Search

Background: Information about airborne pollen concentrations is required by a range of end users, particularly from the health sector who use both observations and forecasts to diagnose and treat allergic patients. Manual methods are the standard for such measurements but, despite the range of pollen taxa that can be identified, these techniques suffer from a range of drawbacks. This includes being available at low temporal resolution (usually daily averages) and with a delay (usually 3–9 days from the measurement). Recent technological developments have made possible automatic pollen measurements, which are available at high temporal resolution and in real time, although currently only scattered in a few locations across Europe. Materials & Methods: To promote the development of an extensive network across Europe and to ensure that this network will respond to end user needs, a stakeholder workshop was organised under the auspices of the EUMETNET AutoPollen Programme. Participants discussed requirements for the groups they represented, ranging from the need for information at various spatial scales, at high temporal resolution, and for targeted services to be developed. Results: The provision of real‐time information is likely to lead to a notable decrease in the direct and indirect health costs associated with allergy in Europe, currently estimated between €50–150 billion/year.1 Discussion & Conclusion: A European measurement network to meet end user requirements would thus more than pay for itself in terms of potential annual savings and provide significant impetus to research across a range of disciplines from climate science and public health to agriculture and environmental management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In France and Germany, significant networks of local initiatives have developed around energy issues. This article brings practitioners' viewpoints into discussion. It presents the way in which two of these networks – the CLER-network for the energy transition (France) and the 100% – Regions network (Germany) – each identifies itself, describes its action and build-up process in relation to government action, and conceives of justice issues in the field of climate energy policy. The analysis shows that these two networks share a lot, including political ends (localisation of energy production, empowerment of rural territories), but practice quite differently as intermediaries for local initiatives. This suggests overcoming the transition management vs grassroots divide present in the literature and paying more attention to hybrids. It also brings emphasis on a type of intermediary's work, which has not been covered by the academic literature, namely that of tinkering with multiple supports and embedding action in local-national-supranational networking in order to maintain continuity. In discussing justice dimensions, we emphasize that motives or ends of action are only reflectively related to ideas of justice: justice issues seem bound up with a politics of assembling, either as a marker of federative action (all fighting for justice) or as a potentially divisive issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2023 was a landmark year for climate change, with hundreds of climate records broken around the world concurrent with the conclusion of the IPCC Sixth Assessment (AR6) process and the first United Nations (UN) Stocktake on climate action. This special issue builds on the AR6 with three papers on key global tourism and climate change knowledge gaps (tourism and climate policy integration, pathways to deep emission reductions, tourism demand) and nine in-depth assessments of tourism climate and carbon risk in each of the IPCC regions. These important contributions of 65 different authors from 30 countries also supported the first ever global stocktake of climate action in the tourism sector. The papers in this special issue make clear that global tourism as we know it in the early twenty first century will be transformed by the climate crisis. Based on the collective contributions, this introduction to the special issue summarizes the state of tourism and climate change research, sets out a research agenda related to the low carbon transition, adapting to accelerating climate disruption, and climate justice, and emphasizes the urgent need to mobilize the tourism academy in this decisive decade for climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews tourism-relevant advances in climate science and tourism policy in the Australasia region over the past 20 years, focusing particularly on the seven years (2015–2021) since the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Within the Australasia region, Australia and New Zealand have a complicated relationship with climate change, as both countries are dependent upon stable climates for tourism while contributing to high tourism greenhouse gas emissions. Both are economically reliant on their respective tourism industries, which market environmental products to predominantly long-haul tourism markets. In this paper we critically address the climate change context in Australasia, reviewing the tourism systems, climate risks and carbon risks in the region. We critique the (dis)connection of climate change and tourism policy at the national scale in the region, and find that the extent of climate responses in relation to tourism are generally limited to descriptive (Generation 1) and normative (Generation 2) approaches. We conclude that serious deficiencies remain in the climate science – tourism policy translation required to transform the tourism systems of Australia and New Zealand in response to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aerosol–cloud interactions play a crucial role in shaping Earth's climate and hydrological cycle. Observing these interactions with high precision and accuracy is of the utmost importance for improving climate models and predicting Earth's climate. Over the past few decades, lidar techniques have emerged as powerful tools for investigating aerosol–cloud interactions due to their ability to provide detailed vertical profiles of aerosol particles and clouds with high spatial and temporal resolutions. This review paper provides an overview of recent advancements in the study of ACI using lidar techniques. The paper begins with a description of the different cloud microphysical processes that are affected by the presence of aerosol, and with an outline of lidar remote sensing application in characterizing aerosol particles and clouds. The subsequent sections delve into the key findings and insights gained from lidar-based studies of aerosol–cloud interactions. This includes investigations into the role of aerosol particles in cloud formation, evolution, and microphysical properties. Finally, the review concludes with an outlook on future research. By reporting the latest findings and methodologies, this review aims to provide valuable insights for researchers engaged in climate science and atmospheric research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The action required to stem the environmental and social implications of climate change depends crucially on how humankind shapes technology, economy, lifestyle and policy. With transport CO2 emissions accounting for about a quarter of the total, we examine the contribution of CO2 output by scientific travel. Thankfully for the reputation of the scientific community, CO2 emissions associated with the trips required to present a paper at a scientific conference account for just 0.003% of the yearly total. However, with CO2 emissions for a single conference trip amounting to 7% of an average individual’s total CO2 emissions, scientists should lead by example by demonstrating leadership in addressing the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes an argument for a geography of girlhood, located at the intersection of historical geographies of globalisation and empire on the one hand, and feminist interventions in the geography of childhood and youth on the other. A focus on girlhood, I argue, opens up a debate on the discipline's own implication in a debate on climate science, moral hierarchies of civilisation and reproductive health at which intersection the category of 'girl' was materialised in the 19th century. This focus extends and historicises the argument made by scholars like Nicola Ansel that geographies of childhood speak not only to intimate scales of experience ‐ such as the home and neighbourhood—but instead suggest the ways in which everyday life is implicated in the scale of the global and the geopolitical. Drawing on an inter‐disciplinary scholarship, the paper argues that debates on gender and maturity—converging on the figure of the 'girl'—shaped raced and classed imaginaries of progress in the 19th and 20th centuries. Through this, the paper demonstrates that 'girlhood' is at the heart of historical geographies of urban planning, social care, and health, as well as indexing the continuities in the transition from a colonial discourse of civilisation to a mid‐20th century concern with development. Finally, the paper asks how to write about girls through an archive that is almost obsessively fixated on them as subjects of education and reform, even whilst they rarely appear in it as speaking subjects. I argue that both an emergent focus on non‐textual objects as sources, as well as the use of ephemeral material—including notes, creative writing exercises from the classroom, school diaries etc.—alongside the official archive might open the scholarship up to a multi‐scalar analysis of girlhood as imbricated in larger global and national discursive and material practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various analyses show that right-wing populist parties (RWP) tend to be sceptical of climate science and policy. This points to a blank space in the dominant analyses of populism: their blindness towards society-nature relations. This paper aims to develop an approach grounded in Cultural Political Economy (CPE) that can be used to decipher the mediation of RWP within the context of economic, political, and cultural developments as well as society–nature relations. Against this background, the argument is developed that RWP is concerned not only with countering migration and processes of societal liberalisation, but also with defending an existing way of life that is firmly rooted in the destructive appropriation of nature. As a current of right-wing politics, RWP defends the imperial mode of living by expressing scepticism towards the existence of anthropogenic climate change. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the political economy of RWP by linking the dimensions of social domination with the appropriation of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the normalisation of political relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, the so-called ‘desert tech’ industry has emerged as a key area of economic collaboration. Desert tech combines technological innovation with speculation and entrepreneurialism, claiming to offer lucrative yet sustainable solutions to the specific dangers of climate change in arid environments. By weaving together their respective climate and security expertise and technologies, political visions, and investment capital, Israel and the UAE promise to save arid states the world over from ecological catastrophe – making themselves and their political and territorial projects indispensable in the process. In this paper, we unravel their promethean vision of making ‘all deserts bloom’. We first situate this vision in the desert’s tangible histories of colonial environmentalism, retracing the inextricable relationship of climate science to the violent expropriation, securitisation and transformation of Indigenous life and land by white, European settlers. We then follow contemporary UAE-Israel desert-tech collaboration across the geographically expansive and historically layered sites and forms of violence that facilitate, circulate, and secure this industry’s vision of the future. In so doing, we argue that normalisation is underwritten by a racialised temporality – one that constructs desert landscapes as eternally on the threshold of climate catastrophe, erasing the deep, historical relationships of Palestinians, Bedouin and other racialised subjects to arid environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As governments and multilateral institutions launch projects and programs to support climate change mitigation and adaptation, the challenge lies in determining their effectiveness. The high complexity of climate-change programs often makes it difficult to determine their effectiveness through standard monitoring and evaluation procedures. ‘complexity-aware monitoring’ is a qualitative approach to monitoring, recently introduced by international development programs. This increasing awareness of complexity in the evaluation sector opens up a window of opportunity for complexity science to support climate change mitigation and adaptation programs. This paper’s contribution is a hands-on methodology for live monitoring and evaluation of development programs. The methodology is rooted in existing literature on social–ecological systems, as pioneered by Ostrom, and in quantitative methods from complexity science. To illustrate the methodology, an existing climate mitigation project in Madagascar, funded, monitored and evaluated by the Green Climate Fund, is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating coastal topographic and bathymetric data for creating regional seamless topobathymetric digital elevation models of the land/water interface presents a complex challenge due to the spatial and temporal gaps in data acquisitions. The Coastal National Elevation Database (CoNED) Applications Project develops topographic (land elevation) and bathymetric (water depth) regional scale digital elevation models by integrating multiple sourced disparate topographic and bathymetric data models. These integrated regional models are broadly used in coastal and climate science applications, such as sediment transport, storm impact, and sea-level rise modeling. However, CoNED's current integration method does not address the occurrence of measurable vertical discrepancies between adjacent near-shore topographic and bathymetric data sources, which often create artificial barriers and sinks along their intersections. To tackle this issue, the CoNED project has developed an additional step in its integration process that collectively assesses the input data to define how to transition between these disparate datasets. This new step defines two zones: a micro blending zone for near-shore transitions and a macro blending zone for the transition between high-resolution (3 m or less) to moderate-resolution (between 3 m and 10 m) bathymetric datasets. These zones and input data sources are reduced to a multidimensional array of zeros and ones. This array is compiled into a 16-bit integer representing a vertical assessment for each pixel. This assessed value provides the means for dynamic pixel-level blending between disparate datasets by leveraging the 16-bit binary notation. Sample site RMSE assessments demonstrate improved accuracy, with values decreasing from 0.203–0.241 using the previous method to 0.126–0.147 using the new method. This paper introduces CoNED's unique approach of using binary code to improve the integration of coastal topobathymetric data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe and the Mediterranean are considered climate change hot spots. This is the reason why this paper focuses on the analysis of the trends of essential climate variables in a Mediterranean country, Greece. The analyzed period is 1991–2020, and the dataset used is ERA5-Land (produced by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts), which has global coverage and an improved resolution of ~9 × 9 km compared to other datasets. Significant climatic changes across Greece have been put in evidence during the analyzed period. More specifically, the country averaged a 30-year trend of temperature of +1.5 °C, locally exceeding +2 °C, and this increasing trend is positively correlated with the distance of the areas from the coasts. Accordingly, the number of frost days has decreased throughout the country. In terms of rainfall, a major part of Greece has experienced increasing annual rainfall amounts, while 86% of the Greek area has experienced a positive trend of days with heavy rainfall (>20 mm). Finally, a multiple signal of the trend of consecutive dry days was found (statistically non-significant in the major part of Greece). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) is one of the biggest international efforts aimed at better understanding the past, present, and future of climate changes in a multi-model context. A total of 21 model intercomparison projects (MIPs) were endorsed in its sixth phase (CMIP6), which included 190 different experiments that were used to simulate 40 000 years and produced around 40 PB of data in total. This paper presents the main findings obtained from the CPMIP (the Computational Performance Model Intercomparison Project), a collection of a common set of metrics, specifically designed for assessing climate model performance. These metrics were exclusively collected from the production runs of experiments used in CMIP6 and primarily from institutions within the IS-ENES3 consortium. The document presents the full set of CPMIP metrics per institution and experiment, including a detailed analysis and discussion of each of the measurements. During the analysis, we found a positive correlation between the core hours needed, the complexity of the models, and the resolution used. Likewise, we show that between 5 %–15 % of the execution cost is spent in the coupling between independent components, and it only gets worse by increasing the number of resources. From the data, it is clear that queue times have a great impact on the actual speed achieved and have a huge variability across different institutions, ranging from none to up to 78 % execution overhead. Furthermore, our evaluation shows that the estimated carbon footprint of running such big simulations within the IS-ENES3 consortium is 1692 t of CO 2 equivalent. As a result of the collection, we contribute to the creation of a comprehensive database for future community reference, establishing a benchmark for evaluation and facilitating the multi-model, multi-platform comparisons crucial for understanding climate modelling performance. Given the diverse range of applications, configurations, and hardware utilised, further work is required for the standardisation and formulation of general rules. The paper concludes with recommendations for future exercises aimed at addressing the encountered challenges which will facilitate more collections of a similar nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce a spectral surface reflectivity climatology based on observations made by TROPOMI on board the Sentinel-5P satellite. The database contains the directionally dependent Lambertian-equivalent reflectivity (DLER) of the Earth's surface for 21 wavelength bands ranging from 328 to 2314 nm and for each calendar month. The spatial resolution of the database grid is 0.125° × 0.125°. A recently developed cloud shadow detection technique is implemented to avoid dark scenes due to cloud shadow. In the database, the anisotropy of the surface reflection is described using a third-order parameterisation of the viewing angle dependence. The viewing angle dependence of the DLER is analysed globally and for a selection of surface type regions. The dependence is found to agree with the viewing angle dependence found in the GOME-2 surface DLER database. Differences exist, related to the actual solar position. On average, the viewing angle dependence in TROPOMI DLER is weaker than for GOME-2 DLER, but still important. Validation of the new database was first performed by comparison of the non-directional TROPOMI surface LER with heritage LER databases based on GOME-1 , OMI, SCIAMACHY, and GOME-2 data. Agreement was found within 0.002–0.02 in the UV-VIS (below 500 nm), up to 0.003 in the NIR (670–772 nm), and below 0.001 in the short-wave infrared (SWIR) (2314 nm). These performance numbers are dominated by the performance over ocean, but they are in most cases also representative for land surfaces. For the validation of the directional TROPOMI surface DLER, we made use of comparison with the MODIS surface bi-directional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) for a selection of surface type regions. In all cases the DLER performed significantly better than the traditional LER, and we found good agreement with the MODIS surface BRDF. The TROPOMI surface DLER database is a clear improvement on previous surface albedo databases and can be used as input not only for satellite retrievals from TROPOMI observations, but also for retrievals from observations from other polar-orbiting satellite instruments provided that their equator crossing time is close to that of TROPOMI. The algorithm that is introduced in this paper can be used for the retrieval of surface reflectivity climatologies from other polar satellite missions as well, including Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) on the Sentinel-3 satellites, Sentinel-5, and Multi-viewing Multi-channel Multi-polarisation imager (3MI) on the MetOp-SG-A1 satellite to be launched in 2025, as well as the future CO2M mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the importance of environmental care for the growth and development of the global world and how One Belt One Road Initiative (OBOR) can help to connect Asia, Europe, and Africa for economic cooperation and long-term sustainability. Paper, based on bibliometric analysis and utilizing Web of Science Core Collection database for calculation, summarizes total OBOR publications in terms of quantity, citations, regions, disciplines, institutes and explains about the most productive countries. Results reveal that total OBOR papers indexed in Web of Science was found 2508 where there were 1335 articles and 854 proceedings papers marking 87.3% of total OBOR research. We find the most productive direction of environmental science and global climate change and work related to environmental policies. Results show that China has contributed 73.3% (1755 publications) to global OBOR publication and have received 69.3% of all citations to "One Belt One Road" publications. Highest average citation level was from Canada, Portugal, and Spain while China's average citations were quite low though very close to average world level. Internationally collaborated publications had more citations than the publications prepared by authors of one country. The paper concludes that environmental concerns should be kept in mind while focusing on the growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lorenz (1963) provided the foundation of chaos theory and inspired a fundamental reappraisal of systems’ nonlinearity in many disciplines, including physical geography. I will provide a brief overview of chaos in nonlinear systems as documented in Lorenz (1963), including the major tenants of chaos theory, followed by a discussion of the effects of chaos theory within meteorology and climate sciences, geomorphology, and ecology and biogeography. In general, Lorenz (1963) provided the intellectual framework for reconsidering the predictability of many physical systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological sites are essentially submitted to decay phenomena inherent on their history as well as the environment to which they are exposed after excavation. The history of such archaeological sites is particularly related to their long-term underground conservation conditions during which they were subject to salt migration into the architectural remains. It is well known that soluble salts present in building materials can cause damage, mainly by producing stresses in the substrate. A lot of research has been done in the past concerning the behaviour of salts in built constructions. However, most studies include single salts, of which the deliquescence points are well documented, while in situ one mostly finds complex salt mixtures, which makes the conservation strategy much more intricate. The environmental conditions to minimize damage of salt-laden porous building materials can be modelled using a computer program ECOS capable of predicting the crystallization behaviour of salt mixtures. To use the model data of quantitative salt analyses are required as input. The program is then able to predict from a thermodynamic point of view which minerals will exist in the solid state under specified climatic conditions. This paper deals with the results of a systematic investigation of the salt contamination of the building materials of the Coudenberg site and a prediction of the behaviour of the salt mixture related to the actual climate, as part of the environmental assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focal point of this review is to provide a comparative display of qualitative and quantitative methodologies employed for the appraisal of interacting energy and climate policies, underlying their key features while presenting the most critical issues and limitations not addressed so far. Qualitative approaches provide a descriptive explanatory analysis of often non-quantifiable process in policy interactions, whereas modeling approaches provide numerical data estimating the extent of policy interaction impacts. Quantitative methods work best for narrowly specified policy combinations, while contextual implications and cause-impact effects are explained further via qualitative ones. In addition most evaluations so far adopt a rational view of policies and policy interactions leaving out a systemic evaluation of the institutionalism of interacting policies. Research analysis of energy and climate policy interactions is still young in comparison to the broad field of policy evaluation and impact assessment. However infants inherently tend to grow. Endeavors for a methodological framework that would allow for a systematic exchange of data between qualitative and quantitative approaches and would also include the relevance of the context as well as key casual relationships behind policy combinations, would provide the basis for further growth of knowledge in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous recent tropical cyclones have caused extreme rainfall and flooding events in the CONUS. Climate change is contributing to heavier extreme rainfall around the world. Modeling studies have suggested that tropical cyclones may be particularly efficient engines for transferring the additional water vapor in the atmosphere into extreme rainfall. This paper develops a new indicator for climate change using the enhanced rainfall metric to evaluate how the frequency and/or intensity of extreme rainfall around tropical cyclones has changed. The enhanced rainfall metric relates the amount of rain from a storm over a given location to the 5-yr return period rainfall in that location to determine the severity of the event. The annual area exposed to tropical-cyclone-related 5-yr rainfall events is increasing, which makes it a compelling climate change indicator. Quantile regression illustrates that the distribution of tropical cyclone rainfall is also changing. For tropical storms, all quantiles are increasing. However, major hurricanes show large increases in their most extreme rainfall. This study does not attempt to make any detection claims (vs natural variability) or attribution of the observed trends to anthropogenic forcing. However, the sensitivity of the results to natural variability in tropical cyclone frequency was somewhat constrained by comparing 2 decades from the previous active era (1951–70) with two from the current era (2001–20). This comparison also shows that both the mean rainfall and the maximum rainfall associated with tropical cyclones are increasing over most areas of the eastern CONUS with the most significant increases from northern Alabama to the southern Appalachians. Significance Statement: The purpose of this study is to analyze the changes in frequency and magnitude of extreme precipitation events associated with tropical cyclones with the goal of developing a new indicator for climate change. This is important because heavy rainfall and associated flooding is one of the primary causes of tropical cyclone destruction and fatalities, especially in inland locations away from where storms initially make landfall. Our results show that both the frequency and magnitude of extreme rainfall events from tropical cyclones have increased over the CONUS. The strongest storms (major hurricanes) also show more of an increase in extreme rainfall than storms of weaker intensities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optimal control problems of degenerate parabolic equations have many applications in economics, physics, climatology, and so on. Motivated by the applications, we consider the optimal control problems of a class of nonlinear degenerate parabolic equations in this paper. The main result is that we deduce the first order necessary condition for the optimal control problem of nonlinear degenerate parabolic equations by variation method. Moreover, we investigate the uniqueness of the solutions to the optimal control problems. For the linear equations, we obtain the global uniqueness, while for the nonlinear equations, we obtain only the local uniqueness. Finally, we give a numerical example to validate the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophers have yet to provide a systematic analysis of the relationship between historical science and model-based science. In this paper I argue that prototypical model-based sciences exhibit features understood to be central to historical science. Philosophers of science have argued that historical scientists are distinctly concerned with inference to the best explanation, that explanations in historical science tend to increase in complexity over time, and that the explanations take the form of narratives. Using general circulation models in climate science as a reference, I illustrate how simulation models in model-based science share these features exhibited by historical science. That model based sciences share these features raises important philosophical questions about how we should understand prototypical types of scientific enquiry, including the relationship between experimental science, historical science, and model-based science. I conclude by exploring several options for how to accommodate the noted similarities within a more general taxonomy of the sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophers of science have paid close attention to climate simulations as means of projecting the severity and effects of climate change, but have neglected the full diversity of methods in climate science. This paper shows the philosophical richness of another method in climate science: the practice of using paleoclimate analogues to inform our climate projections. First, I argue that the use of paleoclimate analogues can offer important insights to philosophers of the historical sciences. Rather than using the present as a guide to the past, as is common in the historical sciences, paleoclimate analogues involve using the past as a guide to the future. I thereby distinguish different methods in the historical sciences and argue that these distinctions bear on debates over whether the historical sciences can produce generalizations or predictions. Second, I suggest that paleoclimate analogues might actually be considered a type of climate model, and, as such, their use expands on common characterizations of models to include those that are full-scale, naturally occurring, and non-manipulable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details the creation of a tropical cyclone (TC) size dataset using the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis I dataset for landfalling TCs along the United States coastline from 1948 to 2022. The radius of the outermost closed isobar (ROCI) is used as the size parameter. The dataset comprises landfall ROCI for 220 TCs. Storms are split into three zones (Texas–Alabama, Florida and Georgia–Maine) to determine if TC size varies geographically. Results showed a significant difference in landfall size, with Florida storms larger on average than the Texas–Alabama storms. Additionally, TC size increased with increasing intensity from tropical storm to Category 3, and storms tended to be larger later in the hurricane season, but there was no significant trend in landfall size over the 75‐year period. ROCI exhibited statistically significant positive correlations with longitude and wind speed and a negative correlation with the outermost closed isobar's pressure. The dataset's creation is an example of how reanalysis datasets can be used to develop a TC size climatology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have noted the compatibility of right-wing populism—centering on belief in an antagonistic relationship between 'the people' and 'the elite' – with climate change skepticism. In this paper, we examine process skepticism, a type of criticism that we argue is especially well-aligned with populism. Process skepticism focuses not on denying evidence of climate change (evidence skepticism) nor on critiquing policy responses (response skepticism), but on directly attacking the scientific and political processes underlying climate science and policy decision-making. We examine the prevalence of populist ideas in climate skeptical frames disseminated in U.S. media between 2008 and 2020. As expected, we find robust evidence of populist skepticism, particularly in far-right outlets. More importantly, the majority of populist messages were process skeptical in nature. The emergence of process skeptical populist frames may critically impede climate policy efforts by promoting distrust that is especially resistant to increasing scientific evidence or policy advancements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document provides a summary of a hackathon event organized by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Aon, a reinsurance company, to explore the social impacts of climate change. The hackathon focused on developing consistent scenarios for future climate risk, understanding uncertainties in European windstorm modeling, and providing real-time context for extreme weather events. The teams developed tools and methodologies to assess the severity and potential impact of extreme events on insured losses. The collaboration between the MoJ, Aon, and participants from various institutions aims to further research and develop papers and grant proposals in these areas. [Extracted from the article]

Melting layer usually exists in precipitation where ice particles gradually melt into liquid particles. Utilizing the detection from the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar onboard Global Precipitation Measurement Mission Core Observatory during 2018-2022, this paper investigates the quasi-global climatological features of Melting layer over 65°S ~65°N and analyzes the relationships with elevation in the golden case involving the section along 32.5°N across China. The distribution of Melting layer is latitude-dependent: Melting layer is higher in 30°S~30°N and decrease toward the mid-and high-latitude, which are generally lower in 30°S~65°S throughout the year. The height and thickness of Melting layer change more dramatically in mid-and high latitudes than in low latitudes for diurnal variations. The higher elevation terrain has the lower Melting layer top height than other terrains, yet the geometric thickness of Melting layer is also thinner. A golden case is selected to represent the analysis of Melting layer play role in rainfall. When the Melting layer grow thinner with steeply rising elevation due to the thermal change and orographic uplift, there is weak rain with a greater number of smaller raindrops in the golden case. However, Melting layer can get widen and raindrops can get sufficient growth as the elevation declines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the best-track dataset from the Shanghai Typhoon Institute/China Meteorological Administration, the paper provides a comprehensive summary and analysis of tropical cyclone (TC) activities in the Western North Pacific (WNP) and the South China Sea (SCS) for 2022. Using the historical climatology from 1951 to 2020, the anomalous conditions during 2022 in TC frequency, origin locations, tracks, intensity, and duration for the entire ocean basin as well as landfall events in China are examined. Results show that the overall TC frequency is slightly lower than normal, but the multiple TC events have a very high frequency of occurrence. Origin locations of TCs, which mark the starting points of their paths, show a large westward and northward deviation from climatology. Around 40% of the named TCs exhibit a shift in their direction of movement from westerly to easterly. Additionally, comparisons of the means, medians, upper and lower quartiles all indicate that the intensity of TCs in 2022 is generally lower than the climatology, with the duration of TCs at tropical storm intensity or above being shorter than usual. A notable observation is the fewer incidence of TC landfalls in China, but with a geographical concentration in Guangdong Province. These anomalous annual TC activities are influenced by related atmospheric and oceanic environmental conditions modulated by multi-scale climate variability. The findings provide useful information for enhancing disaster mitigation strategies in the Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accurate prediction of heavy precipitation in convective environments is crucial because such events, often occurring in Italy during the summer and fall seasons, can be a threat for people and properties. In this paper, we analyse the impact of satellite-derived surface-rainfall-rate data assimilation on the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model's precipitation prediction, considering 15 days in summer 2022 and 17 days in fall 2022, where moderate to intense precipitation was observed over Italy. A 3DVar realised at CNR-ISAC (National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate) is used to assimilate two different satellite-derived rain rate products, both exploiting geostationary (GEO), infrared (IR), and low-Earth-orbit (LEO) microwave (MW) measurements: One is based on an artificial neural network (NN), and the other one is the operational P-IN-SEVIRI-PMW product (H60), delivered in near-real time by the EUMETSAT HSAF (Satellite Application Facility in Support of Operational Hydrology and Water Management). The forecast is verified in two periods: the hours from 1 to 4 (1–4 h phase) and the hours from 3 to 6 (3–6 h phase) after the assimilation. The results show that the rain rate assimilation improves the precipitation forecast in both seasons and for both forecast phases, even if the improvement in the 3–6 h phase is found mainly in summer. The assimilation of H60 produces a high number of false alarms, which has a negative impact on the forecast, especially for intense events (30 mm/3 h). The assimilation of the NN rain rate gives more balanced predictions, improving the control forecast without significantly increasing false alarms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerical weather prediction (NWP), when accessible, is a crucial input to short-term solar power forecasting. WRF-Solar, the first NWP model specifically designed for solar energy applications, has shown promising predictive capability. Nevertheless, few attempts have been made to investigate its performance under high aerosol loading, which attenuates incoming radiation significantly. The North China Plain is a polluted region due to industrialization, which constitutes a proper testbed for such investigation. In this paper, aerosol direct radiative effect (DRE) on three surface shortwave radiation components (i.e., global, beam, and diffuse) during five heavy pollution episodes is studied within the WRF-Solar framework. Results show that WRF-Solar overestimates instantaneous beam radiation up to 795.3 W m−2 when the aerosol DRE is not considered. Although such overestimation can be partially offset by an underestimation of the diffuse radiation of about 194.5 W m−2, the overestimation of the global radiation still reaches 160.2 W m−2. This undesirable bias can be reduced when WRF-Solar is powered by Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) aerosol forecasts, which then translates to accuracy improvements in photovoltaic (PV) power forecasts. This work also compares the forecast performance of the CAMS-powered WRF-Solar with that of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts model. Under high aerosol loading conditions, the irradiance forecast accuracy generated by WRF-Solar increased by 53.2% and the PV power forecast accuracy increased by 6.8%. Significance Statement: Numerical weather prediction (NWP) is the "go-to" approach for achieving high-performance day-ahead solar power forecasting. Integrating time-varying aerosol forecasts into NWP models effectively captures aerosol direct radiation effects, thereby enhancing the accuracy of solar irradiance forecasts in heavily polluted regions. This work not only quantifies the aerosol effects on global, beam, and diffuse irradiance but also reveals the physical mechanisms of irradiance-to-power conversion by constructing a model chain. Using the North China Plain as a testbed, the performance of WRF-Solar on solar power forecasting on five severe pollution days is analyzed. This version of WRF-Solar can outperform the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts model, confirming the need for generating high spatial–temporal NWP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systematic, routine, and comprehensive evaluation of Earth system models (ESMs) facilitates benchmarking improvement across model generations and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of different model configurations. By gauging the consistency between models and observations, this endeavor is becoming increasingly necessary to objectively synthesize the thousands of simulations contributed to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) to date. The Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) Metrics Package (PMP) is an open-source Python software package that provides quick-look objective comparisons of ESMs with one another and with observations. The comparisons include metrics of large- to global-scale climatologies, tropical inter-annual and intra-seasonal variability modes such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO), extratropical modes of variability, regional monsoons, cloud radiative feedbacks, and high-frequency characteristics of simulated precipitation, including its extremes. The PMP comparison results are produced using all model simulations contributed to CMIP6 and earlier CMIP phases. An important objective of the PMP is to document the performance of ESMs participating in the recent phases of CMIP, together with providing version-controlled information for all datasets, software packages, and analysis codes being used in the evaluation process. Among other purposes, this also enables modeling groups to assess performance changes during the ESM development cycle in the context of the error distribution of the multi-model ensemble. Quantitative model evaluation provided by the PMP can assist modelers in their development priorities. In this paper, we provide an overview of the PMP, including its latest capabilities, and discuss its future direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, various early warning signals of critical transition have been presented, such as autocorrelation at lag 1 [AR(1)], variance, the propagator based on detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA-propagator), and so on. Many studies have shown that the climate system has the characteristics of long-term memory (LTM). Will the LTM characteristics of the climate system change as it approaches possible critical transition points? In view of this, the present paper first studies whether the LTM of several folding (folded bifurcation) models changes consistently as they approach their critical points slowly by the rescaled range (R/S) analysis. The results of numerical experiments show that when the control parameters of the folding model are close to its critical threshold, the Hurst exponent H exhibits an almost monotonic increase (significance level α = 0.05). We compare the performance of R/S with the existing indicators, including AR(1), variance, and DFA-propagator, and find that R/S is a perfectly valid alternative. When there is no extra false noise, AR(1) and variance have good early warning effects. After the addition of extra Gaussian white noise of different intensities, the values of AR(1) and variance change significantly. As a result, the DFA-propagator based on AR(1) calibration also changed significantly. Compared with the other three indicators, the early warning effect of H has stronger ability to resist the interference of external false signals. To further verify the validity of increasing H, paleoclimate reconstruction of Cariaco Basin sediment core grayscale record with long trends filtered out is studied by R/S analysis. The other three early warning signals are calculated in the same way. The data contain a well-known abrupt climate change: the transition between the Younger Dryas (YD) and the Holocene. We find that approximately 300 years before this abrupt climate change occurred, before 11.7 kyr BP, the LTM exponents for Cariaco Basin deglacial grayscale data present an obvious increasing trend at a significant level of α = 0.05. Meanwhile, the variation trend of H and DFA-propagator is basically similar. This shows that increasing H by R/S analysis is an effective early warning signal, which indicates that a dynamic system is approaching its possible critical transition points; H is a completely valid alternative signal for AR(1) and DFA-propagator. The main conclusion of this paper is based on numerical experiments. The precise relationship between H and the stability of the underlying state approaching the transition needs to be further studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current soil‐ and land degradation seriously challenge our societies; it contributes to climate change, loss of biodiversity and loss of agricultural productions. Yet, soils are also seen as a major part of the solution, if maintained or restored to provide ecosystem services. Climate‐smart sustainable management of soils can provide options for soil health maintenance and restoration. In the European Union, the resource management and sustainability challenge are addressed in the Green Deal that, among other goals, aspires towards a healthy climate‐resilient agricultural sector that will produce sufficient products without damaging ecosystems and contribute to better biodiversity and mitigate climate change. The European Joint Programme (EJP) SOIL was set up to contribute to these goals by developing knowledge, tools and an integrated research community to foster climate‐smart sustainable agricultural soil management that provides a diversity of ecosystem service, such as adapting to and mitigating climate change, allowing sustainable food production, and sustaining soil biodiversity. This paper provides an overview of the potential of climate‐smart sustainable soil management research to the targets of the Green Deal that are related to soils most directly. The EJP SOIL EU‐wide consultation (interviews and questionnaires) and literature analysis (national and international reports and papers) done in the first year (2020–2021) generated a wealth of data. This data showed that there are specific manners to do research that are essential for it to be effective and efficient and that can actively contribute to the Green Deal targets. We concluded that research needs to be: (i) interdisciplinary, (ii) long‐term, (iii) multi‐scaled, from plot to landscape, (iv) evaluating trade‐offs of selected management options for ecosystem services and (v) co‐constructed with key stakeholders. Research on climate‐smart sustainable soil management should be developed (1) on plot scale when mobilizing soil processes and on landscape scale when addressing sediment and water connectivity and biodiversity management; and (2) address the enabling conditions through good governance, social acceptance and viable economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Journal of Psychotraumatology has had a long interest in advancing the science around climate change and traumatic stress. In this special issue, we include papers that responded to a special call in this area. Six major themes emerge from these papers and together they contribute to trauma and adversity model of the mental health impacts of climate change. We argue that, in addition to individual vulnerability factors, we must consider the (i) cumulative trauma burden that is associated with exposure to ongoing climate change-related impacts; (ii) impact of both direct and indirect stressors; (iii) individual and community protective factors. These factors can then guide intervention models of recovery and ongoing resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using past episodes of climate change as a source of evidence to inform our projections about contemporary climate change requires establishing the extent to which episodes in the deep past are analogous to the current crisis. However, many scientists claim that contemporary rates of climate change (e.g., rates of carbon emissions or temperature change) are unprecedented, including compared to episodes in the deep past. If so, this would limit the utility of paleoclimate analogues. In this paper, I show how a data adjustment procedure called "temporal scaling," which must be applied to both contemporary and past rate data, complicates the claim that contemporary rates are truly unprecedented. On top of giving actionable recommendations to scientists, this paper advances the philosophical literature concerning the use of models that are known to be somewhat disanalogous to their target systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we introduce a spectral surface reflectivity climatology based on observations made by the TROPOMI instrument on board the Sentinel-5P satellite. The database contains the directionally dependent Lambertian-equivalent reflectivity (DLER) of the Earth's surface for 21 wavelength bands ranging from 328nm to 2314nm and for each calendar month. The spatial resolution of the database grid is 0.125° × 0.125°. A recently developed cloud shadow detection technique is implemented to avoid dark scenes due to cloud shadow. In the database, the anisotropy of the surface reflection is described using a third-order parameterisation of the viewing angle dependence. The viewing angle dependence of the DLER is analysed globally and for a selection of surface type regions. The dependence is found to agree with the viewing angle dependence found in the GOME-2 surface DLER database. Differences exist, related to the actual solar position. On average, the viewing angle dependence in TROPOMI DLER is weaker than for GOME-2 DLER, but still important. Validation of the new database was first performed by comparison of the non-directional TROPOMI surface LER with heritage LER databases based on GOME-1, OMI, SCIAMACHY, and GOME-2 data. Agreement was found within 0.002-0.02 in the UV-VIS (below 500nm), up to 0.003 in the NIR (670-772nm), and below 0.001 in the SWIR (2314nm). These performance numbers are dominated by the performance over ocean, but they are in most cases also representative for land surfaces. For the validation of the directional TROPOMI surface DLER we made use of comparison with MODIS surface BRDF for a selection of surface type regions. In all cases the DLER performed significantly better than the traditional LER and we found good agreement with MODIS surface BRDF. The TROPOMI surface DLER database is a clear improvement on previous surface albedo databases and can be used as input not only for satellite retrievals from TROPOMI observations, but also for retrievals from observations from other polarorbiting satellite instruments provided that their equator crossing time is close to that of TROPOMI. The algorithm that is introduced in this paper can be used for the retrieval of surface reflectivity climatologies from other polar satellite missions as well, including OLCI on the Sentinel-3 satellites, Sentinel-5 and 3MI on the MetOp-SG-A1 satellite to be launched in 2025, and the future CO2M mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Application for Research Ethics Committee (REC) approval and the conduct of medical research is paper intensive. This retrospective study examined all applications to a single REC in the south of England over one year. It estimated the mass of paper used, comparing the proportional paper consumption of different trial types and during different stages of the research process, quantifying the consumption in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. In 2009, 68 trials were submitted to the REC. Total paper consumption for the REC process and study conduct was 176,150 sheets of A4 paper (879 kg), equivalent to an estimated 11.5 million sheets (88 tonnes, 2,100 trees) a year for the UK; the REC process accounted for 26.4%. REC applications and the conduct of approved trials generate considerable environmental impact through paper consumption contributing to the NHS's carbon footprint. Paper use might be reduced through the implementation of digital technologies and revised research methods, namely changing attitudes in both researchers and ethics committees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results of 3-year full-scale field climatic tests on application of five types of inhibiting papers for anticorrosion protection of ferrous and nonferrous metals during storage in a humid tropical climate have been carried out by the Joint Russian and Vietnamese Tropical Research and Technology Center and presented here. It has been shown that the inhibiting paper IPCAS-118 can be recommended for anticorrosion protection of equipment made of steel, copper, and aluminum during 3-year storage in sheds in humid tropical climate conditions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The excavation and valorization of subterranean archaeological remains, and eventually opening a site to the public, required a proper management and conservation strategy. This strategy was based on the evaluation of the delicate balance between the requirements for public health and safety, and the protection of the archaeological remains from future degradation. Controlling the climate can be essential for a preventive conservation strategy, which can be defined as an indirect action to increase the life expectancy of the archaeological remains, and by doing so keeping them in a preferred state of conservation to mitigate damage and/or deterioration. Potential risks and possible interventions are outlined to avoid climatic conditions which are in conflict with the requirements for the visitors' comfort while preventing damage phenomena to the materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chaos caused by the global climate crisis is in the news in many forms and has also entered the consulting room: clients are increasingly naming their fear, despair, rage, and experience of impotence in the face of the unknown. This paper builds on the work of G. Albrecht and J. Bernstein, to investigate how we can face our feelings about climate crisis and live through this time without resorting to unhelpful defenses that block our ability to be present, engaged and effective. It examines the unconscious beliefs, habitual patterns, and defenses of the Western ego, which it presents as the mindset of Economism and the Capitalocene, and investigates its identification with the hero archetype. It pays homage to indigenous analyses of the issue in the work of J. Forbes and I Merculieff, and draws on the work of eco-ethical thinkers such as K. D. Moore, J. Butler, and A. L. Tsing, to suggest that the archetype of the initiate may be a better guide as we move into the uncertain, contingent future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sixty-two paintings, most of which were on paper, by Balinese artists, were sent on loan to Museum Puri Lukisan in Ubud, Bali, which had been set up in 1956 with help from the collector of the works, the Dutch artist Rudolf Bonnet. The exhibition travelled from Bali to Jakarta. The museum building on Bali had no climate control; so the paintings were sealed in simple, unmodified frames in an unobtrusive manner. Conditions inside and outside the sealed packages were recorded throughout the loan using tiny electronic dataloggers developed for testing within food and drugs packaging. The project demonstrated that relatively simple and inexpensive techniques proved highly effective in protecting the works from warm and humid tropical conditions. Resume «Retour a Bali: l'efficacite de l'utilisation de micro-climats au cours d'un pret d'œuvres sur papier entre les Pays-Bas et l'Indonesie» Soixante deux peintures, dont la plupart realisees sur papier par des artistes de Bali, furent envoyees en pret au musee Puri Lukisan in Ubud de Bali, qui avait ete cree en 1956 avec l'aide d'un collectionneur d'œuvres, l'artiste hollandais Rudolf Bonnet. L'exposition a voyage de Bali a Jakarta. Le batiment du musee de Bali n'avait pas de systeme de controle du climat; les peintures ont donc ete scellees d'une facon discrete dans de simples cadres sans qu'on ait eu a les modifier. Les conditions a l'interieur et a l'exterieur des paquets scelles ont ete enregistrees tout au long du pret en utilisant de petits capteurs electroniques mis au point pour evaluer les emballages de denrees alimentaires et de medicaments. Le projet a demontre que des techniques relativement simples et peu couteuses s'averent tres efficaces dans la protection des œuvres dans un climat tropical chaud et humide. Zusammenfassung „Zuruck nach Bali: Die Effektivitat von Mikroklimaten wahrend einer Leihgabe von Kunst auf Papier aus den Niederlanden nach Indonesien” 62 Gemalde von balinesischer Kunstler, die meisten auf einem Papiertrager, wurden an das Museum Puri Lukisan in Ubud, Bali, verliehen. Diese Museum war 1956 mit Hilfe des Sammlers der Gemalde, dem niederlandischen Kunstler Rudolf Bonnet, aufgebaut worden. Die Ausstellung reiste von Bali nach Jakarta. Das Museumsgebaude auf Bali hatte keine Moglichkeit der Klimakontrolle und so wurden die Gemalde in einfachen, unmodifizierten Rahmen gerahmt. Die Bedingungen innerhalb und ausserhalb der versiegelten Pakete wurden wahrend des gesamten Verleihs mit winzigen elektronischen Dataloggern gespeichert, die fur Test von Nahrungsmitteln und medizinischen Verpackungen entwickelt wurden. Das Projekt zeigte, wie relativ einfache und billige Methoden sich als sehr effektiv erwiesen, um die Werke von den feuchtwarmen tropischen Bedingungen zu schutzen. Resumen “Regreso a Bali: la efectividad en el uso de microclimas durante el prestamo de obras de arte sobre papel entre Holanda e Indonesia” Sesenta y dos pinturas, la mayoria de ellas sobre papel, de artistas balineses, fueron enviadas bajo prestamo al museo Puri Lukisan en Ubud, Bali, que en 1956 habian sido instaladas con la ayuda del coleccionista de los trabajos, el artista holandes Rudolf Bonnet. La exposicion viajo desde Bali a Yacarta. El edificio del museo en Bali no tenia control climatico; por tanto las pinturas fueron selladas en marcos sencillos de la manera menos intrusiva. Se registraron durante todo el proceso las condiciones dentro y fuera del embalaje usando unos minusculos medidores electronicos desarrollados para testar comida o droga empaquetada. El proyecto demostro que unas tecnicas relativamente simples y baratas eran muy efectivas en la proteccion de las obras de las condiciones de calor y humedad tropical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest climate science provides stark warnings around the need for a transition away from further oil and gas exploration. Denmark, as a leader in the oil and gas transition, has already cancelled new oil and gas permits and is pursuing the phase-out of existing oil production in the Danish North Sea by 2050. Progress in other areas of the world, however, is more circumscribed, giving rise to a landscape of both 'leaders' and 'laggards' across value chains. This Special Issue unites the need for market-led oil and gas just transitions with net zero emission ambitions, critically analyzing the potential for a just transition (or transitions) by 2040. This editorial provides introductory context to nine articles and summarizes their key policy insights. The nine contributions present interdisciplinary and mixed method perspectives from globally diverse country contexts. Papers explore oil and gas transitions across the value chain and with attention to a range of stakeholders and processes, including public norm development, tribunals, and industry investments. Whilst there is growing consensus across various actors and institutions in society around the need to phase-out oil and gas, the papers also showcase that care must be taken to avoid perverse incentives, engage the public, steer investment, engage with controversies, account for emerging producers, consider country phase-out sequencing, account for indirect and direct job losses, and consider investor compensation caps. Across all contributions, and alongside reflections of the various barriers and enablers for obtaining just outcomes, considerations of just transitions thinking appear in several different ways. They appear conceptually, empirically (in terms of research findings), as guidance for decision-making, and as an aspirational outcome or target to be obtained; that is, just transition is treated in the same way as the phase-out of oil and gas - as a process and a goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although natural philosophers of Enlightenment Europe shared common ideals, like reliance on reason and natural philosophy, to promote what they deemed to be progress; there were national differences in attitude and disciplinary focus. This paper takes various eligibility criteria as a starting point from which to define a Nordic Enlightenment science; and situates endeavours in climate science within visions of useful science and international conventions for scientific practice. Two perspectives are explored: the make-up of the Nordic Enlightenment science; and the Nordic natural philosopher's various platforms for work and knowledge transfer. While historians differ as to what constitutes Enlightenment thought and spirit, I establish the existence of a Nordic Enlightenment science by identifying and examining several of its indicators. The paper concludes with a more specific discussion of climate science in Norway in which I show how climate observations performed during the eighteenth century by a sample of Norway's clergymen and civil servants bear testimony to an internationally-oriented science, through articles produced for science journals and conventions followed for data presentation and instrumentation. The findings corroborate existing knowledge of a progress-driven, Enlightenment science in Nordic countries; reveal differences between countries, and present Norway's early-modern climate science in an international light. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of a digital twin is intriguing as it presents an innovative approach to solving numerous real-world challenges. Initially emerging from the domains of manufacturing and engineering, digital twin research has transcended its origins and now finds applications across a wide range of disciplines. This multidisciplinary expansion has impressively demonstrated the potential of digital twin research. While the simulation aspect of a digital twin is often emphasized, the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) is severely understudied. For this reason, in this paper, we highlight the pivotal role of AI and ML for digital twin research. By recognizing that a digital twin is a component of a broader Digital Twin System (DTS), we can fully grasp the diverse applications of AI and ML. In this paper, we explore six AI techniques—(1) optimization (model creation), (2) optimization (model updating), (3) generative modeling, (4) data analytics, (5) predictive analytics and (6) decision making—and their potential to advance applications in health, climate science, and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ships' logbooks are now an accepted part of the repertoire of data sources in climate change studies. This article examines some of the particular issues surrounding logbooks from the Arctic region in the so-called pre-instrumental period. Attention is given to the means by which narrative descriptions of wind, weather and sea ice cover can be reliably expressed in index form. Consideration is also given to the various means by which these data can be most effectively managed for scientific analysis as in most cases they were not recorded for such purposes. Many such logbooks remain yet to be digitized and the methods described here can be applied with equal confidence in future through such undertakings using English language documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents updates related to climatology and weather studies in the U.S. Research reveals the significance of using the cloud-resolving model simulations in forecasting the dangers of lightning. Meanwhile, several climate scientists are searching for the best method in estimating the peak surface winds of a hurricane. Moreover, it also looks on the effectiveness of the latest multiple-Doppler tornado detection in determining the upcoming tornadoes.

The article offers world news briefs related to meteorology. The subrotors and the internal structure of the parent rotor lifts off the surface and breakdown along the edge of the lee wave through Kelvin-Helmholtz like instability. Greenland extends one quarter of the distance between the North Pole and Equator averaging 1.5 kilometer (km) in height and reaching skyward more than 3.5 km. The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) offers the opportunity to analyze climate variation.

This paper presents climatological features of the longitudinal structures WN4, WN3, and WN2 and their drivers observed in the lower thermospheric temperatures and in the ionospheric TEC. For this purpose, two long-term data sets are utilized: the satellite SABER/TIMED temperature measurements, and the global TEC maps generated with the NASA JPL for the interval of 2002–2022. As the main drivers of the longitudinal structures are mainly nonmigrating tides, this study first investigates the climatology of those nonmigrating tides, which are the main contributors of the considered longitudinal structures; these are nonmigrating diurnal DE3, DE2, and DW2, and semidiurnal SW4 and SE2 tides. The climatology of WN4, WN3, and WN2 structures in the lower thermosphere reveals that WN4 is the strongest one with a magnitude of ~20 K observed at 10° S in August, followed by WN2 with ~13.9 K at 10° S in February, and the weakest is WN3 with ~12.4 K observed over the equator in July. In the ionosphere, WN3 is the strongest structure with a magnitude of 5.9 TECU located at −30° modip latitude in October, followed by WN2 with 5.4 TECU at 30 modip in March, and the last is WN4 with 3.7 TECU at −30 modip in August. Both the climatology of the WSA and the features of its drivers are investigated as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The dedication of the international anaesthetic community to reducing the environmental impact of healthcare is important and to be celebrated. When this is underpinned by robust science, it has the potential to make a real difference. However, volatile anaesthetic agents have been widely promoted in the medical literature as damaging to the climate, leading to a drive to remove them from clinical practice. This is based on notional 'CO2‐equivalent' values created using the simple emission metric known as the global warming potential. Here, we assert that when proper consideration is given to the science of climate change, volatile anaesthetic gas emissions cannot be simply equated to real carbon dioxide emissions, and that their climate impact is vanishingly small. This paper gives anaesthetists a framework to make informed choices founded on climate science and calls for attention to be refocused on the urgent need to reduce the real carbon dioxide emissions associated with healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for humanity to act on environmental changes are becoming increasingly critical. The growing polycrisis including the impact of ongoing conflicts in contested geopolitical spaces and the struggles for ways to sustain a livelihood in areas of precarity and poverty, are just some of the intersecting challenges which have given rise to a Code Red alarm by the United Nations surrounding issues related to climate change. Rich narratives and stories of climate actions from Africa offer examples of potential paths. This paper explores how such narratives inform local development and climate action. A key message is that stories and narratives, created by various peoples, disciplines, and systems of knowledge, can all be powerful genres and sources for agentic change that can inspire and embolden development practice and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]