Mission Statement
The DFG-Leibniz Center for Surface Process and Climate Studies links studies of climate and Earth surface processes on geologic to annual time scales. The center is fully financed by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and provides a platform for young scientists to establish new projects in the fields of climate geology and surface-process research. The overarching goal is to foster interdisciplinary research on the climate system and is relation with tectonic and surface processes and their conspiring activity in sculpting the surface of our planet and influencing the human habitat.
Five principal tasks define our work:
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Building a mechanistic connection between Earth’s decadal to orbital scale climate variations that have persisted over the last 6 million years
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Understanding why the temporal structure of glaciations and warm periods has changed over this time period and how this relates to the overall global cooling trend of the Cenozoic
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Deciphering thresholds in, and determining rates of surface processes at various time scales. Assessing the roles of climate change and variability in governing erosion and sedimentation processes
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Determining the links between tectonics, topography, and climate change and the dynamic coupling between erosion and tectonics
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Creating knowledge, fostering public discourse, and disseminating information
