History of the Earth System Sciences in the Max Planck Society

The history of Atmospheric- and Earth System Sciences (ESS) in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) is a desideratum in the history of sciences, compared to developments in other countries, especially the USA (i.e. Oreskes and Conway 2010, Weart 2008, Fleming 2005). Both the establishment of new integrative approaches in German atmospheric research and the history of ESS as a whole are inextricably linked to the Max Planck Society (Lax 2018). The talk examines the role of the MPG in the history of ESS on both the national and international level, focusing on acteurs, institutions, networks and research approaches. Central pillars of this process were e.g. the establishment of a department for atmospheric chemistry at the MPI for Chemistry in Mainz in 1968, under the leadership of meteorologist Christian Junge, the founding of the MPI for Meteorology in Hamburg 1975, and finally the MPI for Biogeochemistry in Jena in 1996/1997. Compared to developments e.g. in the USA or Sweden, integrative research approaches in German atmospheric sciences were established with a ten year delay by Junge in the late 1960's. 20 years later Germany was one of the global leaders in atmospheric sciences and ESS. Junge and other MPG-acteurs like Paul Crutzen (nobel laureate for chemistry, and originator of the anthropocene-thesis), Klaus Hasselmann (director of the Max Planck Institute for Meterology and the German Climate Computing Center) and Hartmut Graßl (amongst others WCRP director), built an extensive ESS-network on the national and international ESS community.