Stefan Brönnimann

On the occasion of Alexander von Humboldt’s 250th birthday, this symposium will assess, evaluate, and highlight his contributions to the field of Earth System Science and beyond, including life-long learning and the dissemination of scientific results. Alexander von Humboldt’s seminal contributions addressed numerous topics in the Earth sciences – spanning from geobotany, climatology, paleontology, oceanography, stratigraphy, mineralogy, resource, and hydrogeology to links between the environmental impact of humans, erosion, and climate change. Early on, he thus paved the way for a modern, integrated Earth System Science approach to decipher, characterize, and model the different forcing factors and their feedback mechanisms that govern the Earth’s systems.