(5). To give a few examples: During the had been taken. Coastal wetlands are house gases”, in particular CO2 and CH4
past 3 centuries human population in- also affected by humans, having resulted (7). Such a starting date also coincides
creased tenfold to 6000 million, accom- in the loss of 50% of the world’s man- with James Watt´s invention of the steam

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 I G B P N E W S L E T T E R 4 1

engine in 1784. About at that time, bi- against human induced stresses will be Paul J. Crutzen
otic assemblages in most lakes began to one of the great future tasks of mankind,
show large changes (11-13). requiring intensive research efforts and
Max-Planck-Institute for Chemistry
Without major catastrophes like an wise application of the knowledge thus
Division of Atmospheric Chemistry
enormous volcanic eruption, an unex- acquired in the noösphere, better known
P.O. Box 3060
pected epidemic, a large-scale nuclear as knowledge or information society. An
D-55020 Mainz
war, an asteroid impact, a new ice age, or exciting, but also difficult and daunting
GERMANY
continued plundering of Earth’s re- task lies ahead of the global research and
Email: air@mpch-mainz.mpg.de
sources by partially still primitive tech- engineering community to guide man-
nology (the last four dangers can, how- kind towards global, sustainable, envi- Eugene F. Stoermer
ever, be prevented in a real functioning ronmental management (15). Center for Great Lakes and Aquatic
noösphere) mankind will remain a ma- Sciences
jor geological force for many millennia, We thank the many colleagues, especially University of Michigan
maybe millions of years, to come. To de- the members of the IGBP Scientific Com- Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1090
velop a world-wide accepted strategy mittee, for encouraging correspondence USA
leading to sustainability of ecosystems and advice.

Contribution to the regional data bundle concept: The

There is little doubt of the importance of bundle but is essentially a Scientist Programme. MEDIAS also
the regional scale for Earth System Sci- ‘one-off’. works in close cooperation with PASS
ence and the need to study systemic fea- (Pan African START Secretariat), its coun-
tures of Earth System functioning at that • LBA (the Large-scale terpart regional structure in Africa.
scale. A variety of tools are required for Biosphere-Atmosphere In addition, MEDIAS-FRANCE is al-
integrated regional studies, but a crucial Experiment in Amazonia) has ready involved with several IGBP core
element in the strategy is the develop- its own data and information projects – PAGES, JGOFS, IGAC - to de-
ment and application of regional ‘data system, well developed and a velop computer tools for the generation
bundles’. good model for other large of new databases for IGBP research
The concept of regional data bundles regional studies. projects. More recently, MEDIAS-
was first proposed at the 1998 DIS SSC FRANCE has been asked by IGAC to
meeting in Toulouse, and has now been • Specific data functions have develop an original tool to assist its Syn-
developed further as a major activity been established in some thesis and Integration project. MEDIAS
aimed at promoting an integrated suite START regional secretariats, also maintains a “mirror” site of the glo-
of regional studies. The implementation such as Nairobi (Pan-African) bal PAGES database belonging to the
of the regional data bundle concept will and Bangkok (Southeast Asia). World Data Center-A for
be undertaken, inter alia, as a partnership paleoclimatology in Boulder, USA.
between IGBP-DIS, START and MEDIAS- • The IGBP Terrestrial Transects Based on these existing strengths of
FRANCE. have developed their own MEDIAS, its experience in regional data
Regional data bundles consist of a data sets. development, and its knowledge of IGBP,
consistent collection of databases, data the French space agency CNES has of-
products, in-situ measurements as well However, these initiatives are largely fered to allocate resources via MEDIAS
as remotely sensed data. Data bundles independent of one another, making com- to support a major effort over the next 2-
may include models and/or model out- parability across regions virtually impos- 3 years to produce a coherent set of re-
put at regional scale. Special attention is sible. What is needed now is coordina- gional data bundles. IGBP-DIS will pro-
given to the presentation of the various tion of these data activities to build up a vide guidance for the effort, and will rely
data sets in order to facilitate their visu- coherent global picture from the various on input from START, GAIM and the core
alization and interpretation for research regional studies. This requires much more projects, many of which have their own
purposes. consistency and coherence across the sets of regional studies.
Considerable work on regional various data initiatives, as well as a com-
databases has already been undertaken mon framework for process studies and
Wolfgang Cramer
in association with IGBP: modelling.
MEDIAS-FRANCE is well placed to Potsdam Inst for Climate Impact
contribute to the implementation of a co- Research (PIK),
• The Miombo CD-ROM, ordinated approach to the regional data PO Box 60 12 03,
coordinated by START, LUCC bundle initiative. MEDIAS has acted as a D-14412 Potsdam,
and IGBP-DIS, is an early regional coordinating secretariat for GERMANY
version of a regional data START, acting through projects funded by E-mail: wolfgang.cramer@
the EU’s ENRICH programme and pik-potsdam.de
through the START Fellowship/Visiting

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