Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
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Born	(1950-06-07) June 7, 1950 Ortenburg, Bavaria
Nationality	German
Fields	Climatology
Institutions	Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research University of Potsdam
Alma mater	University of Regensburg
Notable awards	German Environment Prize 2007, Volvo Environment Prize 2011

Hans Joachim "John" Schellnhuber (born June 7, 1950) is the founding Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU).

Early life

Schellnhuber gained qualifications in mathematics and physics—a doctorate in theoretical physics from the University of Regensburg, which he completed in 1980, followed in 1985 by his habilitation (qualification for office) in theoretical physics at the University of Oldenburg. In 1981 he was recruited as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Theoretical Physics (ITP) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, working across the corridor from its director Walter Kohn who became one of his academic supervisors.

Career

From solid state physics and quantum mechanics, Schellnhuber´s interest was drawn to complex systems and nonlinearity or chaos theory. This is what later led him to do research on the climate system which is characterised by its complexity and nonlinearity. Having become a full professor for theoretical physics and then director at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment at Oldenburg University in northern Germany, he was involved in analysing the complex structure of ocean currents. In 1991 he was called upon to create the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), before becoming its director in 1993 - making it grow from zero to one of the world's most renowned climate research institutes with today more than 300 employees following an interdisciplinary approach.

Schellnhuber has published more than 250 scientific papers and has authored, co-authored, or edited 50 books or book chapters. He has helped create numerous iconic concepts such as the now famous analysis of tipping elements in the climate system, the burning embers, and the budget approach for emissions. Perhaps most notably, as early as 1995 Schellnhuber put forward the two degrees guardrail for global warming which was adopted first by the German government and the European Union and then, following the Copenhagen accord in 2009, as a global target by governments worldwide.

In 2001-2005 Schellnhuber served as research director of the Tyndall Centre in England and became a visiting professor at the University of Oxford. He received the Royal Society's Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2002 and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2004. The National Academy of Sciences (US) appointed him as a member in 2005. He was awarded the German Environment Prize in 2007. He also has been elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Being a long-standing member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007), Schellnhuber has been a coordinating lead author of the synthesis chapter of Working Group II of the IPCC's Third Assessment Report. He warns of dire consequences of continued global warming Being an expert on climatological tipping points, he is a public speaker on the subject.

In 2007, Schellnhuber started "A Nobel Cause - Nobel Laureate Symposium Series on Global Sustainability" in Potsdam, bringing together Nobel Laureates from all disciplines with leading sustainability scientists. In 2009, this event took place in London and in 2011 in Stockholm, where the UN General Secretary's High Level Panel on Sustainability came to the meeting to receive a memorandum that was fed into the Rio+20 conference in 2012.

Being one of the leading climate scientists worldwide, he has provided advice to, for instance, the former President of the European Union Commission, José Manuel Barroso. In 2007, he was appointed Chief Government Advisor on Climate and Related Issues during Germany's EU Council Presidency and G8 Presidency. Schellnhuber also offers scientific insights to business leaders, as he is member of the Climate Change Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank and chair of the governing board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology's Climate Knowledge and Innovation Communities (EIT Climate KIC).

He is now professor at the University of Potsdam, Germany, and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute in the US.

In 2011, he was the first German to receive the Volvo Environment Prize, which is the highest-ranking award in the field of environmental sciences worldwide. He was honoured with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (first class) as well and holds honorary doctorates from Copenhagen University and Berlin Institute of Technology.

In 2012, he was the lead-author of a report commissioned by the World Bank on possible impacts of a 4 degrees Celsius warming towards the end of the 21st century. This report received a lot of attention worldwide. That same year, Schellnhuber presented the keynote at the gala dinner that opened the high-level segment of the world climate summit COP18 in Doha, Qatar. In the presence of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and UNFCCC's boss Christiana Figueres, a few days later Schellnhuber signed an agreement with the Qatar Foundation to jointly create a Climate change research institute in Qatar - a remarkable step as the country's wealth for decades had been based on exporting fossil fuels.

In 2013, Schellnhuber was one of 18 prominent international scientists to launch the Earth League, a global interdisciplinary alliance of leading research institutes that focus on Earth system analysis and sustainability science, including economy. UN Security Council members Pakistan and UK asked him to speak at a meeting of the Council under the Arria Formula, the meeting at the UN headquarter in New York was attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. In the runup of the world climate summit in Warsaw, Schellnhuber discussed possible ways forward with the president of COP19, the Polish Minister of the Environment Marcin Korolec. To advance the state of science, Schellnhuber initiated the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP) that involves more than 30 research teams from 12 countries. The scientific journal Nature called it the "first comprehensive global-impact project" - it aims at identifying robust insights as well as research gaps, based on a yet unprecedentedly broad comparison of computer simulations of future climate change impacts such as water scarcity, floodings, or yield changes. In 2013, Schellnhuber's efforts resulted in the Impacts World Conference in Potsdam followed by a special feature on first ISI-MIP results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), see publications.

Schellnhuber serves as chair of the Climate-KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Community) governing board, which is affiliated to the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). This institution aims at fostering low-carbon entrepreneurship and innovation.

Schellnhuber signed the Potsdam Denkschrift calling for a change in thinking to enable sustainable development. The German magazine Cicero in 2012 ranked him amongst the 500 most important German intellectuals.

He is married to Margret Boysen.

Publications

• Schellnhuber, H. J., Crutzen, P.J., Clark, W.C., Claussen, M. and Held, H. (Eds.) (2004). Earth System Analysis for Sustainability. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, London, UK
• Schellnhuber, H. J. and Wenzel V. (1998). Earth System Analysis: Integrating Science for Sustainability. Springer Verlag, Berlin.
• Schellnhuber, H. J. et al. (Eds.) (2006). Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
• Lenton, T.M.,Held, H., Kriegler, E., Hall, J.W., Lucht, W., Rahmstorf, S., Schellnhuber, H.J. (2008). Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 195, 6
• Schellnhuber, H. J. et al. (2009). Solving the climate dilemma: The budget approach. WBGU Special Report, WBGU, Berlin
• Hall, J., Held, H., Dawson, R., Kriegler, E. and Schellnhuber, H. J. (2009). Imprecise probability assessment of tipping points in the climate system. PNAS (special feature) 106, 5041
• Rockström, J. et al. (including Schellnhuber, H. J.) (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461, 472
• Schellnhuber, H.J. (2009). Tipping elements in the Earth System. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (introduction of special feature) 106, 49, pp. 20561–20563
• Reid, W. V., Chen, D., Goldfarb, L., Hackmann, H., Lee, Y. T., Mokhele, K., Ostrom, E., Raivio, K., Rockström, J., Schellnhuber, H. J. and Whyte, A. (2010). Earth System Science for Global Sustainability: Grand Challenges. Science 330, 916
• Schellnhuber, H. J, Molina, M., Stern, N., Huber, V. and Kadner, S. (Eds.) (2010). Global Sustainability - A Nobel Cause. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Schellnhuber, H. J. (2010). The road from Copenhagen: the expert's views. Nature published online 28 January 2010
• Gleick, P. H. et al. (including Schellnhuber, H. J.) (2010). Climate Change and the Integrity of Science. Science 328, 689
• Schellnhuber, H. J. (2010). Tragic Triumph. Climatic Change 100, 229
• Kropp, J. P. and Schellnhuber, H. J. (Eds.) (2011). In Extremis: Disruptive Events and Trends in Climate and Hydrology. Springer Verlag, Berlin
• Richardson, K., Steffen, W., Liverman, D., et al. (including Schellnhuber, H. J.) (2011). Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Hofmann, M., Worm, B., Rahmstorf, S., and Schellnhuber, H. J. (2011). Declining ocean chlorophyll under unabated anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Environ. Res. Lett. 6, 034035
• Schellnhuber, H. J. (2011). Vorwärts zur Natur. Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 1. Mai 2011, 17, 28
• Schellnhuber, H. J. et al. (2011). World in Transition – A Social Contract for Sustainability. WBGU Report, WBGU, Berlin
• Hofmann, M., Worm, B., Rahmstorf, S., and Schellnhuber, H. J. (2011). Declining ocean chlorophyll under unabated anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Environmental Research Letters 6, 034035
• Donges, J., Donner, R.V., Trauth, M.H., Marwan, N., Schellnhuber, H.J., Kurths, J. (2011). Nonlinear detection of paleoclimate-variability transitions possibly related to human evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, 20422
• Schellnhuber, H. J. (2011). Geoengineering: The good, the MAD, and the sensible. PNAS 108, 20277
• Kundzewicz, Z. W. et al. (including Schellnhuber, H. J.) (2012). Changes in Flood Risks – Setting the Stage. In Kundzewicz, Z. W. (Ed.) (2012). Changes in Flood Risks in Europe. IAHS Press, Oxfordshire, UK, 11
• Schellnhuber, H. J., Hare, W., Serdeczny, O. et al. (2012). Turn Down the Heat - Why a 4 °C Warmer World Must be Avoided. A Report commissioned by The World Bank
• Olonscheck, D., Hofmann, M., Worm, B., Schellnhuber, H. J. (2013). Decomposing the effects of ocean warming on chlorophyll(a) concentrations into physically and biologically driven contributions. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 014043
• Petoukhov, V., Rahmstorf, A., Petri, S.,Schellnhuber, H.J. (2013): Quasi-resonant amplification of planetary waves and recent Northern Hemisphere weather extremes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, 5336
• Ludescher, J., Gozolchiani, A., Bogachev, M.I., Bunde, A., Havlin, S., Schellnhuber, H. J. (2013). Improved El Niño forecasting by cooperativity detection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Piontek, F. et al. (including Schellnhuber, H. J.) (2013). Global Climate Impacts: A Cross-Sector, Multi-Model Assessment Special Feature: Multisectoral climat impact hotspots in a warming world.
• Schellnhuber, H. J., Frieler, K., Kabat, P. (2013). Global Climate Impacts: A Cross-Sector, Multi-Model Assessment Special Feature – Introduction: The elephant, the blind, and the intersectoral intercomparison of climate impacts.

See also

• sustainable development
• developmental economics
• ecological economics
• biodiesel
• healthcare tropical diseases

External links

• Roll back time to safeguard climate, expert warns 15 September 2008
• Big Picture TV. Videos of John Schellnhuber talking about climate change. 11 December 2006.
• Terra quasi-incognita: beyond the 2°C line. Download video, audio, slides International Climate Conference in Oxford, UK from September 28–30, 2009