Science in the Dinosaur Hall
Geological history as a laboratory for the future – What fossil records reveal about climate risks
As part of the ‘Science in the Dinosaur Hall’ series of events, the Faculty of Life Sciences at Humboldt University of Berlin and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin invite you to immerse yourself in the fascinating world of science within the unique setting of the Dinosaur Hall. Afterwards, you will have the opportunity to explore the museum’s exhibitions.
Geological History as a Laboratory for the Future – What Fossil Archives Reveal about Climate
Risks Speaker: Prof. Dr Wolfgang Kießling (FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg)
The past is not a distant chapter, but a testing ground for nature. Climate change, ecological upheavals and global crises are documented in detail in fossil archives. This deep-time perspective allows us to assess the consequences of climate change not only in the short term, but across entire geological eras. The lecture demonstrates how palaeontological findings help us to better understand the vulnerability of species and ecosystems, and how they are incorporated into international assessment processes such as the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
About the speaker: Wolfgang Kießling is a palaeontologist at Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) Erlangen-Nuremberg. Following positions at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin and the University of Chicago, he completed his habilitation at Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2012, he has held the Chair of Palaeoenvironment at FAU and leads several major research projects on climate change and species extinction. From 2017 to 2022, he served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In Working Group II of the IPCC, Kießling incorporated a prehistoric perspective on the impacts of climate change on natural ecosystems into the World Climate Report.
The lecture series is sponsored by our main sponsor, Berliner Sparkasse. Under the motto #WissenSchafftDurchblick, we are working together to provide broad sections of the public with insight into scientific and economic topics.