SCOPE 13 - The Global Carbon Cycle

Preface

In order to assess the global sinks and sources of carbon and the interaction mechanisms between various carbon pools, the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), a committee of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), arranged a workshop at Ratzeburg (Federal Republic of Germany), 2126 March 1977. This meeting was attended by 66 scientists from 22 nations and comprised all fields of natural and social sciences relevant to the topic under discussion. Special emphasis was placed on inviting a balanced scientific community from the developing and the industrialized nations, because previous meetings of this type tended to have an over-representation of problems associated with the developed countries.

The meeting was financially supported by SCOPE, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the German Research Council, the University of Hamburg, and Shell.

No formal lectures were presented during the workshop. Instead, special attention was given in informal discussions to significant issues in the field of carbon. The three national SCOPE committees of the Netherlands, Sweden, and the Federal Republic of Germany had prepared a four-volume set of data and review articles in advance and had, in addition, provided an extensive literature survey and a workshop library.

Five work groups were set up and had the task of preparing brief reviews on specific problems, and of outlining future actions. Group Reports and Recommendations are given in this volume, summarizing the pertinent issues of the various carbon sub-cycles.

One major problem, which constantly cropped up in the discussions, concerned the carbon dioxide build-up in the atmosphere. This issue is very significant because the potential increase of CO₂ in air remains substantially unpredictable as a factor in climatic variations. For us, the CO₂ question is only one of many important issues concerning carbon. It also appears that an answer to the build-up of CO₂ in the earth's atmosphere can only be found by placing the CO₂ problem in its proper environmental context, that is, the global cycle of carbon. Consequently we have tried, in a series of articles, to treat the carbon cycle by dividing it into various segments, i.e. hydrosphere, biosphere, atmosphere and lithosphere. Rather than concentrating on the accumulation and compilation of the data alone, we were guided by the intention to reveal the mechanisms of the carbon cycle in terms of sinks and sources and the kinetics of transfer and exchange.

In conclusion, we are greatly indebted to many scientific colleagues for their scientific papers and personal communications, without which this work would only be fragmentary. Our special thanks go to Domprobst Uwe Steffen, who provided shelter for us in the Ratzeburg Dom during the workshop, and to Kirchenmusikdirektor Neithard Bethke for his three organ concerts in the Dom: pre-Bach, Bach, and post-Bach. The help and enthusiasm of many students, secretaries, and technicians before, during, and after the workshop was one of the most satisfying aspects of the meeting. In particular we would like to thank Beate Buch, Ingrid Fagerström, Walter Hähnel, Günter Kraft, Karin Schallreuter, and Martin Seeger. We are grateful to Susan Euteneuer, Elaine Hunt, Inge Jennerjahn and Aurora Szekielda for secretarial assistance in the final editing of the manuscripts. Finally, it is a pleasure to thank Doris Lewandowski for her excellent artwork.