Climate Sense

[

] 167

bserving

, P

redicting

and

rOjecting

limate

OnditiOns

sustainability requires resilience thinking – institutional capacity

to respond to environmental feedback, to learn and store under-

standing, and be prepared and adaptive to allow for change. In a

nutshell, resilience is the key property of sustainability and the

measure of vulnerability and adaptability.

AsiaFlux – science frontier

AsiaFlux is a science community with a mission to ‘bring Asia’s

key ecosystems under observation to develop and transfer scientific

knowledge to ensure sustainability of life on earth’. It is the Asian

arm of Fluxnet, the worldwide flux research network, and one of the

key components of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems

(GEOSS). The GEOSS vision is to provide the right information to the

right people at the right time to make the right decisions. The purpose

of AsiaFlux is to develop collaborative research and data sets on the

cycles of carbon, water, and energy in key Asian ecosystems. It also aims

to provide workshops and training on current and related global climate

change science and technology. Finally, AsiaFlux seeks to cultivate the

next generation of scientists with skills and perspectives to address

global climate change as informed leaders and stewards.

AsiaFlux has grown from a small network of independent flux

monitoring groups in 1999 to a multi-national science commu-

nity with 449 members from 28 countries. Currently, there are

109 tower flux observation sites in Asia and more

sites are on the way. The biomes covered in AsiaFlux

range from rainforest near the equator to tundra

in the Arctic and Antarctic, and from wetland near

sea level to grassland in high altitudes such as the

Tibetan Plateau.

AsiaFlux celebrated its ten-year science, service,

and stewardship in November 2008 by hosting the

7th International AsiaFlux Workshop in Seoul,

Korea. During this workshop, ‘Re-thinking global

change science: from knowledge to policy’, the

refined vision of AsiaFlux was launched to serve as

‘science frontier’ in carbon, water and energy cycles.

It aims to develop and transfer scientific knowledge

characterized by:

• Consilience – the synthesis of knowledge in holistic,

exploratory, pluralistic and perspectival ways

• Contextualization – the reformulation of scientific

knowledge in social and pedagogical context by

embracing its implications as well as the applications

• Cultural diversity – building resilience by welcom-

ing diversity and conflict, tolerating ambiguity, and

embracing paradox through teaching and learning.

Tower flux observation sites in AsiaFlux in different plant functional types in different phases

The various adaptive cycles illustrate that ecological and social memory is maintained in the system through the presence of different functional groups in

different phases. Two local sites, a deciduous forest (right top) and a mixed farmland (right middle), are shown to highlight the importance of integrating cross-

scale ecosystem knowledge with social practices and the historical profile of disturbances (e.g., drought, fire, typhoon, and land use change)

Source: AsiaFlux

(www.asiaflux.org)

and Mizoguchi et al. (2009)