Chances and Risks of Biological Carbon Sinks - What and how much do we know?

Opportunities and Risks of Biological Carbon Sinks - What and how much do we know?

An interdisciplinary meeting for an audience from practice, politics and science

Date	Tuesday 29 June 2004
Place	Auditorium Maximum, Main building, ETH-Zentrum, Rämistr. 101, 8092 Zurich
Time	8h45 – 16h45
Organisation	Terrestrial Systems Ecology Institute of Terrestrial Ecology ETH Zurich
Supported by	ProClim - Swiss Academy of Sciences Departement of Environmental Sciences - ETH Zurich Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape, SAEFL

On the proceeding day (28 June 2004) at the same location the following meeting will take place:

«Forest Management and Sinks in Switzerland - What are the Consequences of the Kyoto protocol?»

which focuses on forestry topics.

At present ecosystems store globally large amounts of carbon. This capacity can be enlarged, but not without limits. When and at which level these limits might be reached is far from obvious. Moreover there is the risk that the stored carbon might be released back into the atmosphere. This is of considerable relevance if carbon should be stored intentionally in large amounts in the biosphere, a scenario to which the Kyoto protocol provides incentives. All this is a great challenge for science, since our understanding of the involved processes as well as our modeling capability have made considerable progress only in the recent years. Many open questions remain.

This conference attempts to demonstrate not only what is known, but also addresses uncertainties and the current limits of our knowledge. This should provide a contribution towards the currently needed information basis for the pending decisions. Due to the Kyoto protocol and for Switzerland due to the CO2 law this basis has become necessary, since industrialized countries have now to decide on many issues of relevance for the energy, climate, agricultural, and forestry sector.

Programme

Detailprogramm und Zusammenfassungen der Referate (207 kb)

8:45	Registration desk opens
9:15	Andreas Fischlin, ETHZ Begrüssung, Ziele der Tagung
9:20	Hans Thierstein, ETHZ Ursachen, Amplituden und Raten langfristiger, natürlicher CO₂-Schwankungen (2.2 MB)
10:00	Fortunat Joos, Universität Bern Terrestrische Senken und der globale Kohlenstoffkreislauf (10.2 MB)
10:40	Coffee break
11:20	Jürg Fuhrer, Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt für Agrarökologie und Landbau Senken und Quellen landwirtschaftlicher Flächen und Böden (1.9 MB)
12:00	Werner Hediger, ETHZ Kohlenstoff-Sequestrierung in landwirtschaftlichen Böden: Eine ökonomische Beurteilung (0.9 MB)
12:40	Lunch break
14:20	Rolf Siegwolf, Paul Scherrer Institut C-Flüsse in Ökosystemen aus experimenteller Sicht (2.2 MB)
15:00	Coffee break
15:30	Martin Heimann, Max-Planck Institut Biogeochemie, Jena Atmosphäre und Ökosysteme - können wir ihre Wechselwirkung beobachten? (5.5 MB)
16:10	Andreas Fischlin, ETHZ Wissen wir genug? (3.0 MB)
16:45	End of meeting