On the trail of climate change

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First broadcast on RBB Inforadio, “Vis à vis”, December 6, 2005, 10:45 a.m. (15 minutes), editor: Gabriele Heuser

Background and content

On the occasion of the World Climate Conference in Montreal, at the beginning of Chancellor Angela Merkel's term of office, the importance of the current research results of an expedition from the Free University of Berlin for understanding climate change will be discussed. The expedition led to the high mountains of Ladakh, northern India, with the aim of drilling into lake sediments and using them as a climate archive. In this region, two major planetary wind systems - the westerly wind system and the Asian monsoon - meet, which decisively control the global climate system. Over a billion people depend on the rainfall that the monsoon transports with its air masses to South and Southeast Asia. The researchers are concerned with the question of how this system controlled the environment and thus people's livelihoods in the past and how these processes will continue in the future. At the limits of influence of the systems - and that is where Ladakh is located - climate change is most evident, and it is dramatic. Even though research into the climate system is far from complete, there is still sufficient evidence that humans are significantly increasing climate change. Politicians are called upon to face what is possibly humanity's greatest challenge with vigor and sustainability.