What is the ESPERE climate encyclopaedia?
The ESPERE climate encyclopaedia is an Internet based and multilingual platform written by researchers and teacher trainers in an understandable way for schools and the public. It gives a wide overview of the climate system and related environmental issues (see below fields of expertise) based on the key reports published by IPCC, UNEP and WMO. The encyclopaedia has so far in average 4000 - 5000 visitors per day world-wide.
Why godparents?
The encyclopaedia has been developed in its basic version in a two years project funded by the European Commission 2003 + 2004. Some of the information given may become outdated as time goes by. Other information may be not yet perfect, since the range of fields of expertise is very wide and one author/translator cannot be expert in all fields. In order to keep a reliable and up-to-date resource for the information of the public and for teaching in schools experts from the field and researchers familiar with the respective language should control the quality in the long-term.
How to organise fields of responsiblity?
The content of the climate encyclopaedia is organised below in 22 fields of expertise. 3-10 pages in the web are assigned to one field. An expert group should form for each field of expertise with a representative for each language and one senior scientists in particular responsible for the master version, which serves as mastercopy for translation into other languages.
What should godparents do?
Godparents should check if the present texts in their field of expertise are scientifically correct and still up-to-date. They should check if the translation into their language is appropriate. They should agree on updates necessary due to major changes in the knowledge base which found wide agreement in the scientific community, in particular after the publication of the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007. The work of godparents is therefore neither permanent nor time-consuming or pressing, but their role is long term quality maintenance.
How to become godfather or godmother?
Please check in the list "fields of expetise" to which field you expertise is related. We write for school level, so basic scientific expertise is sufficient. If you think you could be active in several fields, please check in the list of expertise groups, where help is most urgently needed. Please check the Encyclopaedia table below, what your responsibility is in detail. Your field is marked in the same colour and with the same number than in the table "fields of expertise". You can click on each of the coloured cells in order to see what single text is behind this (English language branch). This gives you a clear overview of your field of responsibilty. Please write to us and let us know about your name, affiliation and for which field and language (or master) you would like to become godfather or godmother:
Secretary of the ESPERE Steering Committee is
Dr. Susanne Nawrath,
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam / Germany
e-mail: snawrath [please add @espere.net]
Fields of expertise
| 01 = Geographical and physical structure / of the atmosphere |
go to WG01 |
| 02 = Greenhouse effect, Earth warming and radiative forcing |
go to WG02 |
| 03 = Tropospheric chemistry and ozone |
go to WG03 |
| 04 = Stratospheric ozone and ozone hole |
go to WG04 |
| 05 = Meteorology and Weather events |
go to WG05 |
| 06 = Atmospheric dynamics and gobal wind systems, NAO, El Niño |
go to WG06 |
| 07 = Cloud chemistry and physics |
go to WG07 |
| 08 = Particles / Aerosols |
go to WG08 |
| 09 = Physical processes in urban systems |
go to WG09 |
| 10 = Air pollution and emissions |
go to WG10 |
| 11 = Acid rain and sulfur cycle |
go to WG11 |
| 12 = Basic Oceanography |
go to WG12 |
| 13 = Oceanic biosystems and atmospheric exchange |
go to WG13 |
| 14 = Properties and weather/climate dependence of plants |
go to WG14 |
| 15 = Vegetation fires |
go to WG15 |
| 16 = Climate impact on biosystems and bio/climate-scenarios |
go to WG16 |
| 17 = Global climate models and scenarios |
go to WG17 |
| 18 = Mitigation and political measures |
go to WG18 |
| 19 = measurement techniques and chemical distribution |
go to WG19 |
| 20 = Biometeorology and environmental health impacts |
go to WG20 |
| 21 = Drought and agricultural water management |
go to WG21 |
| 22 = Social scenarios and social climate impact |
go to WG22 |
Encyclopaedia table
Organisation of the Encyclopaedia in four layers
Topic -> Level: B = Basics, M = More -> U = Unit -> T = Text
Usually a Level has 3 Units and a Unit 3 Texts. If they have more the texts are listed in 'Additional'.
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