Program History and Context



Economic development, especially in the last 200 years, has brought prosperity and well-being to human beings. The achievement of these benefits is strongly linked to the exploitation of natural resources such as energy, land and water for agricultural production, water resources, among others. However, the predatory use of these natural resources and vital ecosystem services may be jeopardizing the maintenance of this quality of life for future generations and there is still no adequate understanding of the consequences of this form of long-term exploitation.

In the country, Environmental Sciences traditionally concern the application of natural and social sciences to the understanding and resolution of environmental problems that impact human activities, such as pollution, deforestation, soil erosion, climate change and biodiversity loss. Brazilian research in the environmental sciences has evolved in two reasonably different ways. On the one hand, there was a large concentration of research that focuses on the qualitative relations between economic development and environmental change, from the point of view of the social sciences, and on the other hand, there was progress in research and studies in the physical and natural sciences, among them. , Meteorology, Climatology and Oceanography. Typically in the category of environmental change and social science are environmental research and sustainable development programs. In addition, there are a growing number of environmental science research programs with a quantitative focus on the impact of human activities on nature. These programs emphasize the natural sciences and environmental modeling, which must include not only the abiotic components, but also the biotic and socioeconomic-cultural components, that is, biology and human systems are as important as the abiotic components. . Many of the programs in this second category are restricted to modeling the physical and chemical aspects normally associated with environmental pollution or contamination, whether this pollution / contamination of the atmosphere, water or soil, which focuses more on observational, monitoring, weather and climate forecasting, and subsequently projections of climate change scenarios.

Since the mid-1980s, the idea has emerged at the initiative of NASA and several US universities to consider the integrated aspects of environmental, social, and other sciences in a unique context, referred to as “Earth System Sciences”. As a result, leading US environmental universities have set up relevant research centers for “Earth System Sciences”, including: “Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center” at the University of Maryland, “Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space” from the University of New Hampshire, CISEIN-SEDAc at Columbia University, and the Center for Global Change Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In Brazil, in the last decade, the area of ​​Earth System Science has been emerging, which seeks to develop an understanding of the interactions of the component elements of the system (oceans, atmosphere, cryosphere, soil-vegetation) with each other, as well as the still very difficult one. modeling of the interaction of this system (biogeophysics, biogeochemistry and biodiversity) with human systems (institutions, policies, culture, economics, demography, etc.). In other words, we seek to understand the dynamics of the complex interaction of natural and social systems.

In this context, the Center for Earth System Science (CCST) was created in 2008, based on the Master Plan (2007-2011) of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), with the mission of generating interdisciplinary knowledge for national development. equity and to reduce environmental impacts on planet Earth. The CCST was responsible for that period: (i) Develop models of the Earth System, especially the Climate System, its components and interfaces for use in studies of global environmental change and its regionalization to South and Central America; (ii) Implement Earth System models in INPE supercomputing systems, elaborate and routinely make available future scenarios of global environmental changes of interest to the Country; (iii) Coordinate, conduct and follow-up research of excellence in global and regional environmental changes, with emphasis on Modeling and Observations of the Earth System; Land Use Change and Coverage; Hydrology; Environmental chemistry; Renewable energy; Atmospheric electricity; Oceanography and Coastal Zones; Burned; Natural disasters; with the purpose of generating future climate scenarios and climate projections, to support the Brazilian state in the formulation of public policies, based on scientific knowledge of the state of the art, providing information necessary for the implementation of adaptation, mitigation and design aid measures. and elaboration of public policies for the climate and environmental sector; (iv) Support the development of global and regional climate change research in partnership with national and international educational and research institutions and research funding agencies; (v) Develop technologies applicable to monitoring, mitigation and adaptation to global and regional environmental changes. Thus, the development of the Earth System model area should accommodate from the simplest models used to test ideas, through the intermediate complexity models used to study Earth System critical points and instabilities in isolation, to the more detailed models to be compared with. observed data.

The CCST has then elaborated future climate scenarios, no longer restricted to a regional breakdown of the scenarios produced by other world centers. This effort considers the existing capacity of INPE, as well as works in conjunction with researchers from the MCTIC Brazilian Climate Change Research Network (CLIMA Network) for which the CCST serves as the Executive Secretariat, establishing support infrastructure for researchers. including overcomputing, as well as developing research and products that can support decision makers and policy makers. From then on, it was proposed the creation of a Postgraduate Program in Terrestrial System Science, whose main focus is research and training of quality doctors to search for concrete solutions to global environmental problems that have repercussions in Brazil and Latin America. South, using environmental data modeling and analysis tools. As Earth System Science (CST) is an area of ​​knowledge under construction at an international level, the opportunity opens for an original intellectual contribution to its development, focused on regional environmental problems, which also involves a strong technological development component with products. groundbreaking monitoring and prediction of Earth System evolution, interactions, fluctuations and disturbances. Even though INPE is not a University, the opening of a very specific and interdisciplinary course, taught by professors with extensive experience in earth observation and modeling complex processes affecting the environment, provides an opportunity to seek answers to the national challenges associated with interaction. man-environment and global change.

The creation of the Doctorate Course alone is justified by the need of INPE, and the country in general, to form a solid core of high level researchers in CST, considering that it is an emerging field worldwide, given the growing number of leading universities that have established programs in these areas in the last 20 years. The development of current and future research on projections of future climate projections and downscaling of climate scenarios is being carried out in national collaborations with EMBRAPA, FIOCRUZ, COOPE UFRJ, State Meteorological and Hydrological Centers of Brazil and with institutions. Hadley Center, Tyndall Center, University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, NASA, NCAR in the USA, Institute of Meteorological Research of Japan, CIMA Argentina and with International Agencies such as IAI, World Bank, DEFRA, GIZ in the development of studies. modeling future climate change scenarios using various types of global and regional climate models, as well as climate change impact and vulnerability studies in key sectors of Brazil: Economy, Agriculture, Energy, Migration, and Health. The results of these studies served as the basis for Minis’s National Climate Change Plan. environment. New future climate scenarios have been generated for the IPCC National Communications, in partnership with the Ministry of Science and Technology’s National Climate Change Program (MCT), in collaboration with World Bank and the Global Environmental Facility.

CCST is currently conducting research that enables Brazilian society to move towards sustainable, safe and socially fair development. The Center follows and participates in the definition of new scientific paradigms, which are being presented by the international community, particularly in the scope of Future Earth (http://www.futureearth.org), which advocates research focused on problem solving. providing subsidies to public policies. In this context, the CCST aims to formulate scenarios for sustainable national development, strongly based on environmental data monitoring networks and Terrestrial System modeling, integrating and expanding the Centre’s competences. In the technical-scientific scenario, the CCST directs its activities to the interaction between the various disciplines (multi and transdisciplinary) in order to solve problems arising from global environmental changes, seeking sustainable development that reconciles the proper functioning of the economic, social and economic spheres. environmental. In general terms, this area of ​​knowledge deals with the natural components of the Earth System (atmosphere, oceans, earth), its interfaces (earth-atmosphere, earth-oceans, oceans-atmosphere) and the complex interaction dynamics between natural systems and systems. social, aiming to expand the scientific, technological and institutional capacity of Brazil in Global Changes, with the aim of increasing knowledge about the process, identifying the impacts on the country and subsidizing public policies to address the problem at national and international levels. In this sense, it is necessary to minimize the negative impacts of anthropic action on natural systems vital for environmental sustainability and human well-being, regarding access to food, water resources, energy and health.

INPE’s 2016-2019 Master Plan sets the following goals for Earth System Science: (i) modernize and expand environmental variable monitoring networks and increase their historical database of environmental data; (ii) consolidate an innovative integrated network for environmental data collection to be operated and maintained by the Integrated Environmental Data System (SINDA); (iii) update models of the various components of the terrestrial system; (iv) develop the surface component to integrate into the Brazilian Terrestrial System Model (BESM), currently under development by INPE’s Center for Weather Forecasting and Climate Studies (CPTEC); (v) generate sustainable scenarios of the operation of the terrestrial system; (vi) define economically and socially viable paths to achieve sustainable scenarios.

Considering that (i) INPE, throughout its history, has contributed to the formation of highly qualified human resources in the Institute’s areas of activity including the formation of specialized human resources through postgraduate studies (ii) the CCST agenda includes strong demands from society for “answers” about interactions between natural and social systems; (iii) The CCST has a body of researchers specializing in specific topics related to natural and social systems and with postgraduate experience. The PPG-CST was created to be innovative in addressing global environmental change issues associated with development issues, opening frontiers for interdisciplinary research in Brazil.