The Helmholtz Regional Climate Initiative REKLIM from a Polar Perspective – A Preface

Abstract

One of the great challenges of humankind is global climate change, the mitigation of CO2 emissions at the lowest possible level and, at the same time, the adaptation to its current and future impacts. The Working Group 1 (WG1) contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2013) presented clear conclusions that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, owing to increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, decreasing Arctic sea ice cover and diminishing amounts of snow and land ice, sea level rise and many more consequences. It is extremely likely (95 percent certainty), that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century (IPCC 2013).