Science Daily December 7, 2019 An international team of researchers (USA – NOAA, NASA, George Mason University, University of Florida, SUNY Stony Brook, Canada) reports that the Subseasonal Experiment (SubX) is a multimodel subseasonal prediction [weather conditions 3-to-4 weeks out] experiment designed around operational requirements with the goal of improving subseasonal forecasts. Seven global models have produced 17 years of retrospective (re)forecasts and more than a year of weekly real-time forecasts. The reforecasts and forecasts are archived at the Data Library of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University, providing a comprehensive database for research on subseasonal […]
Tag Archives: Climatology
A missing link in haze formation
Science Daily November 25, 2019 Particles in the atmosphere that are 2.5 to 10 micrometers in size, can be inhaled, are potentially harming the heart and lungs. Alcohols in general and methanol in particular are believed to play a small role in atmospheric new particle formation (NPF) largely due to the weak binding abilities of alcohols with the major nucleation precursors. An international team of researchers (USA – University of Nebraska, University of Pennsylvania, Finland, China) has identified a catalytic reaction between methanol and sulfur trioxide (SO3) which can have unexpected quenching effects on the NPF process, particularly in dry […]
More Than 11,000 Scientists Just Officially Declared a Global Climate Emergency
Science Alert November 5, 2019 An international team of researchers (USA – State University of Oregon, Tufts University, Australia, South Africa) explores four decades-worth of publicly available data, covering energy use, surface temperature, population, deforestation, polar ice, fertility rates, and, of course, carbon emissions. According to the researchers the human population is still increasing by roughly 80 million people per year, deforestation in the Amazon is once again on the up and up and we have generally conducted business as usual and are essentially failing to address this crisis. To stop the worst consequences of the climate crisis, they say […]
Climate engineering: International meeting reveals tensions
Science Daily October 28, 2019 The “hidden politics” of climate engineering were partially revealed earlier this year at the fourth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-4), when Switzerland proposed a resolution on geoengineering governance. According to a team of researchers in the US (UC Santa Cruz, American University) there are several areas of concern, including: Disagreement among countries about the current state and strength of SRM governance, The domination of research by North American and European scientists, The need to “decouple” governance of SRM and CDR and a significant split between the United States and the European Union over the “precautionary […]
A roadmap to make the land sector carbon neutral by 2040
Science Daily October 23, 2019 An international team of researchers (USA – University of Virginia, organizations, UC Berkeley, Germany, Austria, Italy, Japan) combines a review of modelled pathways and literature on mitigation strategies, and develop a land-sector roadmap of priority measures and regions that can help to achieve the 1.5 °C temperature goal set by the Paris agreement. Transforming the land sector and deploying measures in agriculture, forestry, wetlands and bioenergy could feasibly and sustainably contribute about 30%, or 15 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, of the global mitigation needed in 2050 to deliver on the 1.5 […]
Liquid Air Could Store Renewable Energy and Reduce Emissions
IEEE Spectrum September 18, 2019 Refrigerated food warehouses and factories consume immense amounts of energy. A team of researchers and companies in Europe working under the CryoHub project sponsored by EU are now developing a cryogenic energy storage system that could reduce carbon emissions from the food sector while providing a convenient way to store wind and solar power. The system will use extra wind and solar electricity to freeze air to cryogenic temperatures, where it becomes liquid, and in the process shrinks by 700 times in volume. The liquid air is stored in insulated low-pressure tanks similar to the […]
1 in 5 Cities Is About to Have a Climate Unknown to Any Place on Earth
Science Alert July 11, 2019 Researchers in Switzerland analyzed city pairs for 520 major cities of the world and tested if their climate in 2050. They found that even under an optimistic climate scenario 77% of future cities are very likely to experience a climate that is closer to that of another existing city than to its own current climate. As a general trend, they found that all the cities tend to shift towards the sub-tropics, with cities from the Northern hemisphere shifting to warmer conditions, on average ~1000 km south and cities from the tropics shifting to drier conditions…read […]
Climate impact of aircraft contrails could treble by mid-century
Physics World July 1, 2019 Researchers in Germany used ECHAM5-CCMod, an atmospheric climate model, to investigate the climate impact of contrail cirrus for the year 2050. Contrails have the potential to linger and become artificial cirrus clouds which reflect infrared radiation coming up from the Earth’s surface far more than they reflect incoming solar radiation back into space. As a result, such clouds tend to trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and have an overall warming effect on climate. According to the researchers instead of rerouting flights to mitigate the effects of contrails, a better course of action may be […]
More energy needed to cope with climate change
Science Daily June 24, 2019 Future energy demand is likely to increase due to climate change, but the magnitude depends on many interacting sources of uncertainty. An international team of researchers (Austria, USA – NCAR, Boston University, Italy) shows that, across 210 realizations of socioeconomic and climate scenarios, vigorous (moderate) warming increases global climate-exposed energy demand before adaptation around 2050 by 25–58% (11–27%), on top of a factor 1.7–2.8 increase above present-day due to socioeconomic developments and that energy demand rises by more than 25% in the tropics and southern regions of the USA, Europe and China. An important way […]
Scientists Are Scared a ‘Rogue’ Country Could Start a Geoengineering War
Science Alert June 14, 2019 A recent report by the United Nations’ PIPCC found that nations around the globe must implement “rapid and far-reaching” changes in energy sources, infrastructure, industry, and transportation to avoid catastrophic consequences of climate change. But some researchers are looking into geoengineering to address the dangerous warming. If a rogue nation were to start a geoengineering project without international oversight or buy-in, some experts worry the unintended consequences could lead to war. Geoengineering can take many forms, some of which exist already…read more.