The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) is an international research program devoted to the study of global environmental change, with a focus on the interactions between the solid Earth and its living organisms. The IGBP's purpose is to work toward improving the sustainability of Earth's biosphere. A central secretariat, hosted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, coordinates IGBP's scientific program. The organization has seventy-six member countries and international project offices in North America, Europe, and Australia.

The IGBP studies the interactions occurring among Earth's natural biological, chemical, and physical processes and the effects human activities have on these processes. Sponsored by the International Council for Science, the IGBP collaborates with other programs to gain and disseminate knowledge regarding global environmental change and to make recommendations regarding how best to respond to it. The IGBP, which emphasizes networking and integration, seeks to enhance scientific understanding by encouraging scientists to transcend disciplinary, institutional, and political boundaries in their research.

The International Council for Science established the IGBP in 1987. The international scientific community had recognized that the research efforts of a single country, region, or scientific discipline would not yield sufficient understanding of global environmental change; there was a clear need for international collaborative research. Key findings from the IGBP's initial studies (IGBP-I, 1990-1999) provided the foundations for a second phase of research (IGBP-II, 2004-2013). Phase II, like Phase I, concerns the Earth systems of land, ocean, and atmosphere and the interfaces among them.

As of early 2009, IGBP research comprises nine projects: four focused on the major Earth system components of land, ocean, and atmosphere; three on the interfaces between those components (land-ocean, land-atmosphere, and ocean-atmosphere); and two on system-wide integration (Earth system modeling and paleoenvironmental research). The Global Land Project (GLP), cosponsored by the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), looks at how humans transform terrestrial ecosystems and landscapes. The Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) project studies the effects of global change on the abundance, diversity, and productivity of marine populations. Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) studies how marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles react to global change over time periods ranging from years to decades (Steffen, 2005).

Both marine projects are cosponsored by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR). International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC), a project cosponsored by the Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution (CACGP), focuses on the atmospheric chemistry issues facing society. The project seeks to gain an understanding of the role of atmospheric chemistry in the Earth system while determining how changing regional emissions and depositions, long-range transport, and chemical transformations affect air quality.

Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) studies the coastal zone--an interface where land, atmosphere, and ocean interact--as a key player in the functioning of the Earth system. The project is cosponsored by IHDP. The Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Processes Study (iLEAPS) concerns the physical, chemical, and biological processes that transport and transform energy and matter at the land-atmosphere interface (Kabat, 2004).

These processes are tightly coupled and highly responsive to climate change. The Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) looks at how the key biogeochemical-physical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and atmosphere affect and are affected by climate and environmental change. Cosponsors are CACGP, SCOR, and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). System-wide integration projects include Analysis, Integration, and Modelling of the Earth System (AIMES) and Past Global Changes (PAGES).

AIMES focuses on the use of models and observations in reaching a better and more quantitative understanding of the role human action plays in biogeochemical cycles. PAGES supports study of the Earth's past environment as a means for making sound predictions regarding the future. In addition to its project cosponsors, IGBP collaborates with a number of other international science organizations. IGBP participates in global assessments such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), and it is part of the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP).

In July, 2001, during the Global Change Open Science Conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, IGBP joined IHDP, WCRP, and the international biodiversity program DIVERSITAS (all ESSP members) to issue the Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change. The statement acknowledged the increasing effect of human activity on food, water, clean air, and the environment and likened some anthropogenic changes to great natural forces in terms of their extent and impact. Warning of the possibility of abrupt, irreversible, and inhospitable environmental changes in response to human actions, the declaration called for a new, multidisciplinary, multinational, and multicultural system of global environmental science to respond to the complex challenges of global change with good and ethical stewardship of the Earth. IGBP was one of the convening organizations of the Second Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World, held in Monaco in October, 2008.

References

1. Kabat, Pavel, et al., eds. Vegetation, Water, Humans, and the Climate: A New Perspective on an Interactive System. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2004.

2. Steffen, Will, et al. Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure. Berlin: Springer- 616 International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme Verlag, 2005.

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