The various Earth systems cannot be fully understood in isolation. For example, humanity’s greenhouse-gas emissions are heating up Earth’s climate, and this is having knock-on effects for the biosphere, the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, and wildfires. Furthermore, these systems then feed back into the climate: plants and microbes, for example, exchange gases with the atmosphere.¹¹ ¹² Therefore, climate change is inextricably bound up with other environmental issues such as biodiversity loss and pollution. Understanding these linkages is essential: for example, improved spatial and temporal understanding of regions likely to become uninhabitable has enabled prediction of forced migrations.¹³

Future Horizons:

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5-yearhorizon

Planetary boundaries are better understood

Researchers gain a clearer understanding of the interdependence between planetary boundaries and significantly improve estimates of the safe limits for pollution.

10-yearhorizon

An array of sensing technologies feed into modelling of system exchanges

Improvements in LIDAR, satellite-based sensing and infrared spectroscopy provide more reliable data on gas exchanges between biosphere and atmosphere, which improves Earth-Systems modelling.

25-yearhorizon

Computing advances improve climate interventions

Exascale computing allows data from all Earth systems (including their interactions) to be integrated into the best sets of models at high resolution. This enables ensemble-based predictions and deeper, more reliable understanding of where interventions will have the greatest impact on climate change.

This means that an essential part of Earth Systems modelling involves exploring the interplay across different systems and developing models that take all of the systems into account. This requires integrating data from a wide variety of systems — and from a variety of sources, such as field measurements and remote-sensing technologies.

One of the most high-profile attempts to quantify whole-Earth processes is the concept of “planetary boundaries”. This aims to identify a set of Earth systems, each of which is essential to human survival and wellbeing. An initial assessment in 2009 identified nine, ranging from biosphere integrity and freshwater use to land-system change.¹⁴ It further concluded that humanity had already pushed past three of the boundaries, taking our species outside its “safe operating space”.¹⁵ However, there are large uncertainties around the size and rate of change we are causing, whether the current list of boundaries should be amended¹⁶ and how the different boundaries interact. The “boundaries” framing has also been questioned: in the absence of tipping elements, Earth systems degrade gradually so hard limits are difficult or impossible to specify.

Interactions between earth systems - Anticipation Scores

The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:

The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.

This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.