PAGES - Past Global Changes

Land-cover change in China

Details: Published: Tuesday, 18 February 2020 10:46

The LandCover6k working group recently released the first pollen-based REVEALS reconstruction of Holocene land-cover change in temperate China.

Authors, led by Furong Li, published "Towards quantification of Holocene anthropogenic land-cover change in temperate China: A review in the light of pollen-based REVEALS reconstructions of regional plant cover" in Earth-Science Reviews.

In an attempt to quantify Holocene anthropogenic land-cover change in temperate China, they applied the REVEALS model to estimate plant-cover change using 94 pollen records and relative pollen productivity for 27 plant taxa, reviewed earlier interpretation of pollen studies in terms of climate- and human-induced vegetation change, and reviewed information on past land use from archaeological studies.

Access the paper here.

Find out more about LandCover6k here.

Call for sessions - OSM 2021

Details: Published: Thursday, 13 February 2020 15:30

PAGES' 6th Open Science Meeting (OSM) will take place from 18-22 May 2021 in Agadir, Morocco.

The Scientific Program Committee (SPC) invites you to take an active part in organizing the scientific program of the conference. The OSM program will be comprised of plenary, parallel and poster sessions.

The plenary sessions will host keynote talks intended to stimulate discussions on the role of past global change science by providing information about strategies for a sustainable world, on the engagement of stakeholders in active cutting-edge research, and on the added value of interdisciplinary approaches. The parallel and associated poster sessions will accommodate top-level ongoing research.

Up to five sessions will be run in parallel at the OSM, allowing accommodation of a total of 40 sessions.

The SPC will prepare the program based upon your input, aiming for a fair balance between the topics. Please note that the SPC could merge sessions with similar topics (before abstract submission) or with a small number of abstracts (after abstract submission).

Scientists from African institutions are strongly encouraged to submit session proposals. Please inform your colleagues about this opportunity.

You are invited to suggest sessions until 1 April 2020. Please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (clickable link with correct subject line) and include a provisional title, potential conveners, and a brief description of the session.

We look forward to receiving your suggestions and thank you in advance!

Our Future on Earth report

Details: Published: Thursday, 13 February 2020 09:19

Top analysts and scientists, including several from within the PAGES community, have been involved in a new report released this week by PAGES' parent organization Future Earth.

The inaugural Our Future on Earth report provides a narrative on the current state of our planet and the future that our global society is building together. It is a global effort, with authors and an editorial board from over 20 countries, targetting decision-makers, media, educators and more, to help shape the narrative and advance global action.

Read The Guardian newspaper article about the report here and The Conversation article here.

Plus, Future Earth's Global Risks Perceptions Initiative has released its 2020 Report.

New GEOTRACES-PAGES paper

Details: Published: Tuesday, 28 January 2020 11:28

In December 2018, GEOTRACES and PAGES held the joint synthesis workshop "Trace element and isotope proxies in paleoceanography" in France.

The first resulting paper "230Th normalization: New insights on an essential tool for quantifying sedimentary fluxes in the modern and Quaternary ocean" has now been published in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology.

Authors, led by Kassandra Costa, synthesized over 1000 sedimentary records of 230Th from across the global ocean at two time slices, the Late Holocene (0-5000 years ago, or 0-5 ka) and the Last Glacial Maximum (18.5-23.5ka), and investigated the spatial structure of 230Th-normalized mass fluxes.

Access the paper here. PAGES thanks everyone involved in the workshop and the paper.

Find out more about GEOTRACES, an international study of the marine biogeochemical cycles of trace elements and their isotopes, here.

Read the latest e-news

Details: Published: Wednesday, 22 January 2020 15:22

Read about the latest PAGES' news, meetings and opportunities from around the world in the first e-news for 2020.

Highlights include the deadline for new SSC member applications, the deadline for new working group and workshop support applications, extensive PAGES working group news and meeting information, recent products, ECN updates including a new survey, plus Future Earth, WCRP and WDS-Paleo information, and other opportunities.

Sustainability research paper

Details: Published: Monday, 20 January 2020 17:25

PAGES is involved in a new paper, released today in Nature Sustainability, which proposes a set of four general principles that underlie high-quality knowledge co-production for sustainability research.

"Principles for knowledge co-production in sustainability research" by Albert Norström et al. is a collaborative effort originally organized by Future Earth and its Global Research Projects, of which PAGES is one. PAGES Executive Director Marie-France Loutre is a co-author.

Definitions of knowledge co-production are diverse and often contradictory. The paper's authors define it as "iterative and collaborative processes involving diverse types of expertise, knowledge, and actors to produce context-specific knowledge and pathways towards a sustainable future."