Evolution of the System Planet Earth -
Musing over a new Frontier of Research in the
Earth Sciences
After the International Symposium on
“Challenges for Earth Sciences in the 21st Century”
K. Fuchs,
The Panel Discussion on education requirements
in the Earth sciences during the symposium touched many problems of curricula reform,
decreasing number of students, etc…
There was also the demand that Earth sciences
should become more useful to civilization.
I am convinced that this is the wrong approach!
When I once challenged a leading astronomer: “How is your discipline getting
the enormous funds for the Hubble telescope, and even for its repairs with the
shuttle missions although you are completely useless to civilization?” he
replied: “Yes you are right. We are useless, as useless as a Beethoven Symphony!”
We did not choose Earth sciences as our discipline
to be useful for the society! We entered this field for many reasons. We were
drawn into the various facets of this natural laboratory “Planet Earth” and the
surprises of the unknown. It is the fascination of a scientific discipline
which is attracting the best of today`s students.
Where is today`s
frontier of research in the Earth sciences? My concern is the fragmentation of
the Earth sciences in its various disciplines - which excel on its own - widely
unaware of the new development in neighbouring disciplines, in spite of Plate
tectonics and the Wegenerian revolution in the 1960ies. The successes in the various disciplines are impressive
and they are necessary.
And yet, we might be missing the real frontier
of research in today’s Earth sciences. After the symposium I claim that it is
“Our Planet as the largest complex system on Earth”. It is the study of the
Evolution of the Planet Earth as a comprehensive complex system with numerous
interactions of its parts on a broad spectrum of scales in space and time.
Earth sciences at large (including e. g. meteorology, oceanography, hydrology,
space sciences) have now the fascinating opportunity and challenge to grasp the
evolution of this planet as a system. We are living on
a thin veneer at the continent/ocean to air interface of the planet which forms
the foundation of life and civilization. It is highly vulnerable by processes
in the Earth’s interior, in its exterior and on top by civilization itself
which in turn depends on the life saving future of this veneer. - At the same
time we are, sometimes painfully, aware of the existing limitations of our
“early” warning systems in many fields and on many time scales (e. g.,
earthquake and volcano hazards, weather, climate, floods, sea-level changes,
global warming, El Niñho, soil erosion,
droughts, famine ).
The youngest step is the role of humankind as a
geological factor on many scales from weather through climate to the long-term
evolution and mass re-deposition in all states of aggregates. Nowhere in
geological history have the rates of mass transport at the Earth’s surface been
larger than during the time of our civilization; and it is accelerating with
considerable effects on biosphere and climate.
We are forced by a new explosion in observational
capabilities to leave our disciplinary pockets. During the last decades
high-tech advancement in multi-channel sensors have provided the Earth sciences
with observational data at an ever increasing rate, not anticipated during the Wegenerian revolution, e. g. real-time monitoring of plate
velocities; tomography of mass displacement in the
Earth interior. Data streams from satellites, research
vessels, deep scientific drilling on land and sea. At the same time the
rapid advancement of computer technology was the prerequisite for a successful
analysis of these new data and for the development of realistic, highly
sophisticated, testable models.
Exploring
the evolution of this complex system, its past, presence and predicting and
even to a certain degree steering its future development is a fascinating task
for the best of young students in the Earth sciences, but also from mathematics,
physics, chemistry, civil engineers and life sciences.