Dr Florian Humpenöder

Senior Scientist
Humpenöder

Florian Humpenöder is a senior scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. He is a member of the land-use management group in Research Department III - Transformation Pathways.

Florian works with Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to develop global-scale transformation pathways compatible with the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). His core expertise are future scenarios of global land use under varying assumptions such as socio-economic development, land-use regulation, and dietary shift. Florian is an active developer of the open-source land-use model MAgPIE.

He published several peer-reviewed articles in high-ranking journals on the topic of GHG emission reduction from agriculture (e.g. methane from ruminants) and land-use change (e.g. CO2 from deforestation). Protection, management and restoration of forests and other ecosystems play a central role in his scientific work. He is a contributing author in the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) and the AFOLU chapter in the IPCC AR6 WG3 report.

Florian is currently working in the international EU-funded project WET HORIZONS.

Florian was part of the Expert Advisory Panel for The Earthshot Prize selection in 2023.

Department

Working Group

Contact

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
T +49 (0)331 288 2677
humpenoeder[at]pik-potsdam.de
P.O. Box 60 12 03
14412 Potsdam

ORCID

Florian Humpenöder studied economics at the Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin) and sustainable economics at the University of Kassel. He was awarded a PhD in economics from the Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) for his thesis Land based climate change mitigation - Modeling bioenergy production, afforestation and avoidance of deforestation in 2015.

  • Transformation pathways for food and agricultural systems
  • Future pathways of global land use
  • Land-based mitigation (avoided deforestation, afforestation, bioenergy, peatlands)
  • Trade-offs between climate protection and sustainable development
  • Land-use model development (MAgPIE)

Contributing author to the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) and the AFOLU chapter in the IPCC AR6 WG3 report.
https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-2/
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/

All Publications:
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2927-9407

First-author publications

Humpenöder, F., Popp, A., Schleussner, C.-F., Orlov, A., Windisch, M.G., Menke, I., Pongratz, J., Havermann, F., Thiery, W., Luo, F., et al. 2022 Overcoming global inequality is critical for land-based mitigation in line with the Paris Agreement. Nat Commun 13, 7453. 10.1038/s41467-022-35114-7.

Humpenöder F, Bodirsky B L, Weindl I, Lotze-Campen H, Linder T, Popp A 2022 Projected environmental benefits of replacing beef with microbial protein. Nature 605, 90–96
PDF version

Humpenöder F, Karstens K, Lotze-Campen H, Leifeld J, Menichetti L, Barthelmes A and Popp A 2020 Peatland protection and restoration are key for climate change mitigation. Environ. Res. Lett. 15 104093

Humpenöder F, Popp A, Bodirsky B L, Weindl I, Biewald A, Hermann Lotze-Campen, Dietrich J P, Klein D, Kreidenweis U, Müller C, Susanne Rolinski and Stevanovic M 2018 Large-scale bioenergy production: how to resolve sustainability trade-offs? Environ. Res. Lett.13024011

Humpenöder F, 2015 Land based climate change mitigation - Modeling bioenergy production, afforestation and avoidance of deforestation, Dissertation, Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin)

Humpenöder F, Popp A, Stevanovic M, Müller C, Bodirsky B L, Bonsch M, Dietrich J P, Lotze-Campen H, Weindl I, Biewald A and Rolinski S 2015 Land-Use and Carbon Cycle Responses to Moderate Climate Change: Implications for Land-Based Mitigation? Environ. Sci. Technol.

Humpenöder F, Popp A, Dietrich J P, Klein D, Lotze-Campen H, Bonsch M, Bodirsky B L, Weindl I, Stevanovic M and Müller C 2014 Investigating afforestation and bioenergy CCS as climate change mitigation strategies Environ. Res. Lett. 9 064029

Humpenöder F, Schaldach R, Cikovani Y and Schebek L 2013 Effects of land-use change on the carbon balance of 1st generation biofuels: An analysis for the European Union combining spatial modeling and LCA Biomass and Bioenergy 56 166–78