Martin Heimann – författare

Since the foundation of the Max Planck Institute in 1975 with the now-Nobel laureate Klaus Hasselmann as founding director, the climate science in Hamburg has seen a remarkable boost. Various ideas were brought forward, implemented and tested. Many of them ignited interest in the global scientific community, thus adding significant momentum to the development of modern climate science.

The participants of the remarkable development since 1975 have come together to identify these concepts “born in Hamburg”. In an introductory chapter, the historical development, including other significant developments of climate science in the late 19th and early 20th century are addressed. 

The main part consists of chapters addressing the development of key innovative concepts. These are chosen to describe ideas which have been suggested by scientists while working in Hamburg and have been taken up by the international community in applications and advancements (such as the stochastic framing of dynamics and analysis, adding carbon cycles to climate models, multiple equilibria in climate models, anomaly coupling, downscaling, and constructed proxies). These ideas may not in all cases have been strictly new, or “firsts”, but they were the Hamburg publications which made the difference.

The book is mostly a book on scientific concepts and ideas, less so a general history of climate science in Hamburg.

Many terms often used to describe old-growth forests imply that these forests are less vigorous, less productive and less stable than younger forests. But research in the last two decades has yielded results that challenge the view of old-growth forests being in decline. Given the importance of forests in battling climate change and the fact that old-growth forests are shrinking at a rate of 0.5% per year, these new results have come not a moment too soon.

This book is the first ever to focus on the ecosystem functioning of old-growth forests. It is an exhaustive compendium of information that contains original work conducted by the authors. In addition, it is truly global in scope as it studies boreal forests in Canada, temperate old-growth forests in Europe and the Americas, and global tropical forests. Written in part to affect future policy, this eminently readable book is as useful for the scientist and student as it is for the politician and politically-interested layman.