Search

Abstract: Rapid, or abrupt, climate change is regarded as a change in the climate system to a new state following the crossing of a threshold. It generally occurs at a rate exceeding that of the change in the underlying cause. Episodes of rapid climate change abound in the recent geological past (defined here as the interval between the last glacial maximum, dated to approximately 20,000years ago, and the present). Rapid climate changes are known to have occurred over time periods equal to or even less than a human lifespan: moreover, their effects on the global system are sufficiently large to have had significant societal impacts. The potential for similar events to occur in the future provides an important impetus for investigating the nature and causes of rapid climate change. This paper provides a brief overview of rapid climate change and an introduction to this special issue, which presents results generated by the palaeoclimatic component of the UK Natural Environment Research Council''s rapid climate change programme, called RAPID. The papers in the special issue employ palaeoclimatic proxy data-sets obtained from marine, ice core and terrestrial archives to reconstruct rapid climate change during the last glacial cycle, its subsequent termination and the ensuing Holocene interglacial; some papers also report new attempts to match the palaeoclimate data to hypothesised causes through numerical modelling. The results confirm the importance of freshwater forcing in triggering changes in Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) and the close links between MOC and rapid climate change. While advancing our understanding of these linkages, the RAPID research has highlighted the need for further research in order to elucidate more specific details of the mechanisms involved. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Methane from livestock manure accounts for ∼6.6% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States, and 1.1% of total emissions in Canada. Methane is 25 times more potent than CO2 as a GHG and is emitted into the atmosphere from enteric emissions and manure. Livestock operators can reduce CH4 emissions and may qualify for credits for its capture by utilizing manure management practices such as anaerobic digesters. Thus, livestock producers can play a role in reducing GHG emissions while also earning C offset credits. This paper has two related objectives. First, using data from Canada, we explore the economics of adoption of anaerobic digesters for Canadian dairy and hog producers. Second, using this example, we explore the institutional framework in place for livestock based GHG emissions and the sources of uncertainties facing both producers and consumers with regard to C offsets. From these two objectives we hope to better understand the potential gains for livestock producers, and consumers of CH4 based offsets, and identify potential institutional innovations needed to allow the offset market to function efficiently. This paper is part of the special issue entitled: Greenhouse Gases in Animal Agriculture – Finding a Balance between Food and Emissions, Guest Edited by T.A. McAllister, Section Guest Editors; K.A. Beauchemin, X. Hao, S. McGinn and Editor for Animal Feed Science and Technology, P.H. Robinson. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: During the last decade, Sustainability Reporting (SR) has been increasingly adopted by corporations worldwide. This is evidenced by the adoption of several guidelines, such as the ISO 14000 series, the Social Accountability 8000 standard, and the GRI Sustainability Guidelines. SR shows promise to help corporate leaders and their employees to contribute towards achieving sustainable societies. However, most of the guidelines and standards address sustainability issues through comparmentalisation, thereby, leading to the separation of the economic, environmental, and social dimensions. Due to these divisive approaches, holistic assessments of the effects of their efforts are seldom properly integrated into coporate decisions and procedures to make improvements for example through Cleaner Production, Worker Health and Safety, Consumer Safety, and reductions in the negative short and long-term Social and Environmental Impacts. This paper analyses SR reports from three companies with the help of Grounded Theory''s constant comparative analysis. This analytical framework helped the authors to systematically assess the degree to which the companies addressed economic, ecological and social issues separately or in an integrated and inter-linked manner. From the inter-linkages found, a new category is proposed to be added to future SR. This new category can help corporate SR planners and researchers on sustainability reports to better understand how the company leaders understand their responsibilities with regard to SD. These inter-connectednesses are highly relevant in many short and long-term dimensions of supply chain management, global warming, ecological disruption and societal equity issues, especially with regard to the local, national and global energy issues of fuels and oils, the central themes of the conference at which this paper was originally presented. It also plays a key role in real, long-term changes towards Sustainability, where the time dimension plays a key role in human survival on Planet Earth. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Scientific findings from the last decades have clearly highlighted the need for a more comprehensive approach to atmospheric change processes. In fact, observation of atmospheric composition variables has been an important activity of atmospheric research that has developed instrumental tools (advanced analytical techniques) and platforms (instrumented passenger aircrafts, ground-based in situ and remote sensing stations, earth observation satellite instruments) providing essential information on the composition of the atmosphere. The variability of the atmospheric system and the extreme complexity of the atmospheric cycles for short-lived gaseous and aerosol species have led to the development of complex models to interpret observations, test our theoretical understanding of atmospheric chemistry and predict future atmospheric composition. The validation of numerical models requires accurate information concerning the variability of atmospheric composition for targeted species via comparison with observations and measurements. In this paper, we provide an overview of recent advances in instrumentation and methodologies for measuring atmospheric composition changes from space, aircraft and the surface as well as recent improvements in laboratory techniques that permitted scientific advance in the field of atmospheric chemistry. Emphasis is given to the most promising and innovative technologies that will become operational in the near future to improve knowledge of atmospheric composition. Our current observation capacity, however, is not satisfactory to understand and predict future atmospheric composition changes, in relation to predicted climate warming. Based on the limitation of the current European observing system, we address the major gaps in a second part of the paper to explain why further developments in current observation strategies are still needed to strengthen and optimise an observing system not only capable of responding to the requirements of atmospheric services but also to newly open scientific questions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Though in last four decades various alternate energy sources have come into the limelight, the hyperbolic use of coal as a prime energy source cannot be counterbalanced. Disposal of high amount of fly-ash from thermal power plants absorbs huge amount of water, energy and land area by ash ponds. In order to meet the growing energy demand, various environmental, economic and social problems associated with the disposal of fly-ash would continue to increase. Therefore, fly-ash management would remain a great concern of the century. Fly-ash has great potentiality in agriculture due to its efficacy in modification of soil health and crop performance. The high concentration of elements (K, Na, Zn, Ca, Mg and Fe) in fly-ash increases the yield of many agricultural crops. But compared to other sectors, the use of fly-ash in agriculture is limited. An exhaustive review of numerous studies of last four decades took place in this paper, which systematically covers the importance, scope and apprehension regarding utilization of fly-ash in agriculture. The authors concluded that though studies have established some solutions to handle the problems of radioactivity and heavy metal content in fly-ash, long-term confirmatory research and demonstration are necessary. This paper also identified some areas, like proper handling of dry ash in plants as well as in fields, ash pond management (i.e., faster decantation, recycling of water, vertical expansion rather than horizontal), monitoring of soil health, crop quality, and fate of fly-ash in time domain, where research thrust is required. Agricultural lime application contributes to global warming as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assumes that all the carbon in agricultural lime is finally released as CO2 to the atmosphere. It is expected that use of fly-ash instead of lime in agriculture can reduce net CO2 emission, thus reduce global warming also. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This special issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production focuses on “Energy for Sustainable Future”. It is designed to mirror the increasing relevance of renewable energy sources and improved efficiency as crucial topics for practitioners in industry, for governmental policy makers, as well as for civic service providers, researchers, and educators. The purpose of this special issue is to serve as a catalyst for dialogue. The global warming related to CO2 emissions, coupled with steeply rising energy prices and the recent global financial institutional melt-down are causing massive societal concerns and give rise to increasing demand for ways to improve societal and individual energy efficiency and for ways to shift increasingly to alternative, low or non-carbon based energy systems. Until recently, industrial energy efficiency improvements have focused on improvements on efficiency rather than on the integration of renewable sources. The aim of this special issue is the identification of policies to support the development and implementation of technologies and management approaches we can employ to make the transition to more sustainable societies. The collection of papers in this special issue provide a foundation for students, researchers, scholars, practitioners and policy makers interested in making sustainable development more than a metaphor. The papers include focus upon ways for: [(a)] Improving industrial process to achieve improvements in energy efficiency. [(b)] Minimising waste disposals and reducing their impact through better management. [(c)] Reducing CO2 emissions by making progress toward lower carbon, renewable energy based systems, [(d)] Improving production of biofuels and hydrogen production systems, facilitated by employing cleaner production and novel LCA tools. [(e)] Improving integration of advanced materials and energy efficient equipment in different industrial sectors. Current and future developments in national and world economies are closely connected to sustainable, efficient and safe usage of raw materials and upon energy based on cleaner production concepts and approaches that are ecologically and economically appropriate for the short and for the long-term future of society. These challenges have received considerable attention in the media and scientific journals over the last several years. The idea of developing a specialised conference focussed upon them was put forward on various occasions. Focus upon them became reality on the 5th and 6th May 2008 in the historic Castle of Veszprém, Hungary, the current premises of the Hungarian Academy of Science which hosted the Workshop. The Workshop was a stimulating event and an overwhelming success, with nearly 100 contributors from Africa, North America, Asia and Europe, representing 28 countries. After a comprehensive selection and thorough reviewing procedure 11 papers were selected for this special issue. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines the economic impact of climate change on livestock production in Kenya. We estimate a Ricardian model of net livestock incomes and further estimate the marginal impacts of climate change. We also simulate the impact of different climate scenarios on livestock incomes. The Ricardian results show that livestock production in Kenya is highly sensitive to climate change and that there is a non-linear relationship between climate change and livestock productivity. The estimated marginal impacts suggest modest gains from rising temperatures and losses from increased precipitation. The predictions from atmospheric ocean general circulation models suggest that livestock farmers in Kenya are likely to incur heavy losses from global warming. The highest and lowest losses are predicted from the Hadley Centre Coupled model (HADCM) and Parallel Climate Model (PCM) respectively, based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change A2 Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. The paper concludes that in the long term, climate change is likely to lead to increased poverty, vulnerability and loss of livelihoods. Several policy interventions are recommended to counter this impact. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The temperature dependence of organic matter decomposition is of considerable ecosphysiological importance, especially in the context of possible climate-change feedback effects. It effectively controls whether, or how much, carbon will be released with global warming, and to what extent that release of carbon constitutes a dangerous positive feedback effect that leads to further warming. The present paper is an invited contribution in a series of Citation Classics based on a review paper of the temperature dependence of organic matter decomposition that was published in 1995. It discusses the context and main findings of the 1995 study, the progress has been made since then and what issues still remain unresolved. Despite the continuation of much further experimental work and repeated publication of summary articles, there is still no scientific consensus on the temperature dependence of organic matter decomposition. It is likely that this lack of consensus is largely due to different studies referring to different experimental conditions where confounding factors play a greater or lesser role. Substrate availability is particularly important. If it changes during the course of measurements, it can greatly confound the derived apparent temperature dependence. This confounding effect is illustrated through simulations and examples of experimental work drawn from the literature. The paper speculates that much of the current disagreement between studies might disappear if different studies would ensure that they are all studying the same system attributes, and if confounding factors were always considered and, if possible, eliminated. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, the results obtained by inter-comparing several statistical techniques for modelling SO2 concentration at a point such as neural networks, fuzzy logic, generalised additive techniques and other recently proposed statistical approaches are reported. The results of the inter-comparison are the fruits of collaboration between some of the partners of the APPETISE project funded under the Framework V Information Societies and Technologies (IST) programme. Two different cases for study were selected: the Siracusa industrial area, in Italy, where the pollution is dominated by industrial emissions and the Belfast urban area, in the UK, where domestic heating makes an important contribution. The different kinds of pollution (industrial/urban) and different locations of the areas considered make the results more general and interesting. In order to make the inter-comparison more objective, all the modellers considered the same datasets. Missing data in the original time series was filled by using appropriate techniques. The inter-comparison work was carried out on a rigorous basis according to the performance indices recommended by the European Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change (ETC/ACC). The targets for the implemented prediction models were defined according to the EC normative relating to limit values for sulphur dioxide. According to this normative, three different kinds of targets were considered namely daily mean values, daily maximum values and hourly mean values. The inter-compared models were tested on real cases of poor air quality. In the paper, the inter-compared techniques are ranked in terms of their capability to predict critical episodes. A ranking in terms of their predictability of the three different targets considered is also proposed. Several key issues are illustrated and discussed such as the role of input variable selection, the use of meteorological data, and the use of interpolated time series. Moreover, a novel approach referred to as the technique of balancing the training pattern set, which was successfully applied to improve the capability of ANN models to predict exceedences is introduced. The results show that there is no single modelling approach, which generates optimum results in terms of the full range of performance indices considered. In view of the implementation of a warning system for air quality control, approaches that are able to work better in the prediction of critical episodes must be preferred. Therefore, the artificial neural network prediction models can be recommended for this purpose. The best forecasts were achieved for daily averages of SO2 while daily maximum and hourly mean values are difficult to predict with acceptable accuracy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In response to a congressional mandate, the US Global Change Research Program organized a National Assessment of Climate Change focusing on geographic regions (e.g. Alaska, Great Plains) and sectors (e.g. public health, agriculture, water resources). This paper describes methodology and results of a study by researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory contributing to the water sector analysis. The subsequent paper makes use of the water supply results to estimate the climate change impacts on irrigated agriculture. The vulnerability of water resources in the conterminous US to climate changes in 10-year periods centered on 2030 and 2095 as projected by the Hadley/United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) general circulation model (GCM; HadCM2) were modeled using the Hydrologic Unit Model for the United States (HUMUS). HUMUS, a biophysically based hydrology model, consists of a Geographical Information System (GIS) that provides data on soils, land use and climate to drive the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The modeling was done at the scale of the eight-digit United States Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologic Unit Area (HUA) of which there are 2101 in the conterminous US. Results are aggregated to the four- and two-digit (major water resource region, MWRR) scales for various purposes. Daily records of maximum/minimum temperature and precipitation (PPT) from 1961 to 1990 provided the baseline climate. Water yields (WY), used as a measure of water supply for irrigation, increases from the 1961–1990 baseline period over most of the US in 2030 and 2095. In 2030, WY increases in the western US and decreases in the central and southeast regions. Notably, WY increases by 139 mm (35%) from baseline in the Pacific Northwest. Driven by higher temperatures and reduced precipitation, WY is projected to decrease in the Lower Mississippi and Texas Gulf basins. The HadCM2 (2095) scenario projects a climate significantly wetter than baseline, resulting in water yield increases of 38% on average. Water yield increases are projected to be significant throughout the eastern US—39% in the Ohio basin, for example. Water yields increase significantly in the western US, as well—57 and 76% in the Upper and Lower Colorado, respectively. Climate change also affects the seasonality of the hydrologic cycle. Early snowmelt is induced in western basins, leading to dramatically increased water yields in late winter and early spring. The simulations were run at current (365 ppm) and elevated (560 ppm) atmospheric CO2 concentrations [CO2] to account for the potential impacts of the ‘CO2-fertilization’ effect. The effects of climate change scenario were considerably greater than those due to elevated [CO2] but the latter, overall, decreased losses and augmented increases in water yield. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The biomass of aquatic organisms largely determines the mass and energy flow within an ecosystem, but the long-term impact of environmental change on biomass is not well constrained for a number of clades. Here, we test the hypothesis that bivalve biomass is negatively impacted by warming climate over time. This study is based on a fossil marine bivalve fauna recovered from hemipelagic sediments deposited in the eastern Mediterranean during climate cycles (marine isotope stages (MIS) 22–18; 900–712 kyr B.P.) of the Early–Middle Pleistocene Transition. We reconstruct individual shell biomasses from fossils and discuss the various biotic and abiotic factors that controlled long-term shell biomass patterns across this important interval in the Earth climate system. The results are contrary to the original hypothesis, suggesting that the response to temperature is not universal. Nevertheless, a decrease in median biomass is observed during the MIS 19 warm period and can be possibly attributed to the combined effect of multiple drivers that cooperated at that critical time in the past, including higher temperature and primary productivity, reduced ventilation of the sea floor, biodiversity changes due to geographic range shifts, and considering species- and age-specific thermal tolerances. Generally, bivalve biomass at the community level is determined by relative abundance and shell biomass-frequency distribution. In our study, the relative abundance and median biomass of small species do not increase or decrease, respectively, in warmer periods. However, larger species are negatively affected by warming both in terms of relative abundance and biomass. • We reconstruct deep-water bivalve biomass for Pleistocene eastern Mediterranean from fossil shells. • Compare median biomasses at species and community level in warm versus cold period within MIS 22–18. • Bivalve shell biomass response to temperature is not universal. • Decrease in median biomass is observed during the MIS 19 warm period. • Larger species are negatively affected by warming both in terms of relative abundance and biomass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Messinian, the sensitivity of the Mediterranean Basin to ecosystem perturbation was enhanced in response to the progressive restriction of water exchange with the Atlantic Ocean. The widespread deposition of organic-rich layers (i.e. sapropel) during the Messinian testifies the perturbation of the carbon and oxygen cycles; indeed, these sediments were deposited under conditions of oxygen starvation, presumably in response to a periodic deterioration of the thermohaline circulation strength. Disentangling the causes, the effect and magnitude of the thermohaline circulation weakening during the geological past is crucial for better constraining present and near-future deoxygenation dynamics in the Mediterranean region under the current climate warming. For this purpose, we investigate a Messinian sapropel-bearing succession cropping out at Monte dei Corvi (Ancona, central Italy) with mineralogical, petrographic, micropaleontological and stable Carbon and Oxygen isotopic analyses. We show that sapropel layers were deposited in response to an increase of the sea surface buoyancy, which hampered the thermohaline circulation and thus the oxygenation of bottom water, in turn affecting the bioturbating organisms. Within the lithological cycle, the recovery of an efficient thermohaline circulation is recorded by thin packstone layers underlying the marly limestone/marlstone, which record intense bottom currents. The marly limestone/marlstone accumulated during periods of intense primary productivity and organic carbon export to the sea bottom, which promoted bottom hypoxia but not organic matter preservation. We infer that these lithological changes resulted from variations in the Adriatic Deep Water formation system, controlled by precession-driven climatic and oceanographic changes. By integrating previously published Sea Surface Temperature (SST) with new isotopic and mineralogical data, we show that variations in Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) were the leading factor controlling sapropel deposition, minimizing the role of primary productivity. The SSTs characterizing the sapropel deposits are close to the range of those projected in the Eastern Mediterranean at the end of this century under climate warming. In this scenario, future warming will be coupled with SSS increase, which will counteract the density loss provided by temperature, making the bottom deoxygenation in the Eastern Mediterranean abysses unlikely. However, additional forcing, such as winter heat waves and eutrophication, could contribute to negatively affecting the Mediterranean oxygen balance and should be considered in model-based projections. • The Monte dei Corvi recorded the changes in the ADW formation during the Messinian. • The bottom deoxygenation resulted from variations in the freshwater input. • Future deoxygenation in Mediterranean can be provided by productivity or heatwaves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on two studies that examine correlates of attitudes to climate change (ACC). In the first study, five hundred participants completed five questionnaires and an intelligence test as well as two related measures of ACC. Using correlations and regressions we examined the relationship between ACC and demography (gender, age, education), ideology (political and religious beliefs), intelligence, self-beliefs, Belief in a Just World and the endorsement of Conspiracy Theories. One climate change questionnaire factored into three factors labelled Impact, Fatalism, and Personal action. The most consistent finding was that political opinions were most strongly related to climate change beliefs: more conservative thinkers denied that individuals could do anything. In the second study, also with 500 participants, we asked one question concerning how seriously they took the issue of global warming. Again, we examined the relationship with this response and the participants' demography, ideology and self-ratings. Political beliefs primarily were related to global warming concerns, as in the first study. Results are discussed in terms of climate change as an ideology and the possible changing of these beliefs. Limitations, like the representativeness of the sample and the single-item measure in the second study are acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To cope with global warming, China has promulgated Enhanced actions on climate change : China ’ s intended nationally determined contributions and will start the national carbon emissions trading market in 2017. Carbon emissions are distributed by the form of free quota and paid quota. However, few literatures have focused on how the economy and the environment would be changed by the change of free quota ratio. This paper establishes the 10 scenarios of different free quota ratio of carbon emissions rights and uses a dynamic, recursive computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to simulate the carbon emissions trading market, to explore the relationship between free quota ratio and carbon trading price, and the impact of carbon trading scheme (ETS) on China’s economy and environment. The results show that free quota ratio will not have a direct impact on gross domestic product (GDP) and other economic and environment indicators but carbon trading prices. The prices and the rate of free payment in the current pilot cities in China are still relatively conservative. It is possible to reach emission peak, 8.21 billion ton, in 2025 and accumulative CO 2 reduction from 2017 to 2030 is 20.02 billion tons, or 59.60% of 2010 world’s total CO 2 emission. Cement, minerals, electricity and nonferrous metals under ETS will suffer great losses, so subsidy should be considered. Finally, we suggested that China should reduce the total carbon rights to increase the carbon price in 2017, and gradually reducing the proportion of free quota, from 90% in 2017 to 50% or less in 2030, by which the peak year of CO 2 emission can meet in 2025. We also suggest that ETS is an effective strategy for CO 2 reduction and the ratio should be gradually reduced in ETS to prevent violent fluctuation of carbon price in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on numerical models and climate observations over past centuries, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) attributes to human activity most of the warming observed since the mid-20th century. In this context, this paper presents the first major attempt for climate system identification – in the sense of the systems theory – in the hope to significantly reduce the uncertainty ranges. Actually, climatic data being what they are, the identified models only partially fulfill this expectation. Nevertheless, despite the dispersion of the identified parameters and of the induced simulations, one can draw robust conclusions which turn out to be incompatible with those of the IPCC: the natural contributions (solar activity and internal variability) could in fact be predominant in the recent warming. We then confront our work with the approach favored by IPCC, namely the “ detection and attribution related to anthropic climate change ”. We explain the differences first by the exclusion by IPCC of the millennial paleoclimatic data, secondly by an obvious confusion between cause and effect, when the El Niño index is involved in detection and attribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic global climate change has large and mounting negative economic impacts. Companies and nations responsible for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are thus acquiring considerable potential liabilities. If litigation becomes widespread, renewable energy technologies (RETs) potentially offer emitters reduced liability for climate change. This benefit has been ignored because of the lack of knowledge of potential liabilities. To overcome this information deficit, this paper reviews recent literature on the potential for climate change litigation and methods to quantify liability for climate change. Next, the top 10 emitters in the U.S. are identified and their potential liability is quantified using standard GHG emission costs. Potential liabilities are explored in depth with a single case study company comparing the results of the fractional liability from only natural disasters within the U.S. for a single year to a sensitivity of the future costs of carbon emissions from other sources of emission-related liability. Then classes of potential climate change litigants are identified and their capacity to bring such lawsuits is evaluated. The results show that the net income available to shareholders of large companies could see a significant reduction from the emissions liability related to only natural disasters in the U.S. from a single coal-fired power plant. Finally, a rough estimate of the economic risk associated with future scenarios and existing organized international potential litigants is quantified. The results show that potential liability for climate change for the Alliance of Small Island States is over $570 trillion. It is concluded that as emitters begin to be held liable for damages resulting from GHG emissions resulting in climate change, a high value for liability mitigation would provide additional powerful incentives for deployment of renewable energy technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Soil moisture plays an increasingly important role in the cycle of energy–water exchange, climate change, and hydrologic processes. It is usually measured at a point site, but regional soil moisture is essential for validating remote sensing products and numerical modeling results. In the study reported in this paper, the minimal number of required sites (NRS) for establishing a research observational network and the representative single sites for regional soil moisture estimation are discussed using the soil moisture data derived from the “Maqu soil moisture observational network” (101°40′–102°40′E, 33°30′–35°45′N), which is supported by Chinese Academy of Science. Furthermore, the best up-scaling method suitable for this network has been studied by evaluating four commonly used up-scaling methods. The results showed that (1) Under a given accuracy requirement R ⩾ 0.99, RMSD ⩽ 0.02 m 3 /m 3 , NRS at both 5 and 10 cm depth is 10. (2) Representativeness of the sites has been validated by time stability analysis (TSA), time sliding correlation analysis (TSCA) and optimal combination of sites (OCS). NST01 is the most representative site at 5 cm depth for the first two methods; NST07 and NST02 are the most representative sites at 10 cm depth. The optimum combination sites at 5 cm depth are NST01, NST02, and NST07. NST05, NST08, and NST13 are the best group at 10 cm depth. (3) Linear fitting, compared with other three methods, is the best up-scaling method for all types of representative sites obtained above, and linear regression equations between a single site and regional soil moisture are established hereafter. “Single site” obtained by OCS has the greatest up-scaling effect, and TSCA takes the second place. (4) Linear fitting equations show good practicability in estimating the variation of regional soil moisture from July 3, 2013 to July 3, 2014, when a large number of observed soil moisture data are lost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses costs, emissions, and climate impact by freight shipping in the Arctic with main focus on the Northern Sea Route. The entire route lies in Arctic waters, which due to global warming, has become ice free during summer and autumn. The route goes from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean along the Russian Arctic coast and reduces voyage distance by 40% between Northern Europe and Japan. Traditionally, comparisons of the climate impact of transport solutions have been based on fuel consumption and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), while other trace emissions in the exhaust gas have been ignored. It is becoming increasingly well-known however, that aerosols, and their precursors emitted from shipping are strong climate forcers, with a magnitude that is intimately connected to the specific region of emission. Taking into account these considerations, we apply region-specific Global Warming Potential (GWP) characterization factors to estimate the relative magnitude of the short-lived climate forcers in the Arctic compared to traditional shipping regions and to the impact of CO 2 emissions in light of reduced overall fuel consumption. The results indicate that there are no general climate benefits of utilizing the Northern Sea Route, even with cleaner fuels, since the additional impact of emissions in the Arctic more than offsets the effect of shorter voyages. In terms of climate change mitigation, managing this trade-off will be challenging, as the Northern Sea Route offers cost savings per ton of freight transported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of climate trends taking into consideration possible structural changes is important for understanding climate development characterized by a stochastic trend or by a determined one. In the paper global and hemisphere temperature anomalies are modeled by piecewise linear regression and break points in the temperature evolution are found. It was demonstrated that the used method allowed finding of breaks characterized by long time trends (low frequency processes) as well as abrupt changes (fast frequency processes). The obtained break points for slow temperature change are close to the ones found by other authors however additional conditions (as segment length, gradient and others) are not used here. The results for higher break point numbers are like the ones of step slope models. It was demonstrated that the successive phases of warming and cooling and most of the break points subdividing these periods in the Northern Hemisphere are introduced by the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. Because the strong quasi periodicity of the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation the authors recommend the removal of its influence on the temperature from the temperature series before studies of trends or structural changes. The Northern Hemisphere temperature data after the removal of the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation influence show structures like the Southern Hemisphere temperatures. Model selection by the Schwarz–Bayesian Information Criterion developed by Liu, Wu and Zidek (LWZ criterion) shows that models with only one break point are to be preferred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy consumption in heating and cooling around the world has been a major contributor to global warming. Hence, many studies have been aimed at finding new techniques to save and control energy through energy efficient measures. Most of this energy is used in residential, agricultural and commercial buildings. It is therefore important to adopt energy efficiency measures in these buildings through new technologies and novel building designs. These new building designs can be developed by employing various passive cooling systems. Earth pipe cooling is one of these which can assist to save energy without using any customary mechanical units. This paper investigates the earth pipe cooling performance in a hot humid subtropical climate of Rockhampton, Australia. A thermal model is developed using ANSYS Fluent for measuring its performance. Impacts of air velocity, air temperature, relative humidity and soil temperature on room cooling performance are also assessed. A temperature reduction of around 2 °C was found for the system. This temperature reduction contributed to an energy saving of a maximum of 866.54 kW (8.82%) per year for a 27.23 m 3 room. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The improvement of energy efficiency and the integration of renewable energy in buildings are key elements of current European policies. According to the recast of the Directive EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings), Member States have to target nZEBs (nearly zero energy buildings) and minimum energy performance requirements within a cost-optimal framework by 2020. This study reports the comparative methodology reported in the EPBD, aimed at the establishment of cost-optimality in office buildings located in a warm climate. A number of energy efficiency measures have been selected and applied to the envelope and the systems of a virtual reference office building. Technical features and energy performance calculations have been assessed for the obtained configurations. Primary energy consumption and global costs have been derived to identify the cost-optimal configuration from a financial and macroeconomic analysis. The paper shows the suitability of the methodology to support the design of cost-effective energy efficient solutions in new office buildings. Results show technical variants selection able to a decrease primary energy consumption by 39% and CO 2 emissions by 41% at the lowest cost. They also illustrate how to design cost-optimal nZEBs for a warm climate in compliance with EU (European Union) policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geoengineering, which is the intentional large-scale manipulation of the environment, has been suggested as an effective means of mitigating global warming from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, we will review and assess technical and theoretical aspects of land-based, atmosphere-based, ocean-based and space-based geoengineering schemes as well as their potential impacts on global climate and ecosystem. Most of the proposed geoengineering schemes carried out on land or in the ocean are to use physical, chemical or biological approaches to remove atmospheric CO 2 . These schemes are able to only sequester an amount of atmospheric CO 2 that is small compared with cumulative anthropogenic emissions. Most of geoengineering schemes carried out in the atmosphere or space are based on increasing planetary albedo. These schemes have relatively low costs and short lead times for technical implementation, and can act rapidly to reduce temperature anomalies caused by greenhouse gas emissions. The costs and benefits of geoengineering are likely to vary spatially over the planet with some countries and regions gaining considerably while others may be faced with a worse set of circumstances than would be the case without geoengineering. Since current research on geoengineering is limited and various international treaties may limit some geoengineering experiments in the real world, the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) provides a framework of coordinated experiments for all earth system modeling groups to test geoengineering schemes. However, these experiments used on a global scale have difficulty with accurate resolution of regional and local impacts, so future research on geoengineering is expect to be done by combining earth system models with regional climate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ground source heat pumps (GSHP) have attracted increasing attention because of their high energy efficiencies. The aim of this paper is to study the performance of (GSHP) in future climate conditions (2040–2069) by using projected future hourly weather data of selected representative cities in the US to estimate future ground temperature change. The projected hourly weather data and estimated ground temperatures are input to an hourly simulation tool (TRNSYS and eQuest for this research), which provides reliable coupling of GSHP system and building performance. The simulation results show that global warming will decrease the energy efficiency of GSHP in US residential buildings because a rise in inlet and outlet water temperature is predicted for GSHP systems during the cooling season and because buildings will become more cooling dominated in the future. For office buildings, although the cooling performance of GSHP will not drop significantly under future climate, the overall energy efficiency for the system will decrease due to the increasing energy consumption of the ground loop pump. In the future, considering the significant ground heat imbalance for GSHP operation, GSHP will become less competitive both economically and technically than it is now in the context of US climate zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Areal reduction factors (ARFs) are commonly used to transform point design rainfall to represent the average design rainfall for a catchment area. While there has been considerable attention paid in the research and engineering communities to the likely changes in rainfall intensity in future climates, the issue of changes to design areal rainfall has been largely ignored. This paper investigates the impact of climate change on ARFs. A new methodology for estimating changes in ARFs is presented. This method is used to assess changes in ARFs in the greater Sydney region using a high-resolution regional climate model (RCM). ARFs under present (1990–2009) and future (2040–2059) climate conditions were derived and compared for annual exceedance probabilities (AEPs) from 50% to 5% for durations ranging from 1 h to 120 h. The analysis shows two main trends in the future changes in ARFs. For the shortest duration events (1-h) the ARFs are found to increase which implies that these events will tend to have a larger spatial structure in the future than the current climate. In contrast, storms with durations between 6 and 72 h are likely to have decreased ARFs in the future, suggesting a more restricted spatial coverage of storms under a warming climate. The extent of the decrease varies with event frequency and catchment size. The largest decreases are found for large catchments and rare events. Although the results here are based on a single RCM and need to be confirmed in future work with multiple models, the framework that is proposed will be useful for future studies considering changes in the areal extent of rainfall extremes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activists and scholars increasingly blame neoliberalism for the failure to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but there is insufficient research that investigates the theoretical link between neoliberalism and climate paralysis. This paper seeks to fill that gap by presenting a coherent account of how neoliberal ideology has constrained policies to address climate change in the United States. As motivation, we first present evidence suggesting more neoliberal countries perform worse in addressing climate change. We then analyze how three tenets of neoliberal ideology—to decentralize democracy, defund public investment, and deregulate the economy—have stymied climate action in the United States. Finally, we discuss the Green New Deal as a decisively anti-neoliberal framework that seeks to wield the power of the federal government to pursue large-scale public investments and binding climate regulations for rapid decarbonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In integrated assessment models (IAMs) economic activity leads to global warming, which causes future economic costs. However, typical IAMs do not explicitly represent the role of natural capital. In this paper, the DICE model by Nordhaus (2008) is expanded with a natural capital variable that is affected both by climate change and by depletive effects of economic activity. Due to a synergy between the two effects, the optimal policy of the expanded model features more and earlier abatement of CO 2 emissions than DICE. Interestingly, the policy implications are different from what follows if one tries to capture the depletive effects on natural capital by simply reducing factor productivity growth in DICE. Acknowledging considerable uncertainty, simulations show that climate- and savings rate policies from the expanded model are more robust in the long term than policies that do not consider non-climatic depletion effects on natural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent and the determinants of global climate change beliefs. In contrast to former studies for the U.S. and other western countries, we focus on China due to its crucial role in international climate policy in conjunction with its vulnerability to global warming. The empirical analysis is based on unique data from a survey among more than 1000 adults in five Chinese cities. In line with former studies, our results reveal that the vast majority of almost 90% of the Chinese respondents believes in the existence of global warming. This seems to be a convenient and necessary basis for the support of costly public adaptation activities in China. Our econometric analysis reveals that already perceived experiences with extreme weather events (and particularly heatwaves) alone are strongly correlated with climate change beliefs and that physical or financial damages due to these events lead to even stronger relationships. Our estimation results additionally suggest females as well as people with a lower education, in medium ages, with higher household incomes, and from Chengdu or Shenyang to be more skeptical toward the existence of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No glacial lake census exists for the Third Pole region, which includes the Pamir-Hindu Kush-Karakoram-Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. Therefore, comprehensive information is lacking about the distribution of and changes in glacial lakes caused by current global warming conditions. In this study, the first glacial lake inventories for the Third Pole were conducted for ~ 1990, 2000, and 2010 using Landsat TM/ETM + data. Glacial lake spatial distributions, corresponding areas and temporal changes were examined. The significant results are as follows. (1) There were 4602, 4981, and 5701 glacial lakes (> 0.003 km 2 ) covering areas of 553.9 ± 90, 581.2 ± 97, and 682.4 ± 110 km 2 in ~ 1990, 2000, and 2010, respectively; these lakes are primarily located in the Brahmaputra (39%), Indus (28%), and Amu Darya (10%) basins. (2) Small lakes (< 0.2 km 2 ) are more sensitive to climate changes. (3) Lakes closer to glaciers and at higher altitudes, particularly those connected to glacier termini, have undergone larger area changes. (4) Glacier-fed lakes are dominant in both quantity and area (> 70%) and exhibit faster expansion trends overall compared to non-glacier-fed lakes. We conclude that glacier meltwater may play a dominant role in the areal expansion of most glacial lakes in the Third Pole. In addition, the patterns of the glacier-fed lakes correspond well with warming temperature trends and negative glacier mass balance patterns. This paper presents an important database of glacial lakes and provides a basis for long-term monitoring and evaluation of outburst flood disasters primarily caused by glacial lakes in the Third Pole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific records provide clear evidence of rising atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG) concentrations. Global warming and rising extreme weather events are believed to be a result. Besides proactively combating global climate change, transport agencies may need to develop strategies for better preparedness of the impacts of climate change. This is particularly important for certain regions that are more vulnerable to the potential damages caused by climate change. A methodological framework for developing such strategies is presented in the paper. The framework is illustrated through two examples: the management of rural roads in Thailand where the vast road network is being threatened by increasing floods and rising sea levels and the improvement of pavement design strategies for expressways along the coast of Hong Kong. Adaption measures are proposed for the highway agencies to address the challenges caused by climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Both drought and aridity indicate imbalance in water availability. While drought is a natural temporal hazard, aridity is a constant climatic feature. This paper investigates the changes in drought characteristics across different aridity zones with and without consideration of potential evapotranspiration (PET), as a means to better assess drought in a warming climate. Two drought indexes are employed: (1) Standardized precipitation index (SPI), which is solely based on precipitation; and (2) Reconnaissance drought index (RDI), which, in addition to precipitation, takes PET into account. The two indexes are first employed to observed precipitation and PET data for the period 1960–2009 from the CRU (Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia) TS 3.1 database. The results indicate that although all the aridity zones experience both downward and upward drought trends, no significant trend is found over large parts of the zones. However, the agreement between SPI and RDI reduces from the hyper-arid zone on one extreme toward the humid zone on the other. In the three more humid zones (i.e. semi-arid, sub-humid, and humid), the indexes exhibit different trends, with RDI showing more decreasing trends (i.e. becoming drier). While SPI generally shows more drought prone areas than RDI for the pre-1998 period, the opposite is observed for the post-1998 period. Given the known changes to PET in observed records, and also expected increases as global warming intensifies, these results suggest that RDI will be consistently different to the SPI as global warming intensifies. This hypothesis is further tested for historic and future climate projections from the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia) Mk3.6 global climate model (GCM), with use of the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and RCP8.5 (Representative Concentration Pathways). In this case, PET is calculated using FAO56-PM model for assessment of RDI. The results suggest that agreement between SPI and RDI is affected and decreases remarkably over time (between 1850 and 2100). All these lead to the conclusion that, in the face of climate change, PET, an important component in the hydrologic cycle, should not be ignored in drought modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low carbon manufacturing is of growing importance due to the severity of energy shortage and increasing energy costs, as well as a series of environmental problems, i.e., climate change and global warming. This paper investigates the potential of process parameter optimization to minimize carbon emissions during machine processing. A process model of CNC machining is first presented to scope the system boundaries for energy footprint and process efficiency. A multi-objective optimization model is then proposed to explore the impact of cutting speed and feed rate on carbon emissions and processing time. The benefit of the approach is illustrated through a case study of a CNC cylindrical turning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Younger Dryas (YD) climatic reversal (12.86–11.65 cal ky BP), especially the warming initiated at ∼12.6 cal ky BP, and the associated vegetation changes have been proposed as past analogs to forecast the potential vegetation responses to future global warming. In this paper, we applied this model to highland and midland Neotropical localities. We used pollen analysis of lake sediments to record vegetation responses to YD climatic changes, which are reconstructed from independent paleoclimatic proxies such as the Mg/Ca ratio on foraminiferal tests and Equilibrium Line Altitude (ELA) for paleotemperature, and grayscale density and Titanium content for paleoprecipitation. Paleoclimatic reconstructions at both highlands and midlands showed a clear YD signal with a conspicuous warming extending into the early Holocene. A small percentage of taxa resulted to be sensitive to these YD climate changes. Response lags were negligible at the resolution of the study. However, changes in the sensitive taxa were relevant enough to determine changes in biodiversity and taxonomic composition. Highland vegetation experienced mainly intra-community reorganizations, whereas midland vegetation underwent major changes leading to community substitutions. This was explained in terms of threshold-crossing non-linear responses in which the coupling of climatic and other forcings (fire) was proposed as the main driving mechanism. Paleoecology provides meaningful insights on the responses of highland and midland Neotropical vegetation to the YD climatic reversal. Biotic responses at both individual (species) and collective (assemblage) levels showed patterns and processes of vegetation change useful to understand its ecological dynamics, as well as the mechanisms and external drivers involved. The use of paleoecological methods to document the biotic responses to the YD climate shifts can be useful to help forecasting the potential consequences of future global warming. Due to its quasi-global character, the YD reversal emerges as a well suited candidate for providing useful insights of global scope by analyzing the corresponding biotic responses virtually at any geographical and biological setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landfills all around the world are one of the major sources that contribute towards global warming and climate change. Although landfilling should be prioritized last in the waste management hierarchy due to highest greenhouse gas emissions as compared to other waste management systems it is still very common around the world. In this study, methane emissions are estimated by applying First Order Decay model to landfills in Pakistan over the latest data available by Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency. Results demonstrate that nearly 14.18 Gg of methane is emitted from the landfills in Pakistan each year. By combusting this methane in the form of biogas collected from the landfills as a waste management scheme we can reduce greenhouse effect up to ~88%. Same percentage is observed when we apply the similar analysis over the potentially improved practice. Also, Pakistan is facing severe economic crises due to continuous increasing gap between energy demand and supply. Demand is increasing exponentially while supply is observed to remain constant over the last few years due to frozen capacity in spite of having significant renewable/alternate energy resources. Current electricity shortfall has reached up to 6000 MW. Present operational landfills in Pakistan can only contribute up to ~0.1% to cater the total deficit which does not make any significant difference but if 75% of the total waste generated today is collected and 50% of it landfilled then Pakistan has the potential to produce ~83.17 MW of power that can contribute up to 1.4% to overcome the current power shortage. The outcomes of this paper may also be applicable to other developing countries having similar resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various environmental regulations put ever stringent requirements on the automotive industry as a part of solution to the problem of global warming and climate change. In Europe, the upcoming Euro 6 standard that will come into force on September 1, 2014 demands reduction in NO x emissions from cars and vehicles intended for transport by more than 50% compared to the current standard. The urea-water-solution (UWS) based selective catalytic reduction (SCR) is currently the most promising method for fulfilling these requirements. In principle, the UWS spray is injected into a hot exhaust gas stream preceding the SCR catalyst and ammonia is generated through series of chemical reactions. Then, the generated ammonia acts in various deNO x reactions as a reductant. This paper investigates application of numerical modeling in the area of environmentally friendly technology of mobile SCR as a green engineering measure to reduce pollution in the road transport sector. Within this work the mathematical model of surface tension has been developed and compared to analytical expression for isothermal droplet spreading. Furthermore, this model was incorporated into the wall film module of the commercial computational fluid dynamics code FIRE for description of urea-water-solution injection into hot exhaust gases of diesel engine and compared to experimental data. Results of the conducted numerical study support the feasibility of commercial application of the presented model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An irreducibly simple climate-sensitivity model is designed to empower even non-specialists to research the question how much global warming we may cause. In 1990, the First Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expressed 'substantial confidence' that near-term global warming would occur twice as fast as subsequent observation. Given rising CO concentration, few models predicted no warming since 2001. Between the pre-final and published drafts of the Fifth Assessment Report, IPCC cut its near-term warming projection substantially, substituting 'expert assessment' for models' near-term predictions. Yet its long-range predictions remain unaltered. The model indicates that IPCC's reduction of the feedback sum from 1.9 to 1.5 W m K mandates a reduction from 3.2 to 2.2 K in its central climate-sensitivity estimate; that, since feedbacks are likely to be net-negative, a better estimate is 1.0 K; that there is no unrealized global warming in the pipeline; that global warming this century will be <1 K; and that combustion of all recoverable fossil fuels will cause <2.2 K global warming to equilibrium. Resolving the discrepancies between the methodology adopted by IPCC in its Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports that are highlighted in the present paper is vital. Once those discrepancies are taken into account, the impact of anthropogenic global warming over the next century, and even as far as equilibrium many millennia hence, may be no more than one-third to one-half of IPCC's current projections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil organic matter (SOM) has beneficial effects on soil properties for plant growth and production. Moreover, SOM changes carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and can influence climate warming. Conventional methods for SOM determination based on laboratory analyses are costly and time consuming. Use of soil reflectance spectra is an alternative approach for SOM estimation and has the advantage of being rapid, non-destructive and cost effective. This method assumes that residuals are independent and identically distributed. However, in most cases this assumption does not hold owing to spatial dependence in soil samples. The aim of the paper was to test the potential of laboratory Vis–NIR spectroscopy to develop an approach of partial least square regression (PLSR) with correlated errors for estimating spatially varying SOM content from laboratory-based soil Vis–NIR spectra and producing a continuous map using a geostatistical method. The study area was the Turbolo watershed (Calabria, southern Italy), which is representative of Mediterranean areas being highly susceptible to soil degradation. Topsoil samples were collected at 201 locations. To reduce the lack of linearity that may exist in the spectra, reflectance (R) spectra were transformed in absorbance spectra (log (1 / R)). Partial least squared regression (PLSR) analysis was then used to predict SOM from reflectance spectra. To take into account spatial correlation between observations, the significant latent variables from PLSR were used as regressors in a linear mixed effect model with correlated errors of SOM. The spatial approach and traditional PLSR were compared through the calculation of root mean square prediction error (RMSPE). In order to produce a continuous map, the estimated SOM data were interpolated by ordinary kriging. The approach is particularly advantageous when the data exhibit a pronounced spatial autocorrelation and could be used in digital soil mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns over climate change (global warming) are driving innovation for stabilizing and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) as well as renewable energy sources including wind and solar have been increasingly used and integrated into existing energy systems. The global installed renewable energy capacity booms, but many problems regarding grid integration appears due to the variability and uncertainty in the output of renewable energy generation. Therefore, large amount of curtailed electric energy (CEE) exists, which means some of the renewable energy generation must be wasted to keep real-time balance between load and generation in power system. In this paper, the definition of CEE is introduced, and the main causes for CEE are discussed. Then, the worldwide CEE is estimated, especially in China. Moreover, to evaluate the utilization priority of various generation resources, the potential of reducing fossil fuel consumption, GHG emissions and air pollutants as well as the potential of capturing CO 2 with CEE are analyzed. Possible CEE reduction strategies are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate on the Tibetan Plateau is often considered sensitive to global changes, yet the degree of sensitivity in different spaces and seasons prior to instrumental records is not clear. In this paper, we studied tree-ring maximum latewood density (MXD) to examine the late-summer (August–September) temperature variation over the past two and half centuries on the eastern Tibetan Plateau. The MXD regional chronology was established from 109 tree-ring samples of Balfour spruce [ Picea likiangensis var. balfouriana (Rehd. et Wils.)] at four high elevation sites. The chronology exhibited a high correlation ( r = 0.82, n = 56, p < 0.001) with the mean August–September temperature. Using the tree-ring data, we reconstructed the late-summer temperature for the period A.D. 1765–2009. The reconstruction accounted for 71.4% of the variance in instrumental temperature in the period 1954–2009. The reconstructed temperature did not show a warming trend in the past 250 years, suggesting a unique characteristic of late-summer temperature variability in the study region of the Tibetan Plateau. Our tree-ring data are useful for further understanding of the plateau's thermal condition in late summer and its role in regulating southward retreat of the Southwest Asian monsoon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban heat island and global warming increase ambient temperature and modify the energy budget of buildings. The magnitude of the modification has been evaluated in a large number of articles, under different climatic and building boundary conditions. This paper collects, analyzes and classifies existing knowledge regarding the energy impact of urban heating to buildings and calculates preliminary indicators and impact figures. Based on the analysis of the impact studies, it is found that in average the cooling load of typical urban buildings is by 13% higher compared to similar buildings in rural areas. Four specific energy impact indicators, the global energy penalty per m 2 , the global energy penalty per m 2 and degree of UHI, the global energy penalty per person and the global energy penalty per person and per degree of the UHI are defined and calculated. The variability of the heating and cooling loads of typical buildings is evaluated for the period 1970–2010. The average increase of the cooling demand is 23% while the corresponding average reduction of the heating is 19%. In total, the average energy consumption of typical buildings for heating and cooling purposes increased by 11% for the same period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) was introduced in 1980s to better optimise water uses between different water demanding sectors. However, since it was introduced water systems have become more complicated due to changes in the global water cycle as a result of climate change. The realization that climate change will have a significant impact on water availability and flood risks has driven research and policy making on adaptation. This paper discusses the main similarities and differences between climate change adaptation and IWRM. The main difference between the two is the focus on current and historic issues of IWRM compared to the (long-term) future focus of adaptation. One of the main problems of implementing climate change adaptation is the large uncertainties in future projections. Two completely different approaches to adaptation have been developed in response to these large uncertainties. A top-down approach based on large scale biophysical impacts analyses focussing on quantifying and minimizing uncertainty by using a large range of scenarios and different climate and impact models. The main problem with this approach is the propagation of uncertainties within the modelling chain. The opposite is the bottom up approach which basically ignores uncertainty. It focusses on reducing vulnerabilities, often at local scale, by developing resilient water systems. Both these approaches however are unsuitable for integrating into water management. The bottom up approach focuses too much on socio-economic vulnerability and too little on developing (technical) solutions. The top-down approach often results in an “explosion” of uncertainty and therefore complicates decision making. A more promising direction of adaptation would be a risk based approach. Future research should further develop and test an approach which starts with developing adaptation strategies based on current and future risks. These strategies should then be evaluated using a range of future scenarios in order to develop robust adaptation measures and strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Po River is a crucial resource for the Italian economy, since 40% of the gross domestic product comes from this area. It is thus crucial to quantify the impact of climate change on this water resource in order to plan for future water use. In this paper a mini ensemble of 8 hydrological simulations is completed from 1960 to 2050 under the A1B emission scenario, by using the output of two regional climate models as input (REMO and RegCM) at two different resolutions (25 km-10 km and 25 km-3 km). The river discharge at the outlet point of the basin shows a change in the spring peak of the annual cycle, with a one month shift from May to April. This shift is entirely due to the change in snowmelt timing which drives most of the discharge during this period. Two other important changes are an increase of discharge in the wintertime and a decrease in the fall from September to November. The uncertainty associated with the winter change is larger compared to that in the fall. The spring shift and the fall decrease of discharge imply an extension of the hydrological dry season and thus an increase in water stress over the basin. The spatial distributions of the discharge changes are in agreement with what is observed at the outlet point and the uncertainty associated with these changes is proportional to the amplitude of the signal. The analysis of the changes in the anomaly distribution of discharge shows that both the increases and decreases in seasonal discharge are tied to the changes in the tails of the distribution, i.e. to the increase or decrease of extreme events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Developed a general methodology to define and characterise overheating events and evaluate the risk to reduced comfort and undesirable health effects of building occupants exposed to extreme heat events. • Developed criteria to declare overheating based on heat-related health outcomes related to limits for body dehydration and core temperature of healthy average-age and older people. • Applied the methodology to a case study of a residential building with typical local construction in cold climates and compared the results with those from other existing methods. • The proposed methodology sets the groundwork for establishing a benchmark model from which different overheating metrics can be compared. Overheating in built environments during climate extreme heat events is a major concern to human health, particularly for people vulnerable to prolonged exposure to heat and humidity. However, currently available methods for assessing the risk of overheating lack robust procedures to evaluate the effects of overheating on the comfort and health of vulnerable occupants residing in the various different dwellings. This paper developed a general methodology to define and characterise overheating events and evaluate the risk to reduced comfort and undesirable health effects of building occupants exposed to extreme heat events. Criteria to declare overheating were developed based on heat-related health outcomes related to limits for body dehydration and core temperature of healthy average-age and older adults. The methodology was then applied to a case study of a residential building with typical local construction practice for cold climates and compared with existing methods for assessing risk from exposure to extreme heat events. The results showed that all the methods predicted that highly insulated and airtight buildings are more prone to overheating than older buildings that are less well insulated and airtight. However, only the proposed methodology described in this paper predicted that natural ventilation through opening windows significantly reduced the overheating risk to below the threshold value. Furthermore, multi criteria methods might be difficult to apply in practice in that it is not guaranteed to violate all the criteria to declare a building space is not overheated. The proposed methodology sets the groundwork for establishing a benchmark model from which different overheating metrics can be compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the first legally binding global agreement on climate change, the Paris Agreement aims to limit long-term global warming to less than 2 °C, preferably below 1.5 °C compared to pre-industrial levels. Road transport, as one of the primary sources of energy consumption and carbon emissions, has great potential for energy conservation and emission reduction in achieving the climate goals. However, current approaches cannot efficiently reduce road travel, making it challenging to decarbonize in the transport sector. Therefore, in this paper, we propose STRICTs, a blockchain-enabled motor vehicle restrictive and trading system based on the carbon emissions cap. STRICTs allows automated carbon emission auditing and carbon emission violation punishment without relying on third-party escrow. Through a decentralized enforcer, STRICTs also enables carbon permit trading reliably and transparently. Finally, we implement a proof-of-concept prototype of the system based on Hyperledger Fabric and conduct experiments for comprehensive performance evaluation through CO2 Emission by Vehicles dataset. The experiment results show the practically affordable performance of STRICTs. [Display omitted] • Carbon emission calculation and carbon emission permit allocation method is developed. • Vehicle data chain is built to guarantee the reliability and correctness of collected vehicle data. • Restrictions on carbon emission allowance is presented to reduce carbon emissions. • A smart-contract-based decentralized enforcer is proposed to audit user's carbon emission behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The net primary productivity (NPP) significantly increased in marshes of study area. • Summer daytime and nighttime temperatures had an asymmetric effect on marsh NPP. • Increased precipitation in summer and autumn can enhance the NPP of marsh vegetation. The western Songnen Plain has a large area of marshes that are able to modulate the regional carbon cycle. Net primary productivity (NPP) is an important ecological indicator of carbon storage within the marsh ecosystems. Although climate change could have significantly changed marsh vegetation NPP during the past decades, the spatiotemporal variation in marsh vegetation NPP and how climate change affects marsh vegetation NPP remain unclear in the western Songnen Plain. In this paper, we assessed the spatiotemporal variation in the NPP of marshes at the western Songnen Plain and evaluated its response to climate change from 2000 to 2020. The NPP of marshes over the western Songnen Plain increased significantly at a rate of 5.69 g C/m2/a during 2000 to 2020, with an average value of about 273.62 g C/m2/a. The largest increase of the NPP of marshes was mainly distributed in the northwest part of the Songnen Plain. Correlation analysis results showed that the increased precipitation in summer and autumn could enhance the NPP of marsh vegetation. By contrast, the increase of mean temperature in summer reduced the NPP of marshes. In addition, we first found the asymmetric impacts of summer minimum temperature (T min) and maximum temperature (T max) on marsh vegetation NPP. Notably, the increase in summer T max could significantly reduce NPP, while the increase in T min could increase NPP. Under the background of global asymmetric warming of daytime and nighttime temperatures, more attention should be paid to the different effects of T max and T min on marsh NPP in the western Sonegnen Plain. The findings of this study can provide theoretical guidance for ecological protection and the adaptive management of marsh vegetation at the western Songnen Plain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) data provide a global, long-term, consistent time series with favorable spectral and spatial resolution. Such measurements are necessary for climate change studies. However, significant problems with the AVHRR calibration have been seen in two separate sources of early AVHRR data — lack onboard calibration and observed trends and biases when the AVHRR radiances are compared with other accurate top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiances sources. In this paper, new calibration coefficients for channels 1 and 2 of the AVHRR sensors onboard 16 NOAA satellites from TIROS-N, NOAA-6 to NOAA-19, and Metop-A, B are reported. The calibration slopes are derived based on several pseudo-invariant sites endorsed by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS). Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS) channels 6 and 8 radiance data are applied in characterizing the bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDF) of the TOA reflectance over the employed targets, and MODTRAN simulations are carried out to parameterize the spectral channel adjustment factors (SBAFs) between SeaWiFS and each AVHRR sensor to eliminate the spectral response differences over different targets considering the impacts of observing geometries and gaseous absorption. The BRDFs and SBAFs are then applied to filtered AVHRR time-series to generate time series of calibration slopes presented in the form of quadratic polynomials as a function of time and applied in the recalibration of AVHRR data records. Comparisons with calibration coefficients generated from other products exhibit preferable validity and consistency, and notable incoherence and trend in the TOA reflectance time series of the L1B AVHRR data over each site from all the launched NOAA series polar orbiting satellites are largely eliminated after the recalibration. The long-term and inter-sensor consistent AVHRR data records after this post calibration can provide valuable insight into global climate changes since 1978. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The increasing global warming is most likely to affect the magnitude and pattern of wind at a regional level and such an effect may or not follow the trend predicted at the global scale. Regional level exercises are therefore necessary while making decisions related to engineering infrastructure. In this paper an attempt is made to know the extent of change in design as well as operational wind conditions at two offshore locations along the west coast of India. The design wind speeds with return periods of 10, 50 and 100 years derived for two 30-year time slices in the past and future are compared. In two separate exercises the past and future wind at the local level is simulated by empirical downscaling as well as by interpolation of the general circulation model (GCM) output. Both sets of past and future data are fitted to the Generalized Pareto as well as Weibull distributions using the peak over threshold method to extract long term wind speeds with a specified return. It is noticed that at the given locations the operational and design wind may undergo an increase of around 11%–14% when no downscaling is adopted and 14%–17% when the GCM data are downscaled. Although these figures may suffer from a certain level of statistical uncertainty the study points out to take a relook into the safety margins kept in the design and operation of ocean structures in the light of global warming. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In a recent paper (Chen et al., 2013), fractional changes in temperature were correlated with fractional changes in anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide in order to estimate the amount of warming attributable to CO2 emissions. No justification was given for using the emissions rate rather than cumulative changes in atmospheric CO2 and the assumptions are not physically-based. This leads to counter-physical predictions, such as cases where increased heating causes the Earth to cool. Furthermore, a 10-year shift in start date alters the calculated elasticity by a factor of 2. A standard energy balance model is physically-based and outperforms the Chen et al. (2013) model, and its fitted transient climate response is consistent with changes in atmospheric CO2 causing warming equivalent to approximately 100% of the temperature change observed since 1960, consistent with formal attribution analyses. It is cautioned that purely statistical correlations are not able to demonstrate cause, and that they are particularly poor at attribution when there is no physical basis for the selection of variables and functional forms used in the correlation analysis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The serious energy supply problems along with the conventional resources depletion and the environmental conscience regarding global warming and climate change have urged the need for a complete change in the energy production, supply and consumption patterns. Therefore, the switch towards renewable energy resources including solar, biomass, wind and hydro-power in addition to the development of energy efficient technologies are two key factors to attain a secure and reliable energy sector and to mitigate the global warming problem. Tri-generation is one of the most promising technologies allowing the efficient simultaneous production of heat, coolth and power with potential technical, economic and environmental benefits. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the latest developments in the field of combined cooling, heating and power generation. Recent tri-generation supporting mechanisms, prime movers, cooling technologies, system configurations, fuels and renewable energy resources employed are presented and discussed. As the operation strategy is the critical factor governing the tri-generation system performance, the current work presents the recent strategies developed and implemented to optimize the system performance and improve its overall efficiency. While certain technologies employed in tri-generation systems as internal combustion engines, gas turbines and absorption cooling are well-established and have already found their way to the commercial market, other promising technologies including organic Rankine systems, fuel cells and liquid desiccant cooling, are still in the research and development phase with additional work needed to demonstrate their potential and reach commercialization. Based on the detailed and comprehensive review conducted, a summary with the main conclusions in addition to recommendations for future work are reported. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] Temperature affects distribution and toxicity of environmental chemicals in water. [•] We assess papers, reviews and organizational reports available on this issue. [•] Effects of warming in a contaminated world on aquatic organisms are reported. [•] We propose an etho-toxicological approach to study chemical and thermal interplay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The south-west of Australia is being affected by a warming, drying trend in its climate. In response to these changing climatic conditions, as well as changes in farm commodity price relativities, farmers have adjusted their mix of enterprises to favour cereal production. As a result, an increasing potential source of cereal straw for bioenergy production has emerged. This paper examines how temporal and spatial costs of cereal straw accumulation may affect the establishment of a bioenergy plant in the region, with climate change impacts being highlighted. Logistics models based on mathematical programming are constructed for a range of plant sizes. Modelling results identify the cost structures of cereal straw accumulation for these plant sizes. Plant sizes are characterised by different cost structures and levels of volatility in their costs of grain accumulation. The profitability of bioenergy production based on cereal straw in this region of Australia is particularly exposed to climate variability, especially for larger plant sizes. The projected change in climate supports a relatively small reduction in the costs of cereal straw accumulation. These findings will affect decision-making over investment in a long-lived specific asset such as a bioenergy processing plant. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]