Coverage and Status of the Anthropocene: Inclusivity of data and transdisciplinary issues in iso-chronically defining human-witnessed youngest earth time periods

Abstract

Paper version of a talk in Lecture series: What is the Anthropocene? Exploring transdisciplinary collaboration for sustainable change (S.J. Kluiving, N.C van den Bongardt, Amsterdam Sustainability Institute), held Tuesday 5 September 2023, at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The talk centered on what the Anthropocene is in data from what disciplines, and to whom this matters. A brief time line of the use of the term starting in the year 2000 shows gradual broadening adoption and at the same time diversification of the meaning. In parallel, a definition effort progressed, with geological definition arguably receiving most attention. The talk then mapped out how the Anthropocene is currently seen by different groups from different disciplines in natural sciences (atmospheric science, ecology, earth system science, geology), spatial social sciences and humanities, and we do this by looking at time dimensions (short/long duration of the period, gradual or sharp beginnings), the spatial dimension (intrinsically of global scale and of major magnitude, or not), the naming dimension (is the name correct? causal?). Subsequently the types of data that document Earth and man’s joint developments over the last centuries are covered, starting from the so-called planetary dashboard. What data from which disciplines begets what other data in terms of precision and coverage in this period. Geological data is also part of that overview and valuable. But Anthropocene geological data also is thin and far less in coverage. For a rationale of calling out the Anthropocene or for deciding on a pragmatic-optimal sharp onset, other Earth system and socio-economic metrics – the ones originally used to call for it – are the more complete ones, data worked up with geological method supplements these. This data reality for youngest time perhaps should be weighed in, in procedural steps (proposal formulation, voting) to include the term officially in the international geological time scale, especially when advocating a mid-20th start (Zalasiewicz et al., 2017; Anthropocene Working Group). Such transdisciplinary inclusivity of data is not covered, however, in the standing definition procedures for chronostratigraphical units.