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Tag: Climate Science

  • Sea ice melt, warming ocean temperatures and emergency response: Experts discuss the return of El Niño

    Sea ice melt, warming ocean temperatures and emergency response: Experts discuss the return of El Niño

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    The University of Delaware boasts several experts who can talk about El Niño’s return and its wide-reaching impacts, from record-breaking temperatures to sea ice melt that has been shattering scientists’ expectations. 

    Wei-Jun Cai: Air-sea CO2 flux; carbon cycling in estuaries and coastal oceans; global changes; sensor development; acid-base and redox chemistry in aquatic environments.

    Andreas Muenchow: Polar oceanography; glacier-ocean interactions; Greenland.

    Xiao-Hai Yan: Known for using satellites in tracking the notorious weathermaker El Niño and in developing new techniques for monitoring global climate change and coastal responses.

    Mark Warner: Phytoplankton physiological ecology, reef coral physiology, algal-invertebrate symbioses, harmful algal blooms, climate change.

    Carlos Moffatt: Polar oceanography; glacier-ocean interactions; the dynamics of riverine outflows; physical-biological interactions in coastal regions.

    Tricia Wachtendorf: Can speak to the challenges for communities and emergency managers associated with unexpected conditions that may result from warming climates. 

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    University of Delaware

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  • Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator Partnership with Danforth Plant Science Center Announces New Cohort Focused on Climate-Aligned Agriculture

    Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator Partnership with Danforth Plant Science Center Announces New Cohort Focused on Climate-Aligned Agriculture

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    Newswise — ST. LOUIS, MO – July 11, 2023 — The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²), a technology incubator and platform funded by the Wells Fargo Foundation and co-administered by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), announced today it selected seven startups to participate in the program’s 12th cohort. The cohort consists of sustainable agriculture companies focused on mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change on global food systems.   

    “In the face of intensifying challenges in the agriculture industry and our environment, the world urgently needs innovative, sustainable solutions,” said Trish Cozart, IN² program manager and the director of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at NREL. “With projections indicating a global population of 10 billion people by 2050, we must develop methods that not only increase productivity, but do so without causing harm to our planet. IN² is at the forefront of this mission, supporting promising startups that are reimagining the future of food and farming.”

    Each company will receive up to $250,000 in non-dilutive funding for various technical assistance and field trial projects to further refine their technologies and business models. The companies will work alongside world-renowned principal investigators at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri, the world’s largest independent plant science research institute. 

    “IN²’s twelfth cohort highlights some of the best startups in climate-aligned agriculture,” said Elliott Kellner, director of commercial innovation at the Danforth Center. “The selected companies have commercially viable technologies with tremendous potential to deliver environmental, economic, and societal benefits.”

    “As one of the top agricultural production lenders in the U.S., Wells Fargo supports scaling clean technologies,” said Robyn Luhning, Chief Sustainability Officer at Wells Fargo. “Through the Wells Fargo IN² program, these companies receive support to commercialize solutions for some of our customers’ most pressing challenges.” 

    The companies were nominated by members of IN²’s Channel Partner network, consisting of more than 60 business incubators, accelerators, and university programs nationwide. The selected startups underwent an in-depth review by Wells Fargo, NREL, the Danforth Center, and IN²’s expert industry advisory board. The seven companies selected for IN²’s cohort 12 are:

    With the addition of these seven companies, IN²’s total portfolio now includes 72 companies, including 26 sustainable agriculture startups. Since joining the IN² program, portfolio companies have raised more than $1.8 billion in external follow-on funding—equivalent to an average of more than $97 for every $1 awarded by Wells Fargo through IN².

    About the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²) The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²) is a $50 million technology incubator and platform funded by the Wells Fargo Foundation. Co-administered by and housed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, IN²’s mission is to speed the path to market for early-stage, clean-technology entrepreneurs. Launched in 2014 with an initial focus on supporting scalable solutions to reduce the energy impact of commercial buildings, IN² has since expanded its focus to advance technologies that address the sustainable production of agriculture and housing affordability. For more information, visit in2ecosystem.com.

    About the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center Founded in 1998, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center is a not-for-profit research institute with a mission to improve the human condition through plant science. Research, education and outreach aim to have impact at the nexus of food security and the environment, and position the St. Louis region as a world center for plant science. The Center’s work is funded through competitive grants from many sources, including the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and through the generosity of individual, corporate, and foundation donors. Follow us on Twitter at @DanforthCenter.

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    Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

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  • Termite-inspired air conditioning for climate-friendliness

    Termite-inspired air conditioning for climate-friendliness

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    Newswise — The climate control used by termites in their mounds could inspire tomorrow’s climate-smart buildings. New research from Lund University in Sweden shows that future buildings inspired by the termites could achieve the same effect as traditional climate control, but with greater energy efficiency and without its carbon dioxide footprint.

    Termite mounds have a sophisticated ventilation system that enables air circulation throughout the structure. This helps to maintain and regulate temperature and humidity.

    “The digitalisation of design and construction processes creates enormous opportunities for how we shape architecture, and natural and biological systems provide an important model for how we can best utilise these possibilities,” says David Andréen, senior lecturer at the Department of Architecture and Built Environment at Lund University, who wrote the article.

    The results, published in the journal Frontiers in Materials, show a structure for buildings based on termite mounds that facilitates indoor climate control.

    “The study focuses on the interior of termite mounds, which consist of thousands of interconnected channels, tunnels and air chambers, and how these capture wind energy in order to “breathe,” or exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide with the surroundings. We have explored how these systems work and how similar structures could be integrated in the walls of buildings to drive the flow of air, heat and moisture in a new way.”

    The idea is thus to create new ways to control the airflow in buildings that will be significantly more energy-efficient and climate-smart than traditional air conditioning, which uses the bulk flow principle, normally driven by fans. Instead, it is possible to develop systems that are turbulent, dynamic and variable.

    “These can be controlled by very small equipment and require minor energy provision,” says David Andréen.

    In the study, the researchers demonstrated how airflows interact with geometry – the parameters in the structure that cause the flows to arise and how they can be selectively regulated. These can be driven without using mechanical components such as fans, valves and similar, as only electronic control is required.

    “This a precondition for a distributed system in which many small sensors and regulating devices are placed in the climate-adaptive building envelope through miniaturisation, durability/sustainability and cost reduction,” says David Andréen.

    This enables regulation of the building’s indoor climate and to control factors such as temperature and humidity without relying on large fans and heating and air conditioning systems. The mechanisms are dependent on being able to create complex internal geometries (on the millimetre to centimetre scale), which is only possible using 3D printing. Through 3D printing, value can be added to the built environment to create sustainable architecture that otherwise would not have been possible.

    “It’s fascinating how the termites’ building process manages to create extremely complex well-functioning “engineering masterpieces”, without having the centralised control or drawings to refer to that we would need,” concludes David Andréen.
    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmats.2023.1126974/full

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    Lund University

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  • Possible? Climate-neutral air travel

    Possible? Climate-neutral air travel

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    Newswise — Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and ETH Zurich have performed calculations to work out how air traffic could become climate-neutral by 2050. They conclude that simply replacing fossil aviation fuel with sustainable synthetic fuels will not be enough. Air traffic would also have to be reduced. The researchers are publishing their results today in the journal Nature Communications.

    The European Union aims to be climate neutral by 2050, a target that was set by the European Parliament in 2021. Switzerland is pursuing the same goal. The aviation sector, which is responsible for 3.5 percent of global warming, is expected to contribute its fair share – especially since the greenhouse gas emissions of aircraft are two to three times higher per passenger or freight kilometre than in other transport sectors. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and many airlines have therefore announced their intention to reduce CO2 emissions to zero by 2050 or to become climate neutral.

    In a new study, researchers at PSI and ETH Zurich have now calculated whether this can be achieved, and how. “An important question is what exactly we mean by zero carbon or climate neutrality,” says Romain Sacchi of PSI’s Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis, one of the study’s two lead authors. If this is only referring to the CO2emitted by aircraft actually in the air, adds his co-author Viola Becattini from ETH Zurich, this does not go nearly far enough. Because assuming that air traffic continues to grow as it has in the past, the calculations predict that the CO2emissions of aircraft will only account for about 20 percent of their total climate impact by 2050. In order to make aviation as a whole climate neutral, it is necessary to ensure that not only flying but also the production of fuel and the entire aviation infrastructure have no further impact on the climate.

    However, the study concludes that this cannot be achieved by 2050 using the climate measures that are currently being pursued in flight operations. “New engines, climate-friendly fuels and filtering CO2 out of the atmosphere in order to store it underground (carbon capture and storage, or CCS) will not get us there on their own,” says Marco Mazzotti, Professor of Process Engineering at ETH. “On top of this, we need to reduce air traffic.”

    Non-CO2 effects play a major role

    In their study, Sacchi and Becattini looked at various different scenarios. These showed, on the one hand, that while the climate impact of the infrastructure, i.e. manufacturing aircraft and building and operating airports, does need to be taken into account, it is comparatively small overall for the period up until 2050 and beyond. The impact of flying itself on the climate, and of the emissions from producing the fuel are far greater. That in itself was nothing new.

    What had been less clear before was the importance of so-called non-CO2 effects, which occur in addition to CO2 emissions. The bulk of the greenhouse effect caused by aviation is not due to the carbon released into the atmosphere by burning aviation fuel, but to the particulate matter (soot) and nitrogen oxides that are also released and that react in the air to form methane and ozone, water vapour and the condensation trails that lead to the formation of cirrus clouds in the upper atmosphere. “Many analyses and ‘net zero’ pledges so far have ignored these factors,” says Romain Sacchi. “Or they have not been calculated correctly.”

    It is customary to express emissions and effects like these in terms of CO2 equivalents when calculating the overall balance. “But the methods and values used to date have proved to be inappropriate,” says Marco Mazzotti. “We therefore adopted a more precise approach.” The methods they used take into account one major difference between the various factors: non-CO2 effects are much more short-lived than CO2, which is why they are also called “short-lived climate forcers”, or SLCFs for short. While about half of the emitted carbon dioxide is absorbed by forests and oceans, the other half remains in the air for thousands of years, dispersing and acting as a greenhouse gas. Methane, on the other hand, has a much greater impact on the climate, but decomposes within a few years; contrails and the resulting clouds dissipate within hours. “The problem is that we are producing more and more SLCFs as air traffic increases, so these are adding up instead of disappearing quickly. As a result, they exert their enormous greenhouse impact over longer periods of time,” says Viola Becattini. It’s like a bathtub with both the drain and the tap open: as long as the tap lets in more water than can escape through the drain, the bathtub will keep getting fuller – until eventually it overflows.

    Climate-friendly fuel alone does not achieve the goal – but it helps

    “But this analogy also demonstrates that the crucial lever is under our control: the volume of air traffic,” Romain Sacchi points out. “By flying less instead of more often, in other words closing the tap instead of opening it, we can actually cool the atmosphere and push the greenhouse effect caused by aviation towards zero.” This is not to say that we must stop flying altogether. The calculations performed in the study show that for aviation to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, air traffic will need to be reduced by 0.8 percent every year – in conjunction with underground carbon dioxide storage – if we continue to use fossil fuels. This would bring it down to about 80 percent of today’s volume by 2050. If we manage to switch to more climate-friendly fuels based on electricity from renewables, 0.4 percent per year will be sufficient.

    The study also took a closer look at these new fuels. Researchers around the world are working to replace conventional petroleum-based engines. As in road transport, this could be achieved by using electric batteries, fuel cells or the direct combustion of hydrogen. However, the available energy density is only sufficient for small aircraft on short routes, or in the case of hydrogen also for medium-size planes on medium-haul flights. Yet large aircraft on long-haul flights of more than 4000 kilometres account for the majority of global air traffic and greenhouse gas emissions from aviation.

    Synthetic aviation fuel has pros and cons

    In addition, propulsion technologies for the aviation industry based on electricity or hydrogen are far from being ready for a widespread roll-out. So-called Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is therefore viewed as the industry’s great hope. This man-made aviation fuel could replace petroleum-based aviation fuel more or less one-to-one, without the need to redesign turbines and aircraft.

    SAF can be produced from CO2 and water via a production cascade. The CO2 is extracted from the air using a process known as air capture, and hydrogen can be obtained from water by electrolysis. “If the necessary processes are carried out entirely using renewable energy, SAF is virtually climate-neutral,” says Christian Bauer from the PSI Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis, who was involved in the study. “This makes us less dependent on fossil fuels.” Another advantage of SAF is that it produces fewer SLCFs, which would have to be offset by capturing equivalent amounts of CO2 from the air and storing them underground. This is significant because CO2 storage capacity is limited and not reserved exclusively for the aviation industry.

    Air tickets three times more expensive

    SAF also has certain disadvantages though, in that it takes far more energy to produce than conventional aviation fuel. This is mainly because producing hydrogen via electrolysis takes a lot of electricity. In addition, energy is lost at every step in the production process – air capture, electrolysis and synthesisation. Using large amounts of electrical power, in turn, means expending more resources such as water and land. SAF is also expensive: not just in terms of the electrical power required, but also the cost of carbon capture and electrolysis plants, which makes it four to seven times more expensive than conventional aviation fuel. In other words, the widespread use of SAF makes carbon-neutral aviation a possibility, but it also costs more resources and more money. This means that flying will have to become even more expensive than it already needs to be in order to meet the climate targets. “Anyone buying a ticket today can pay a few extra euros to make their flight supposedly carbon neutral, by investing this money in climate protection,” says Romain Sacchi. “But this is greenwashing, because many of these measures for offsetting carbon are ineffective. To fully offset the actual climate impact, tickets would have to cost about three times as much as they do today.”

    “Such a hefty price hike should significantly reduce the demand for flights and bring us closer to the goal of climate neutrality,” says Viola Becattini. In addition, SAF production is expected to become cheaper and more efficient over the years as quantities increases, and this will have a positive effect on the carbon footprint. The study took such dynamics into account – including the fact that the electricity mix used to produce SAF is shifting. This distinguishes the analysis from most others.

    “The bottom line is that there is no magic bullet for achieving climate neutrality in aviation by 2050,” says Sacchi. “We cannot continue as before. But if we develop the infrastructure for storing CO2 underground and producing SAF quickly and efficiently, while also reducing our demand for air travel, we could succeed.”

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    Paul Scherrer Institute

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  • Amber abundance in Cretaceous rocks: What’s the reason?

    Amber abundance in Cretaceous rocks: What’s the reason?

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    Newswise — What would a traveler from the future think if one day s/he could analyze the rocks that are currently forming on the planet? Surely, this person would find quite a few plastic fragments and wonder why this material was so abundant in rocks of a certain age on Earth. This is the same question that geologists and palaeontologists have asked themselves after many years of studying another material: amber, the fossilized resin from the Cretaceous that helps us reconstruct what the forests inhabited by dinosaurs were like.

    We know the reason for the abundance of so many plastics in today’s ecosystems, “but we can only estimate the natural causes that would explain the production of large quantities of resin in the Cretaceous,” says Xavier Delclòs, professor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Barcelona and first author of an article published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews that addresses this enigmas of modern palaeontology.

    “The stories of plastic and fossil resins are very different, but they have one thing in common: the curiosity involved in observing that some new and relevant phenomenon arose at some point in Earth’s history and was recorded in rocks”, says Delclòs, member of the Department of Earth and Ocean Dynamics and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the UB.

    “Amber, and in particular its abundance, would be of little interest were it not for the fact that it contains in its interior many organisms that inhabited the forests of the past, which have been perfectly preserved as fossils and which today allow us to know the forests of the Cretaceous with a detail that seems unreal sometimes” says Enrique Peñalver, a member of the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain, a national centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CN IGME-CSIC) and also co-author of the study.

    How were the large amber deposits formed?

    The Cretaceous, a period extending from 145.5 to 66 million years ago, represents a time of rapid evolutionary change and diversification of organisms. Today, the dominant conditions that in the Cretaceous allowed the mass formation of abundant resin deposits all over the planet are not present, nor is it known why there was, at the time of the dinosaurs, such an extremely abundant production of resin.

    “For about 54 million years, and for the first time in Earth’s history, there was a mass production of resin by plants, and we still don’t know why”, Delclòs and Peñalver point out. “Production quantities that could have formed fossil resin deposits of what we know today as amber had never been reached. From the Barremian to the Campanian, and thanks to the conditions existing on the planet, certain groups of conifers were able to originate large deposits of fossil resin that open a real window to the ecosystems of the past and today provide very important palaeobiological information. We have called this time span the Cretaceous Resinous Interval (CREI)”.

    The formation of large amber deposits requires the existence of trees with the ability to produce a lot of resin. During the Cretaceous, only gymnosperms —e.g., conifers— which are evolutionarily older than flowering plants, could produce resin. Moreover, the resin had to be trapped in a sedimentary environment without oxygen to preserve it for millions of years. But what environmental or biological factors could have conditioned such resin production in the Cretaceous?

    “Our study shows that, during the Cretaceous, coniferous forests were widely distributed across the planet. These amber deposits formed during the CREI shared these characteristics: high resin production exclusively by conifers; the presence of fusain, a material derived from plant material burnt by forest fires; fossils preserved in amber that correspond to similar fauna and flora among different deposits; and resin accumulation in transitional sedimentary environments under subtropical and temperate paleoclimates that coincide with the onset of sea-level rise stages.

    The study also indicates that the mass production of resin was not continuous during the CREI nor was it equal everywhere: there were times of higher and lower production. In the study, carried out by a large multidisciplinary group of experts, the participation of Ricardo Pérez de la Fuente, from the Oxford University Museum (United Kingdom), is particularly noteworthy.

    An open window to the vanished world of the Cretaceous

    Pieces of amber recovered by palaeontologists in different sites around the world provide new insights into the Cretaceous. This period saw the emergence of large terrestrial ecosystems dominated by angiosperms — flowering plants — and many of the evolutionary lines of present-day organisms. The distribution of continents and ocean currents was altered, the climate was warmer and more humid than today’s, and sea levels rose more than 200 meters above today’s coastlines.

    “In the atmosphere there were high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) due to intense volcanism, but also of oxygen (O2) due to the great extension of forests to latitudes now covered by ice, a feature that also enhances large-scale fires”, Delclòs and Peñalver note.

    This is the global landscape and environment that dominated the Earth during much of the Cretaceous. The environmental factors conditioned the life and evolution of the organisms that existed on the planet, especially the terrestrial ones, from the smallest to the great dinosaurs, and the relationships between the different species.

    In this scenario, the CREI emerges as a global phenomenon, with amber outcrops distributed everywhere during the Cretaceous, and concentrated especially in Laurasia and the northern margin of Gondwana. Environmental factors may have affected on a global scale, while biological factors — interaction between plants and arthropods, etc. — may have acted on a regional scale.

    “CREI represents a great window to a vanished world, at the beginnings of modern ecosystems dominated by flowering plants, where dinosaurs lived, and where the lineages of the first birds and mammals evolved. Studying this period allows us to obtain many data of maximum scientific interest on phylogenetic relationships, extinct organisms, the beginning of behaviours that we can recognize today in many groups, intra- and interspecific relationships of extinct organisms (parasitism, pollination, parental care, swarming, forestry, reproduction, etc.) of the inhabitants of a terrestrial environment —the forest— that are not usually fossilized”, the experts conclude.

     

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825223001757

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    Universidad De Barcelona

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  • Art that integrates data visualizations can help bridge the US political divide over climate change

    Art that integrates data visualizations can help bridge the US political divide over climate change

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    BYLINE: Elise Mahon

    Newswise — Communicating science to a general audience can be challenging. Successfully conveying research on polarizing topics such as climate change can be even more difficult.

    But a new study from University of Wisconsin–Madison researcher Nan Li shows that intentionally integrating art with data visualizations can help non-expert audiences more meaningfully engage with climate change while also bridging political divides in ways that data alone cannot. In fact, data graphs on their own can exacerbate political division on climate change.

    As an assistant professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communication, Li studies how innovative visual representations of science can shape people’s understanding and opinions about various scientific issues. Li teamed up with Isabel Villanueva, Thomas Jilk and Dominique Brossard from UW–Madison and Brianna Rae Van Matre from EcoAgriculture Partners to survey the responses of people across the political spectrum to a painting by Diane Burko entitled “Summer Heat, 2020.”

    The painting depicts red, orange and blue motifs of wildfires and melting glaciers that overlap with maps that appear to drip over a graph of global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. It’s not just art and science side-by-side or pretty colors added to a graph; the two are combined to tell a larger story that makes people stop and think about climate change.

    Li thinks this intentional integration of the data into the piece of art is part of its success.

    “In order for art to maximize its potential as a tool for public engagement, you really need to use it as a catalyst for triggering self-reflection,” Li says. “People use this piece of art as a starting point to think about what this all means to themselves.”

    For the study, published in Communications Earth & Environment, 671 survey participants from across the U.S. were divided into groups and shown four different presentations of the painting and data it contains: the original painting, a detailed version of the graph it includes, a simplified version of that same graph and an edited version of the painting with a detailed graph.

    In the first iteration of the survey, participants were instructed ahead of time to reflect on the meaning of and emotions evoked by the visuals. Survey participants who saw the paintings reported stronger positive emotions — like happiness, awe, inspiration and hope — than participants who were shown just the graphs.

    The researchers then used a digital editing tool to represent what it would look like if “Summer Heat, 2020” and other visuals were posted to an Instagram feed. The caption contained more details about the painting and facts about climate change.

    Participants felt the artwork post was as credible a source of information as the data graphs post. Li says this finding supports the idea that galleries aren’t the only way these kinds of artwork can be successful, but that bringing them to a larger audience through social media is beneficial as well.

    In general, when people see graphs about climate change, whether they identify as liberal or conservative influences how they perceive the relevance of the issue. But in the new study, Li’s team saw that the gap between political affiliations was reduced when survey participants saw the painting in a social media format. In other words, when liberals and conservatives both see artistic representations of climate data rather than data alone, they are more likely to share the perception that climate change is relevant to them.

    Another iteration of the survey did not instruct participants to reflect on the meaning and emotions the visuals inspired before seeing them. Participants viewed the simulated Instagram posts and then later reported their perceived relevance of climate change. This time, participants’ perceived relevance of climate change was equally polarized along their political ideology despite the different visuals they were shown. To Li, this suggests that priming people for introspection is important for breaking down political barriers.

    While the findings are exciting, Li also recognizes this case study is very specific. The study is limited to the use of one painting in one style from one artist.

    Moving forward, she and her team hope to complete additional studies that tease out what element of a piece makes communicating the scientific information more successful. They want to expand the study to consider reactions to other styles by artists from other backgrounds and survey reactions of people in other countries. Li and her team also highlight that it’s important for scientists and artists to be aware of their audience’s interest level in art and recognize that not everyone will react emotionally or cognitively to a piece in the same way.

    Even though communicating these polarizing concepts can be challenging, Li believes in the ability of art to bridge the gap between a lay audience and scientific data.

    “When you show art, I think it sort of makes people think, ‘Hey, wait a minute. What is this all about?’” Li says. “It fills in people’s imaginative deficit of what data means without taking a lecturing approach. It actually engages people to explore the meaning themselves.”

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    University of Wisconsin-Madison

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  • Public backing for hydrogen and biofuels to decarbonize shipping

    Public backing for hydrogen and biofuels to decarbonize shipping

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    • Nuclear preferred to heavy fuel oil (HFO), but the UK public think it’s too risky
    • Liquid natural gas likely to be regarded as a positive transitional step
    • Ammonia elicits strong negative responses from the UK public

    Newswise — New research into public attitudes towards alternative shipping fuels shows public backing for biofuel and hydrogen.

    The study involving the University of Southampton also found that nuclear was preferred to the heavy fuel oil (HFO) currently used in the global shipping industry, although both were perceived negatively. Ammonia had the least public support.

    Global shipping is responsible for 80 to 90 per cent of the world trade and accounts for around 3 per cent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In 2021, 230 industry leaders pledged to achieve net-zero GHG emissions by 2050.

    The new study published in Environment, Development and Sustainability is the first to test public attitudes to various fuels that could play a crucial role in decarbonising the global shipping industry.

    “Switching to fuels with the potential to reduce GHG emissions on the scale needed to address the climate crisis has huge implications for the shipping industry,” says co-author of the paper Professor Damon Teagle, Director of the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute at the University of Southampton.

    “Due to the substantial investment and new infrastructure required, industry stakeholders are wary of going down the wrong path. It’s crucial that policymakers and industry leaders consult with the public and ensure their voices are heard when planning for this transition.”

    The researchers conducted in-depth interviews and a survey of nearly a thousand people in the UK to explore public perceptions and support alternative shipping fuels.

    Biofuel and Hydrogen were regarded the most favourably. Biofuel was viewed as low risk, while people felt hydrogen had low negative by-products.

    Liquid natural gas (LNG) had middling support and didn’t elicit a strong public reaction, with the strongest association being around its current availability.

    Nuclear was viewed more positively than HFO but it was still perceived negatively overall as people felt it was risky. As one interviewee put it, “If there was an oil spill, it’s terrible. But if there’s a nuclear spill it’s a freaking disaster.”

    Although some techno-economic assessments have proposed that ammonia is the most-balanced carbon-free fuel alternative for shipping, the UK’s public perception was strongly negative. Ammonia was perceived as unproven and risky, and described as “dangerous” and “toxic” in interviews.

    Interestingly, people living in port cities were slightly more supportive of using alternative shipping fuels overall.

    “Our research shows there is public support for the research, development and implementation of alternative shipping fuels over incumbent fossil fuels, with biofuel and hydrogen preferred solutions,” says lead author Daniel Carlisle from Massey University in New Zealand. “LNG also seems likely to be regarded as a positive transitional solution.”

    “Of course, public opinion is neither uniform nor static. But the disparity between public attitudes toward ammonia and that of scientists and industry leaders shows that public concerns need to be considered alongside technological and economic evaluations.”

    Public response to decarbonisation through alternative shipping fuels is published in Environment, Development and Sustainability and is available online.

    Ends

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    University of Southampton

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  • Warmer and murkier waters favour predators of guppies, study finds

    Warmer and murkier waters favour predators of guppies, study finds

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    Newswise — Changes in water conditions interact to affect how Trinidadian guppies protect themselves from predators, scientists at the University of Bristol have discovered.

    Known stressors, such as increased temperature and reduced visibility, when combined, cause this fish to avoid a predator less, and importantly, form looser protective shoals.

    The findings, published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, show guppies’ responses are more affected by the interaction of these stressors than if they acted independently.

    Natural habitats are facing mounting environmental challenges due to human activities such as land use changes, exploitation and climate change.

    Lead author Costanza Zanghi from Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences, explained: “Of all the possible environmental parameters that can stress a system, we decided to focus on increased temperature and water turbidity because previous research has shown that visual animals, like most fish, are greatly affected by them.

    “We know that warmer water affects fish swimming ability and hunger levels, and we also know that increased turbidity, such as haziness, can change how visual predators and prey interact with one another.

    “In this research we wanted to take these common stressors, which are known to be increasing in freshwater habitats globally, and see how visual fish would respond to one another when they are subject to these stressors at the same time.”

    “This is important and novel because sometimes, especially when multiple stressors modify similar behaviours in different ways, the overall outcome can be very different from what is shown by studies where only one stressor is tested. That’s because these stressors can interact in unpredictable ways.”

    The team observed the reciprocal responses between a predator and a shoal of prey under four treatments, optimal housing conditions (as a control), and in treatments where either temperature or cloudiness of water was increased. They were then tested with an interaction treatment where both temperature and turbidity were increased at the same time.

    This took several weeks of trials in the lab involving 36 predators and 288 prey fish. The animals were separated so they did not come to any harm.

    All the video recordings were then processed to obtain fine scale movements of all the fish so that the researchers could calculate the swimming speeds of all fish and how they related to one another: how close together the prey stayed and how far from the predator each prey tried to remain.

    Co-author Milly Munro, who joined the Ioannou Group specifically for this project said: “The opportunity to be involved in this study with the team was a great experience, and I am grateful having been awarded ASAB’s Undergraduate Scholarship funding. Designing and running the research alongside Costanza and the team was brilliant as my first academic research experience. I learnt a lot of valuable skills and insights into what it takes to produce and conduct a study of this kind, all I gained from this experience has truly aided me in current and future projects.”

    Zanghi said: “Incorporating multi-stressors in such experiments enhances the ecological relevance and applicability of findings.

    “In natural environments, organisms rarely experience isolated stressors but rather face complex combinations of stressors.

    “By investigating how organisms respond behaviourally to these realistic scenarios, the research becomes more applicable to conservation and management efforts.

    “It provides insights into how organisms may cope with and adapt to multiple stressors, aiding in the development of effective strategies for mitigating the negative impacts of environmental change.

    Now the team plan to test whether the decrease in anti-predator behaviour is as negative for the prey as it may seem and not a clever adaptation to allow prey fish to worry less about predators in an environment that keeps them safe. By using a wider range of predators, they will also investigate whether these changes can affect multiple species differently.

    Zanghi concluded: “This study is exciting as it introduces crucial ecological complexity in the context of predator-prey interactions.

    “By incorporating additional stressors and specifically testing the potential interactions between these factors, this study significantly contributes to our understanding of the dynamics between prey and their predators in a rapidly changing world.”

     

    Paper:

    Zanghi C, Munro M, Ioannou CC. 2023 ‘Temperature and turbidity interact synergistically to alter anti-predator behaviour in the Trinidadian guppy’ Proceedings of the Royal Society B 290: 20230961.

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    University of Bristol

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  • EMSL postdoc investigates how algae affects climate, human health

    EMSL postdoc investigates how algae affects climate, human health

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    Many people may think of algae as green slime beneath their feet as they swim in a lake or the ocean. But what happens when small bits of algae, broken up by wind and waves, are swept into the air? 

    Harmful algae can cause serious health issues in people working and living along coastlines. Such health problems include respiratory distress, allergies, and skin irritation. Blue-green algae, known as cyanobacteria, even release neurotoxins such as β-Methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) into the air. BMAA and similar toxins released are associated with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases—those that have the potential to degrade or even consume parts of the brain. 

    Mickey Rogers, a 2022 Linus Pauling Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) studies how algae are released into the atmosphere, how their composition changes once airborne, and how they affect the climate and human health. 

    Read the full transcript of the EMSL Podcast “Bonding Over Science” on the EMSL website.

    See more podcast episodes on PodBean, YouTube, or your favorite podcast streaming service.

    For more information on Rogers’ research, check out the full feature article. 

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    Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory – EMSL

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  • 4000 climate turnaround scenarios explored

    4000 climate turnaround scenarios explored

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    Newswise — CO2 emissions from human activities account for about 42 billion tonnes per year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has calculated that only another 300 to 600 billion tonnes can be added, from 2020 onwards, or else the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be virtually unattainable. Evangelos Panos of the PSI’s Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis agrees: “It could be a close shave, because 70 percent of our scenarios predict that the world will exceed the 1.5 °C mark in the next five years.”

    Which climate measures are most successful?

    Tackling climate change requires numerous political, economic and social decisions to be made. However, these decisions are fraught with uncertainty. Understandably, decision-makers are seeking robust evidence, for example in answering one of the central questions: Which measures have the greatest effect and are also economically advantageous as a means of achieving the net-zero emissions target which Switzerland, for example, has set itself? A large computer simulation dealing with this issue is now providing some answers. It combines climate models with economic models and 1200 technologies for supplying and using energy, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As part of the study, a supercomputer calculated 4,000 scenarios for 15 regions of the world, taking into account possible developments in ten-year steps up to the year 2100. “This calls for sophisticated data analysis and visualisation techniques,” adds co-author James Glynn, head of the Energy Systems Modelling Program at Columbia University in the US. The final file contains 700 gigabytes of data. The paper on this research has now been published in the academic journal Energy Policy.

    What makes the work done by Evangelos Panos and his co-authors unique is that, for the first time, their integrated assessment models take into account many of the uncertainties inherent in the models. Previous scenarios have typically assumed that all parameters concerning the future are known, such as which technologies will be available and when, what they will cost, or how large the potential for expanding renewable energies is. Moreover, the IPCC calculations focus solely on technology options, i.e. on what impact choosing certain technologies has on the climate. Uncertainties inherent in climate models and the way in which the climate responds to economic growth are left out of the equation, as are many other uncertainties, such as population trends and policy measures. “The most important contribution of our research is that it allows policymakers to make concrete decisions about climate action based on a full understanding of the existing uncertainties,” says co-author Brian Ó Gallachóir from University College Cork.

    18 uncertainty factors and 72,000 variables

    When researchers want to calculate scenarios that contain a large number of variables and uncertainties, they often resort to what is known as the Monte Carlo method. The Monte Carlo method does not predict the future. “Instead, it creates a kind of data map made up of what-if decision pathways,” explains Evangelos Panos. So too in the current study: For each scenario, the team adjusted 72,000 variables. “We considered 18 uncertainty factors, including population and economic growth, climate sensitivity, resource potential, the impact of changes in agriculture and forestry, the cost of energy technologies and the decoupling of energy demand from economic development,” explains James Glynn of Columbia University.

    Sound basis for national pathways to an energy system transformation

    In order to break down individual scenarios focusing on political and economic issues into different national pathways to an energy system transformation, additional parameters specific to each country need to be taken into account. “An energy system that enables the transition to a zero-carbon economy is capital-intensive and requires the mobilisation of resources from all stakeholders,” Panos concludes. This calls for customised analyses to be carried out at the national level: “Our study provides a sound basis for these.”

    Text: Bernd Müller

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    Paul Scherrer Institute

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  • How the use of chemicals and biodiversity loss are connected

    How the use of chemicals and biodiversity loss are connected

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    Newswise — Science does not take a deep enough look at chemicals in the environment as one of the causes of the decline in biodiversity. Forty scientists in the RobustNature research network of Goethe University Frankfurt and collaborating institutes have corroborated this in a study that has now been published in the journal “Nature Ecology and Evolution”. The researchers regard an interdisciplinary approach as a new opportunity to better understand biodiversity loss in order to be able to take more efficient countermeasures. To this end, they are studying the interactions between chemical pollution and biodiversity loss.

    Declining biodiversity threatens the very basis of human life. Science contends that there are many reasons for this decline. However, while much research is being conducted into the connection between species decline on the one hand and loss of habitats, invasion by non-native species or climate change on the other, science is giving less attention to the impact of chemicals on biodiversity. A recent study by a team of researchers led by Professor Henner Hollert, Dr. Francisco Sylvester and Fabian Weichert from Goethe University Frankfurt corroborates this.

    The team has analyzed in depth the scientific literature on this topic from 1990 to 2021. According to their analysis, the very many research papers on environmental pollution through chemicals were published in only a small number of highly specialized ecotoxicological journals, in which papers on biodiversity loss are only occasionally found. “This suggests that the field is highly encapsulated, which is in stark contrast to publication behavior in relation to other causes of global biodiversity loss,” says Henner Hollert. “Research on the environmental impact of chemicals is still mostly dissociated from the assessment of biodiversity loss.”

    The authors call for a stronger interdisciplinary focus in research so that the impacts of chemical substances on biodiversity can be better understood and mitigated. What makes the researchers optimistic here is the fact that there have been many methodological advances in ecotoxicology and ecology in recent years. For example, with the help of state-of-the-art chemical and effect-based analytics as well as big data science it is possible to detect thousands of known and unknown substances in environmental samples at the same time. In addition, there are technologies for remote environmental monitoring, for example with satellites, as well as computer models for predicting the ecological risks of chemicals and methods for determining biodiversity with the help of environmental DNA.

    However, the scientists also see quite considerable challenges despite the interdisciplinary approach. For example, basic data are often lacking; each area under study has specific characteristics; the processes at ecosystem scale are complex. To meet these challenges, the researchers have made 16 recommendations. They suggest, for example, obligating industry to make relevant data public. Or they propose developing ecological test models that cover not only individual organisms but also populations, communities or even entire ecosystems.

    The RobustNature research network is examining the robustness and resilience of nature-society systems in the developing Anthropocene and specifically the interaction of chemical pollution and biodiversity loss. To address important questions related to human-ecosystem dynamics, RobustNature has established interdisciplinary collaboration with partners from Germany and abroad. https://www.robustnature.de/en/

    Partners:

    • Goethe University Frankfurt (Coordination; Faculty of Biological Sciences (15) with the faculties of Law (1), Economics & Business (2), Social Sciences (3), Educational Sciences (4), Geosciences & Geography (11), Computer Science & Mathematics (12), Medicine (16) and the profile area Sustainability & Biodiversity)
    • Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE)
    • Senckenberg – Leibniz Institution for Biodiversity and Earth System Research (SGN)
    • LOEWE Center for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (LOEWE TBG)
    • Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig
    • Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, Frankfurt
    • Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME), Schmallenberg
    • RWTH Aachen University
    • University of Saskatchewan, Canada
    • ETH Zurich, Switzerland
    • Stockholm University, Sweden

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    Goethe-Universitat Frankfurt am Main

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  • Revealing the power of citizen science for SDG advancement

    Revealing the power of citizen science for SDG advancement

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    Newswise — The 17 SDGs are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including climate change, environmental degradation, and inequality. The achievement of the SDGs depends on the ability to accurately measure progress towards meeting the associated targets based on timely, relevant, and reliable data. Citizen science offers an innovative approach to complement and enhance official statistics. Additionally, citizen science can help raise awareness, mobilize action, and therefore achieve transformative change. 

    The collection brings together academic papers that offer insights into the contributions of citizen science to the SDGs and other international frameworks. The call for abstracts for this collection attracted 40 submissions, from which 21 papers were reviewed and accepted for publication. 

    “The interest in contributing to this collection reflects the importance and popularity of Citizen Science,” notes Dilek Fraisl, a researcher in the Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability Research Group of the Advancing Systems Analysis Program, who is leading the collection. “We received high-quality submissions from a diverse community, including citizen science researchers and practitioners, National Statistical Offices (NSOs), and international organizations, from both the Global North and South.” 

    Core themes that run across the set of diverse papers include monitoring and data collection, and the transformative potential of citizen science. The collection also reflects on the progress achieved in the scientific literature and through practical implementation over the past few years. 

    An example of a paper showcasing the potential of citizen science for monitoring the SDGs is the paper by Proden et al (2023), to which Fraisl contributed together with Linda See, who is also associated with the Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability Research Group at IIASA. 

    “This paper focuses on the views and experiences of the official statistics community, including representatives from NSOs, on citizen science data, along with the opportunities and challenges that these data present,” explains See. “Despite the widely recognized value of citizen science for monitoring the SDGs, we have discovered a conspicuous lack of awareness with this approach among members of the official statistics community.” 

    The collection serves as a comprehensive compilation, gathering the latest research, findings, and practical recommendations from a diverse set of actors. Additionally, it explores the development of this emerging field of study, providing a roadmap for future research and proposing tangible actions. It is worth noting that, even after eight years of pursuing the SDGs, nearly half of the 92 environmental SDG indicators still lack data. The collection demonstrates that citizen science has vast untapped potential for driving progress towards achieving the SDGs and other international frameworks, highlighting its capacity for collaborative problem solving. 

    “With this collection, we call for stronger cooperation between all citizen science actors, and for the Citizen Science Global Partnership (CSGP), to help bridge the gap between the citizen science and official statistics communities and stakeholders. We urge the official statistics community to consider the inclusiveness and relevance of their practices and encourage funders to reassess their strategies, to go beyond short-term pilot studies, and to provide genuine financial support to citizen science initiatives focused on monitoring and achieving sustainable development,” concludes Fraisl. 

    Note: Citizen Science: Theory and Practice is an international peer-reviewed journal focused on impacts and effective practices associated with public participation in scientific endeavors in all disciplines and across the globe. This open-access journal is a publication of the Citizen Science Association.

     

    References

    Fraisl, D., See, L., Campbell, J., Andrianandrasana, H., Danielsen, F. (2023). Special Collection: Contributions of Citizen Science to the SDGs and International Development Frameworks. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice https://theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/collections/contributions-of-citizen-science

    Fraisl, D., See, L., Campbell, J., Danielsen, F., Andrianandrasana H. (2023). Editorial: The Contributions of Citizen Science to the United Nationals Sustainable Development Goals and Other International Agreements and Frameworks. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.643

     

     

    About IIASA: 

    The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

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    International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

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  • Soil microbes speed up CO2 emissions amid global warming

    Soil microbes speed up CO2 emissions amid global warming

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    Newswise — The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration is a primary catalyst for global warming, and an estimated one fifth of the atmospheric CO2 originates from soil sources. This is partially attributed to the activity of microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms that decompose organic matter in the soil utilizing oxygen, such as deceased plant materials. During this process, CO2 is released into the atmosphere. Scientists refer to it as heterotrophic soil respiration.

    Based on a recent study published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, a team of researchers from ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology Eawag, and the University of Lausanne has reached a significant conclusion. Their study indicates that emissions of CO2 by soil microbes into the Earth’s atmosphere are not only expected to increase but also accelerate on a global scale by the end of this century.

    Using a projection, they find that by 2100, CO2 emissions from soil microbes will escalate, potentially reaching an increase of up to about forty percent globally, compared to the current levels, under the worst-​case climate scenario. “Thus, the projected rise in microbial CO2 emissions will further contribute to the aggravation of global warming, emphasising the urgent need to get more accurate estimates of the heterotrophic respiration rates,” says Alon Nissan, the main author of the study and an ETH Postdoctoral Fellow at the ETH Zurich Institute of Environmental Engineering.

    Soil moisture and temperature as key factors

    These findings do not only confirm earlier studies but also provide more precise insights into the mechanisms and magnitude of heterotrophic soil respiration across different climatic zones. In contrast to other models that rely on numerous parameters, the novel mathematical model, developed by Alon Nissan, simplifies the estimation process by utilising only two crucial environmental factors: soil moisture and soil temperature.

    The model represents a significant advancement as it encompasses all biophysically relevant levels, ranging from the micro-​scales of soil structure and soil water distribution to plant communities like forests, entire ecosystems, climatic zones, and even the global scale. Peter Molnar, a professor at the ETH Institute of Environmental Engineering, highlights the significance of this theoretical model which complements large Earth System models, stating, “The model allows for a more straightforward estimation of microbial respiration rates based on soil moisture and soil temperature. Moreover, it enhances our understanding of how heterotrophic respiration in diverse climate regions contributes to global warming.”

    Polar CO2 emissions likely to more than double

    A key finding of the research collaboration led by Peter Molnar and Alon Nissan is that the increase in microbial CO2 emissions varies across climate zones. In cold polar regions, the foremost contributor to the increase is the decline in soil moisture rather than a significant rise in temperature, unlike in hot and temperate zones. Alon Nissan highlights the sensitivity of cold zones, stating, “Even a slight change in water content can lead to a substantial alteration in the respiration rate in the polar regions.”

    Based on their calculations, under the worst-​case climate scenario, microbial CO2 emissions in polar regions are projected to rise by ten percent per decade by 2100, twice the rate anticipated for the rest of the world. This disparity can be attributed to the optimal conditions for heterotrophic respiration, which occur when soils are in a semi-​saturated state, i.e. neither too dry nor too wet. These conditions prevail during soil thawing in polar regions.

    On the other hand, soils in other climate zones, which are already relatively drier and prone to further desiccation, exhibit a comparatively smaller increase in microbial CO2 emissions. However, irrespective of the climate zone, the influence of temperature remains consistent: as soil temperature rises, so does the emission of microbial CO2.

    How much CO2 emissions will increase by each climate zone

    As of 2021, most CO2 emissions from soil microbes are primarily originating from the warm regions of the Earth. Specifically, 67 percent of these emissions come from the tropics, 23 percent from the subtropics, 10 percent from the temperate zones, and a mere 0.1 percent from the arctic or polar regions.

    Significantly, the researchers anticipate substantial growth in microbial CO2 emissions across all these regions compared to the levels observed in 2021. By the year 2100, their projections indicate an increase of 119 percent in the polar regions, 38 percent in the tropics, 40 percent in the subtropics, and 48 percent in the temperate zones.

    Will soils be a CO2 sink or a CO2 source for the atmosphere?

    The carbon balance in soils, determining whether soils act as a carbon source or sink, hinges on the interplay between two crucial processes: photosynthesis, whereby plants assimilate CO2, and respiration, which releases CO2. Therefore, studying microbial CO2 emissions is essential for comprehending whether soils will store or release CO2 in the future.

    “Due to climate change, the magnitude of these carbon fluxes—both the inflow through photosynthesis and the outflow through respiration—remains uncertain. However, this magnitude will impact the current role of soils as carbon sinks,” explains Alon Nissan.

    In their ongoing study, the researchers have primarily focused on heterotrophic respiration. However, they have not yet investigated the CO2 emissions that plants release through autotrophic respiration. Further exploration of these factors will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the carbon dynamics within soil ecosystems.

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    ETH Zurich

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  • Volcanic Eruptions’ Climate Impact Underestimated

    Volcanic Eruptions’ Climate Impact Underestimated

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    Newswise — Researchers have found that the cooling effect that volcanic eruptions have on Earth’s surface temperature is likely underestimated by a factor of two, and potentially as much as a factor of four, in standard climate projections.

    While this effect is far from enough to offset the effects of global temperature rise caused by human activity, the researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, say that small-magnitude eruptions are responsible for as much as half of all the sulphur gases emitted into the upper atmosphere by volcanoes.

    The results, reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggest that improving the representation of volcanic eruptions of all magnitudes will in turn make climate projections more robust.

    Where and when a volcano erupts is not something that humans can control, but volcanoes do play an important role in the global climate system. When volcanoes erupt, they can spew sulphur gases into the upper atmosphere, which forms tiny particles called aerosols that reflect sunlight back into space. For very large eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo in 1991, the volume of volcanic aerosols is so large that it single-handedly cause global temperatures to drop.

    However, these large eruptions only happen a handful of times per century – most small-magnitude eruptions happen every year or two.  

    “Compared with the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity, the effect that volcanoes have on the global climate is relatively minor, but it’s important that we include them in climate models, in order to accurately assess temperature changes in future,” said first author May Chim, a PhD candidate in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry.

    Standard climate projections, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, assume that explosive volcanic activity over 2015–2100 will be at the same level as the 1850–2014 period, and overlook the effects of small-magnitude eruptions.

    “These projections mostly rely on ice cores to estimate how volcanoes might affect the climate, but smaller eruptions are too small to be detected in ice-core records,” said Chim. “We wanted to make a better use of satellite data to fill the gap and account for eruptions of all magnitudes.”

    Using the latest ice-core and satellite records, Chim and her colleagues from the University of Exeter, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, the Durham University, and the UK Met Office, generated 1000 different scenarios of future volcanic activity. They selected scenarios representing lower, median and high levels of volcanic activity, and then performed climate simulations using the UK Earth System Model.

    Their simulations show that the impacts of volcanic eruptions on climate, including global surface temperature, sea level and sea ice extent, are underestimated because current climate projections largely underestimate the plausible future level of volcanic activity.

    For the median future scenario, they found that the effect of volcanoes on the atmosphere, known as volcanic forcing, is being underestimated in climate projections by as much as 50%, due in large part to the effect of small-magnitude eruptions.

    “We found that not only is volcanic forcing being underestimated, but small-magnitude eruptions are actually responsible for as much as half of the volcanic forcing,” said Chim. “These small-magnitude eruptions may not have a measurable effect individually, but collectively, their effect is significant.

    “I was surprised to see just how important these small-magnitude eruptions are – we knew they had an effect, but we didn’t know it was so large.”

    Although the cooling effect of volcanoes is being underestimated in climate projections, the researchers stress that it does not compare with human-generated carbon emissions.

    “Volcanic aerosols in the upper atmosphere typically stay in the atmosphere for a year or two, whereas carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for much, much longer,” said Chim. “Even if we had a period of extraordinarily high volcanic activity, our simulations show that it wouldn’t be enough to stop global warming. It’s like a passing cloud on a hot, sunny day: the cooling effect is only temporary.”

    The researchers say that fully accounting for the effect of volcanoes can help make climate projections more robust. They are now using their simulations to investigate whether future volcanic activity could threaten the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, and in turn maintain relatively high level of harmful ultraviolet radiation at the Earth’s surface.

    The research was supported in part by the Croucher Foundation and The Cambridge Commonwealth, European & International Trust, the European Union, and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

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    University of Cambridge

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  • Weak policies and political ideologies risk jeopardising plans to tackle health and climate change, says Cambridge expert

    Weak policies and political ideologies risk jeopardising plans to tackle health and climate change, says Cambridge expert

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    Newswise — Efforts to tackle major issues facing the UK, including the nation’s health and climate change, are being hampered because politicians often ignore the existing evidence when setting policies, according to Dame Theresa Marteau, a public health expert at the University of Cambridge.

    Writing in the journal Science and Public Policy, Professor Marteau argues that this ‘evidence-neglect’ is a result of incentive structures that encourage politicians to set ambitious policy goals while simultaneously disincentivising them from implementing the policies needed to achieve them, and of political ideologies and interests that conflict with effective policies.

    Two changes could mitigate these factors, she writes: engaging citizens more in policy-making so their interests dominate; and increasing the accountability of politicians through legally binding systems for all stages of policy-making. 

    Recent UK governments have set ambitious goals to improve the nation’s health and tackle climate change. These include halving childhood obesity by 2030, eradicating smoking by 2030, narrowing the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030, and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

    But, says Professor Marteau, Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at Cambridge, “None of these ambitions is on course. Of course, scientific evidence is just one of many sources of information for policymakers to consider, but neglecting evidence is a sure-fire route to unsuccessful policymaking.”

    According to predictions, childhood obesity is on track to double, not halve, by 2030. Smoking eradication is on track sometime after 2050, not by 2030. By 2030, the gap in healthy life expectancy between local areas where it is highest and lowest will have narrowed, but by 2035 is set to rise by five years. And the UK Sixth Carbon Budget – a key target towards achieving net zero carbon emissions – is likely to be missed by “a huge margin”. 

    Achieving each of these ambitions requires sustained changes in several sets of behaviour across all socio-economic groups including what we eat, drink, whether we smoke, and how we travel.  A wealth of research demonstrates that achieving such change is difficult, requiring many interventions that change the environments or systems that too readily cue, reinforce and maintain unhealthier and unsustainable behaviours.

    “There are many possible reasons why these policy ambitions are so far off-track, but chief among them is the neglect of evidence, particularly around achieving sustained changes in behaviour across populations,” said Professor Marteau. 

    “Put simply, these failures are baked-in, given the policies designed to achieve these ambitions are based on interventions that cannot achieve the change required.” 

    Part of the problem, she says, lies in the incentive structures for politicians, which favour setting ambitious policy goals whether as part of achieving election promises, attracting positive publicity or both. But they also discourage the policies needed to achieve them.

    “Fear of electoral damage plays a role here. Take taxes on tobacco, alcohol, junk food and carbon emissions: these are among the most effective interventions for improving health and the climate, but they are unpopular with the public and so politicians are unwilling to adopt them.” 

    Such policies may not just be unpopular with the public – they may also run counter to political interests and ideologies. Neoliberalism, for example, emphasises a small role for governments in the economy and public policy more generally, and a larger role for individuals to be personally responsible for behaving in ways to achieve health, wealth and happiness. Such ideologies often portray attempts by the government to intervene as ‘Nanny Statism’. 

    Certain industries, too, focus on personal responsibility to discourage politicians from adopting effective policies that conflict with their industries’ interests, such as those aimed at reducing consumption of fossil fuels, tobacco, alcohol, meat and junk food. These industries may cast doubt on the effectiveness of policies that would reduce their sales, as well as lobbying governments to persuade them of the business case for the status quo. 

    Professor Marteau added: “There are no quick or single fixes to overcoming these problems, but there are two changes which could help: engaging citizens more in priority setting and policy design, and increasing the accountability of politicians through introducing legally-binding systems for reporting progress on policy ambitions.”

    There are a number of options available to policymakers when it comes to engaging citizens, including: surveys, focus groups, town hall meetings and citizen assemblies, as well as working with civil society organisations. This approach has the potential to reduce the political costs of unpopular policies by exposing citizens to evidence for the effectiveness of policies, which – across many studies – has been shown to increase policy support. Policies designed with citizen engagement also attract more public support, such policies being seen as fairer and more successful as a result.

    Introducing legally binding systems for reporting policies and progress on policy ambitions, with plans to get back on track if progress is off course, could be a powerful way to decrease the neglect of evidence which is central to policy success. 

    An example of this is the UK government’s recent Levelling Up strategy paper, which included plans to introduce a statutory obligation for government to report annually on progress towards meeting the Levelling Up missions.  Alongside these plans, it published a set of metrics against which to measure progress against the missions and evaluate the success of the strategy.

    “Although these requirements are by no means perfect, the legislation as drafted will at least allow parliament significantly more scrutiny of progress towards a government ambition than is often the case.”

    According to Professor Marteau, failure to consider the evidence risks undermining the government’s attempts to take action.

    “Laudable policy ambitions to improve a nation’s health and protect life on the planet will remain unfulfilled ambitions unless and until evidence is given a more central role in the policy-making process.”

    Reference

    Marteau, TM. Evidence-neglect: addressing a barrier to UK health and climate policy ambitions. Science and Public Policy; 20 June 2023; DOI: 10.1093/scipol/scad021 

    ENDS

     

    Once the published, the full article will be available at: https://academic.oup.com/spp/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/scipol/scad021

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    University of Cambridge

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  • Migrating for Climate Change Success?

    Migrating for Climate Change Success?

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    Newswise — A new study by an international team from Africa, Asia and Europe has put forward three criteria for evaluating the success of migration as adaptation in the face of climate change: well-being, equity and sustainability.

    The study shows that while migration is increasingly recognised as an effective way to deal with climate risks, or a form of adaptation, it is far from a silver-bullet solution.

    For example, remittances – which include flows of money, ideas, skills and goods between migrants and their places of origin – are thought to be key to facilitating adaptation to climate change.

    But, drawing on evidence from every continent for the past decades, this research shows that while remittances help improve material well-being for families and households in places where migrants move from, this often comes at a cost to the well-being of migrants themselves.

    For example, migrants in Bangladesh are not sufficiently considered in planning and policy and remain excluded from urban structures and services.

    This has repercussions for all aspects of their everyday lives in urban destinations such as living conditions, income security, and eventually their ability to keep supporting their families back home. 

    Dr Lucy Szaboova from the University of Exeter, the study’s lead author, said: “The idea of migration as adaptation places the responsibility of predicting and responding to future risks on individuals, and could justify policy inaction.

    “This is problematic, because where migration is not met with appropriate policy support, it can reinforce vulnerability and marginality and ultimately jeopardise the success of adaptation.”

    Tensions in well-being, equity and sustainability

    The study found that migration often leads to tensions within and between well-being, equity, and sustainability. These tensions can create winners and losers.

    Experiences of migration as adaptation are not equal for everyone involved.

    Depending on the context and on people’s social characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, for instance, migration can have different outcomes for different people.

    Some might benefit while others lose out.

    For example, the household overall may be financially better off thanks to remittances from the migrant, but female household members whose work burden increases with men’s migration, may be struggling to maintain the farm and must make tricky choices that can eventually undermine the success of migration as adaptation.

    Dr Mumuni Abu, from the Regional Institute for Population Studies at the University of Ghana, said: “In the absence of equity, migration can exacerbate rather than reduce vulnerability to climate change.

    “For example, in rural places of origin, constraints on gender equity between men and women at the household and community level, often result in the unsustainable use and management of natural resources.”

    Dr Amina Maharjan, of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), added: “Remittances are often lauded for their potential to support development and adaptation, but experiences point to the need to consider their role along longer time horizons.”

    Indeed, the implications of migration for the success of adaptation often unfold over extended timescales, including across different generations.

    Creating an enabling policy environment

    The authors suggest that evaluations of the success of migration as adaptation should, therefore, take into account outcomes for migrants, their households and family members in places of origin, and for the host society.

    They should also recognise that some implications might not be immediately obvious but might unfold over longer timeframes.

    To address tensions that can stand in the way of success, migration as a plausible adaptation option should be made visible in policy and planning.

    Drawing on extensive research with migrants and policy and planning stakeholders in urban migration destinations, Professor Neil Adger from the University of Exeter highlighted potential solutions for creating an enabling policy environment.

    “Migrants in cities are disproportionately exposed to social and environmental hazards which negatively affect their health and wellbeing,” he said.

    “Despite this, they remain largely invisible and voiceless in policy circles.

    “Participatory urban planning and deliberative approaches can support the inclusion of diverse perspectives on building safe, sustainable and resilient cities and can support migration as successful adaptation.”

    The paper, published in the journal One Earth, is entitled: “Evaluating migration as successful adaptation to climate change: trade-offs in well-being, equity and sustainability.”

    It is the outcome of collaboration between researchers from the University of Exeter, University of Vienna, University of Ghana, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

    This research was funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

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    University of Exeter

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  • Carbon Emissions: How Will a Warmer World Affect Us?

    Carbon Emissions: How Will a Warmer World Affect Us?

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    Newswise — Washington, DC—As the world heats up due to climate change, how much can we continue to depend on plants and soils to help alleviate some of our self-inflicted damage by removing carbon pollution from the atmosphere?

    New work led by Carnegie’s Wu Sun and Anna Michalak tackles this key question by deploying a bold new approach for inferring the temperature sensitivity of ecosystem respiration—which represents one side of the equation balancing carbon dioxide uptake and carbon dioxide output in terrestrial environments. Their findings are published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

    “Right now, plants in the terrestrial biosphere perform a ‘free service’ to us, by taking between a quarter and a third of humanity’s carbon emissions out of the atmosphere,” Michalak explained. “As the world warms, will they be able to keep up this rate of carbon dioxide removal? Answering this is critical for understanding the future of our climate and devising sound climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.”

    Photosynthesis, the process by which plants, algae, and some bacteria convert the Sun’s energy into sugars for food, requires the uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This occurs during daylight hours. But through day and night, these same organisms also perform respiration, just like us, “breathing” out carbon dioxide.

    Being able to better quantify the balance of these two processes across all the components of land-based ecosystems—from soil microbes to trees and everything in between—and to understand their sensitivity to warming, will improve scientists’ models for climate change scenarios.

    In recent years, researchers—including Carnegie’s Joe Berry—have developed groundbreaking approaches for measuring the amount of carbon dioxide taken up by plants through photosynthesis, such as using satellites to monitor global photosynthetic activity and measuring the concentration of the atmospheric trace gas carbonyl sulfide.

    But, until now, developing similar tools to track respiration at the scale of entire biomes or continents has not been possible. As a result, respiration is often indirectly estimated as the difference between photosynthesis and the overall uptake of carbon dioxide.

    “We set out to develop a new way to infer how respiration is affected by changes in temperature over various ecosystems in North America,” said Sun. “This is absolutely crucial for refining our climate change projections and for informing mitigation strategies.”

    Michalak, Sun, and their colleagues developed a new way to infer at large scales how much respiration increases when temperatures warm using measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. These measurements were taken by a network of dozens of monitoring stations across North America.

    The team revealed that atmospheric observations suggest lower temperature sensitivities of respiration than represented in most state-of-the-art models. They also found that this sensitivity differs between forests and croplands. Temperature sensitivities of respiration have not been constrained using observational data at this scale until now, as previous work has focused on sensitivities for much smaller plots of land.

    “The beauty of our approach is that measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from a few dozen well-placed stations can inform carbon fluxes at the scale of entire biomes over North America,” Sun explained. “This enables a more comprehensive understanding of respiration at the continental scale, which will help us assess how future warming affects the biosphere’s ability to retain carbon,” Sun emphasized.

    To their surprise, the researchers found that respiration is less sensitive to warming than previously thought, when viewed at the biome or continental scale. But they caution that this temperature sensitivity is just one piece of a complex puzzle.

    “Although our work indicates that North American ecosystems may be more resilient to warming than plot-scale studies had implied, hitting the brakes on climate change ultimately depends on us ceasing to inject more and more carbon into the atmosphere as quickly as possible. We cannot rely on the natural components of the global carbon cycle to do the heavy lifting for us,” Michalak cautioned. “It is up to us to stop the runaway train.”

    Other members of the research team include: Xiangzhong Luo, Yao Zhang, and Trevor Keenan of University of California Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Yuanyuan Fang of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District; Yoichi P. Shiga of the Universities Space Research Association; and Joshua Fisher of Chapman University.

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    Carnegie Institution for Science

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  • IIASA analysis underpins new 2040 climate targets by EU Advisors

    IIASA analysis underpins new 2040 climate targets by EU Advisors

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    BYLINE: Embargoed until 15 June 2023 00:01 CET

    Newswise — In two new reports, IIASA researchers, with support from colleagues at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), examined the feasibility and fairness of emissions targets and considerations for the European Climate Law. Keywan Riahi, a member of the 15-strong EU Advisory Board and IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program Director, took the lead in conducting the analyses. 

    The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change is an independent board entrusted with the crucial responsibility of providing transparent and scientific guidance to the EU on setting a new emissions reduction target to be achieved by 2040, as well as budgets for greenhouse gas emissions within the EU from 2030 to 2050. This guidance should align with other global commitments, including the Paris Agreement. 

    “The Advisory Board has recommended that the EU should reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90-95% by 2040 relative to 1990 levels, having identified pathways that are fair, feasible, and consistent with the EU’s climate commitments. The feasibility and fairness of the Advisory Board’s advice have been substantially informed by two IIASA reports published this week and builds on a long history of hosting climate, emissions, and energy data for the research community, and transparently supporting scientific assessments and policy advice such as the latest IPCC report,” states Riahi, who is also the lead author of various IPCC reports. 

    “From a total of 63 scenarios that were compatible with the target of 1.5°C and the European Climate Law, 27 scenarios were identified with high feasibility concerns. This left us with 36 scenarios that were recommended for further analysis by the Advisory Board,” says author Elina Brutschin, a researcher in the Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions Research Group in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program. 

    The database and evaluation of different scenarios form a solid and transparent foundation for the Advisory Board’s recommendations to the EU on reducing emissions. These recommendations are expected to become a part of EU law later this year. IIASA researchers have additionally released a report examining the fairness and equity considerations to the EU’s mitigation challenge. 

    “There are long-standing debates surrounding countries’ historical responsibility for global warming, as well as vulnerability to impacts and the ability to pay for mitigation. The analysis supports a discussion of Europe’s “fair share” and responsibility, that will help determine the EU’s climate ambition both within the EU as well as in international climate negotiations in alignment with the normative principles to which the European Union ascribes,” says Setu Pelz, a researcher in the same group at IIASA. 

    “The findings presented in these reports underscore the importance of ambitious emissions reductions and climate leadership by the EU in responsibly mitigating emissions and limiting the impacts of climate change. This will bring significant and transformative changes to how people live, the economy, and the environment in the EU,” concludes author Edward Byers, a researcher in the Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group.

     

    References

    Byers, E., Brutschin, E., Sferra, F., Luderer, G., Huppmann, D., Kikstra, J., Pietzcker, R., Rodrigues, R., & Riahi, K., 2023. Scenarios processing, vetting and feasibility assessment for the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg.  https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/18828

    Pelz, S., Rogelj, J., Riahi, K., 2023. Evaluating equity in European climate change mitigation pathways for the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg. https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/18830

     

     

    About IIASA:

    The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

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    International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

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  • Eddies: Impact on World’s Hottest Oceans

    Eddies: Impact on World’s Hottest Oceans

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    Newswise — Water from the Pacific Ocean flows into the Indian Ocean via the Indonesia Archipelago Seas thanks to a vast network of currents dubbed the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF). The ITF acts as a heat and moisture conveyer belt, transporting warm and nutrient waters. Yet the ITF is neither a steady nor a straight path, but experiences fluctuations and turbulence as it passes through the various sea regions, straits, and passages.

    Currents can sometimes formulate into circular motions, forming a whirlpool-like phenomena. These are known as eddies, and they are prominent in areas where there are strong gradients in temperature, salinity, or velocity. Their rotating motion can cause nutrients from the colder, deeper waters to rise to the surface.

    To investigate the role eddies play in determining the path of the ITF, an international research group has harnessed a high-resolution ocean general circulation model that reproduces eddies. The group featured researchers from Tohoku University, JAMSTEC, Kyushu University, the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa, and the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia.

    Details of their research were reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Oceans on May 14, 2023.

    The group’s model enabled them to calculate the transport of simulated particles in a daily-averaged flow field with eddies and a monthly-averaged flow field with smoothed eddy currents, respectively, and estimate the flow rate transported by the simulated particles.

    In the Sulawesi Sea, which is situated along the northeastern coast of Borneo and also borders the southern Filipino island of Mindanao, the Sulu archipelago, and Sulawesi Island’s western coast, the group found that large flow fluctuations occur, and seawater circulates over a wider area for an extended period. Seawater also rises from the middle to near the surface, which may cause significant changes in the water when flowing through due to turbulent mixing.
    On the eastern side of Sulawesi Island sits the Banda Sea, which surrounds the Maluku Islands and borders the islands of New Guinea and Timor. Here, the current fluctuation is slight, and the model predicted negligible influence from the eddies on the Indonesian Current.

    “Our results indicate that the path and residence time of the ITF, along with the mixing process of seawater, must be appropriately reproduced by an ocean general circulation model to gain further insights into and better predict sea surface temperature fluctuations in each region of the Indonesian Archipelago,” points out Toshio Suga, professor of physical oceanography at Tohoku University’s Graduate School of Science and co-author of the paper.

    Global warming’s progression is expected to change the ITF. Such changes could have profound repercussions for water temperatures in the Indonesia Archipelago and the Indian Ocean, El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole, and the frequency and scale of marine heatwaves that affect marine ecosystems and local weather. Therefore, it is vital to predict accurately such phenomena.

    Looking ahead, the group hopes to improve the accuracy of future predictions by clarifying the degree to which eddies impact the path and residence time of the ITF, something quantitatively linked to the determination of water temperature in these areas.

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    Tohoku University

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  • Record-high greenhouse emissions fuel unprecedented global warming

    Record-high greenhouse emissions fuel unprecedented global warming

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    • Human-induced warming averaged 1.14°C over the last decade  

    • A record level of greenhouse gases is being emitted each year, equivalent to 54 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide 

    • The remaining carbon budget – how much carbon dioxide can be emitted to have a better than 50% chance of holding global warming to 1.5°C – has halved over three years  

    • Leading scientists have today launched a project to update key climate indicators every year, so people can be kept informed about critical aspects of global warming  

    Newswise — Human-caused global warming has continued to increase at an “unprecedented rate” since the last major assessment of the climate system published two years ago, say 50 leading scientists.   

    One of the researchers said the analysis was a “timely wake-up call” that the pace and scale of climate action has been insufficient, and it comes as climate experts meet in Bonn to prepare the ground for the major COP28 climate conference in the UAE in December, which will include a stocktake of progress towards keeping global warming to 1.5°C by 2050.   

    Given the speed at which the global climate system is changing, the scientists argue that policymakers, climate negotiators and civil society groups need to have access to up-to-date and robust scientific evidence on which to base decisions.   

    The authoritative source of scientific information on the state of the climate is the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) but the turnaround time for its major assessments is five or ten years, and that creates an “information gap”, particularly when climate indicators are changing rapidly.  

    In an initiative being led by the University of Leeds, the scientists have developed an open data, open science platform – the Indicators of Global Climate Change and website (https://igcc.earth/. It will update information on key climate indicators every year.  

    Critical decade for climate change 

    The Indicators of Global Climate Change Project is being co-ordinated by Professor Piers Forster, Director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at Leeds. He said: “This is the critical decade for climate change.   

     “Decisions made now will have an impact on how much temperatures will rise and the degree and severity of impacts we will see as a result.   

    “Long-term warming rates are currently at a long-term high, caused by highest-ever levels of greenhouse gas emissions. But there is evidence that the rate of increase in greenhouse gas emissions has slowed. 

    “We need to be nimble footed in the face of climate change. We need to change policy and approaches in the light of the latest evidence about the state of the climate system. Time is no longer on our side. Access to up-to-date information is vitally important.” 

    Writing in the journal Earth System Science Data, the scientists have revealed how key indicators have changed since the publication of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Working Group 1 report in 2021- which produced the key data that fed into the subsequent IPCC Sixth Synthesis Report. 

    What the updated indicators show  

    Human-induced warming, largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels, reached an average of 1.14°C for the most recent decade (2013 to 2022) above pre-industrial levels. This is up from 1.07°C between 2010 and 2019.  

    Human-induced warming is now increasing at a pace of over 0.2°C per decade.  

    The analysis also found that greenhouse gas emissions were “at an all-time high”, with human activity resulting in the equivalent of 54 (+/-5.3) gigatonnes (or billion metric tonnes) of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere on average every year over the last decade (2012-2021).  

    There has been positive move away from burning coal, yet this has come at a short-term cost in that it has added to global warming by reducing particulate pollution in the air, which has a cooling effect.   

    ‘Indicators critical to address climate crisis’ 

    Professor Maisa Rojas Corradi, Minister of the Environment in Chile, IPCC author and a scientist involved in this study, said: “An annual update of key indicators of global change is critical in helping the international community and countries to keep the urgency of addressing the climate crisis at the top of the agenda and for evidence-based decision-making. 

    “In line with the “ratchet-mechanism” of increasing ambition envisioned by the Paris Agreement we need scientific information about emissions, concentration, and temperature as often as possible to keep international climate negotiations up to date and to be able to adjust and if necessary correct national policies.  

    “In the case of Chile, we have a climate change law that aims at aligning government-wide policies with climate action.” 

    Remaining carbon budget  

    One of the major findings of the analysis is the rate of decline in what is known as the remaining carbon budget, an estimate of how much carbon that can be released into the atmosphere to give a 50% chance of keeping global temperature rise within 1.5°C.   

    In 2020, the IPCC calculated the remaining carbon budget was around 500 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. By the start of 2023, the figure was roughly half that at around 250 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide.   

    The reduction in the estimated remaining carbon budget is due to a combination of continued emissions since 2020 and updated estimates of human-induced warming.   

    Professor Forster said: “Even though we are not yet at 1.5°C warming, the carbon budget will likely be exhausted in only a few years as we have a triple whammy of heating from very high CO2 emissions, heating from increases in other GHG emissions and heating from reductions in pollution.  

    “If we don’t want to see the 1.5°C goal disappearing in our rearview mirror, the world must work much harder and urgently at bringing emissions down. 

    “Our aim is for this project to help the key players urgently make that important work happen with up-to-date and timely data at their fingertips.”   

    Dr Valérie Masson-Delmotte, from the Université Paris Saclay who co-chaired Working Group 1 of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment report and was involved in the climate indicators project, said: “This robust update shows intensifying heating of our climate driven by human activities. It is a timely wake up call for the 2023 global stocktake of the Paris Agreement – the pace and scale of climate action is not sufficient to limit the escalation of climate-related risks.” 

    As recent IPCC reports have conclusively shown, with every further increment of global warming, the frequency and intensity of climate extremes, including hot extremes, heavy rainfall and agricultural droughts, increases.  

    The Indicators of Global Climate Change (https://igcc.earth/) will have annually updated information on greenhouse gas emissions, human-induced global warming and the remaining carbon budget.   

    The website extends a successful climate dashboard called the Climate Change Tracker which was created by software developers who took ideas from the finance industry on how to present complex information to the public.   

    What the analysis revealed 

    Climate Indicator  

    Sixth Assessment Report (AR6)  

    Latest value  

    Greenhouse gas emissions (decadal average)  

    53 GtCO2e (2010-2019)  

    54 Gt CO2e (2012-2021)  

    Human-induced warming since preindustrial times  

    1.07°C  

    1.14°C  

    Remaining carbon budget (1.5C, 50% chance)  

    500 GtCO2  

    About 250 GtCO2 and very uncertain  

    Headline results from the paper Indicators of Global Climate Change 2022: Annual update of large-scale indicators of the state of the climate system and the human influence.  “AR6” refers to approximately 2019 and “Now” refers to 2022.  The AR6 period decadal average greenhouse gas emissions are our re-evaluated assessment for 2010-2019. 

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    University of Leeds

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