Science Alert January 18, 2022 In an open letter more than 60 policy experts and scientists warned that planetary-scale engineering schemes designed to cool Earth’s surface and lessen the impact of global heating are potentially dangerous and should be blocked by governments. According to the signatories there are several reasons to reject such a course of action – artificially dimming the Sun’s radiative force is likely to disrupt monsoon rains in South Asia and western Africa, ravage the rain-fed crops upon which hundreds of millions depend for nourishment, if SRM were terminated for any reason, there is high confidence that surface […]
Tag Archives: global warming
‘Rivers’ in the sky likely to drench East Asia under climate change
Phys.org January 18, 2022 Intense atmospheric rivers (ARs), eddy transports of moisture over the middle latitudes, contributed significantly to the extremely heavy rainfall events over the last decade in parts of East Asia. The extent to which ARs produce extreme rainfall over East Asia in a warmer climate remains unclear. An international team of researchers (Japan, USA – University of North Carolina) evaluated changes in the frequency and intensity of AR-related extreme heavy rainfall under global warming using a set of high-resolution global and regional atmospheric simulations. They found that both the AR-related water vapor transport and rainfall intensify over […]
Scientists call for a moratorium on climate change research until governments take real action
Phys.org January 11, 2022 There is an unwritten social contract between science and society. Public investment in science is intended to improve understanding about our world and support beneficial societal outcomes. According to the authors the contract is broken. Science demonstrates why this is occurring, that it is getting worse, the implications for human well-being and social-ecological systems and substantiates action. Governments agree that the science is settled. The tragedy of climate change science is that at the same time as compelling evidence is gathered, fresh warnings issued, and novel methodologies developed, indicators of adverse global change rise year upon […]
How Long Do Black Carbon Particles Linger in the Atmosphere?
SciTech Daily January 1, 2022 In previous studies, the cloud nucleation values of black carbon were indirect measurements. An international team of researchers (UK, China) concurrently measured the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei and black carbon particles near heavily trafficked roads and industrial centers in Wuhan, China. They found that the activation diameter, or the size of the black carbon particle where half of the particles will nucleate and precipitate out, was 144 ± 21 nanometers at 0.2% supersaturation. How these black carbon–containing particles could act as cloud nuclei is determined by their size combined with their coatings, the authors say, […]
Safer carbon capture and storage
Science Daily December 29, 2021 From the gene-sequencing analyses of the behaviour of CO2 within a CO2-Eenhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) flooded oil field an international team of researchers (UK, USA – Woods hole Oceanographic Institution, industry, France, Canada) has shown that up to 74% of CO2 left behind by CO2-EOR was dissolved in the groundwater. It also revealed, that microbial methanogenesis converted as much as 13-19% of the injected CO2 to methane, which is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. The authors suggest that this process is occurring at other CO2-rich natural gas fields and CO2-EOR oil fields. Temperature is […]
In Science magazine, scholars call for more comprehensive research into solar geoengineering
Phys.org November 11, 2021 As the prospect of average global warming exceeding 1.5°C becomes increasingly likely, interest in supplementing mitigation and adaptation with solar geoengineering (SG) responses will almost certainly rise. For example, stratospheric aerosol injection to cool the planet could offset some of the warming for a given accumulation of atmospheric greenhouse gases. However, the physical and social science literature on SG remains modest compared with mitigation and adaptation. An international team of researchers (USA – Harvard university, Duke University, research organization, American University, Georgia State University, UC San Diego, Yale University, NCAR, Duke University, Italy, India, Switzerland, Germany, […]
Weather balloon data shows troposphere getting thicker, pushing tropopause higher over past 40 years
Phys.org November 8, 2021 Tropopause height (H) is a sensitive diagnostic for anthropogenic climate change. Previous studies showed increases in H over 1980–2000 but were inconsistent in projecting H trends after 2000. While H generally responds to temperature changes in the troposphere and stratosphere, the relative importance of these two contributions is uncertain. An international team of researchers (China, Canada, USA – NCAR, Boulder CO, Austria) used radiosonde balloon observations in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) over 20°N to 80°N to reveal a continuous rise of H over 1980–2020. Over 2001–2020, H increases at 50 to 60 m/decade, which is comparable […]
Earth’s orbit affects millennial climate variability
Phys.org November 2, 2021 The varying magnitude of millennial climate variability (MCV) was linked to orbitally paced glacial cycles over the past 800 kyr. The scarcity of a long-term integration of high-resolution continental and marine records hampers our understanding of the evolution and dynamics of MCV before the mid-Pleistocene transition. An international team of researchers (China, USA – Columbia University, Brown University, Switzerland, UK) has synthesized four centennial-resolved elemental time series, which they interpret as proxies for MCV, from North Atlantic, Iberian margin, Balkan Peninsula (Lake Ohrid) and Chinese Loess Plateau. The proxy records reveal that MCV was pervasive and persistent […]
Scientists fear global ‘cascade’ of climate impacts by 2030
Phys.org October 26, 2021 The report by UK-based policy institute Chatham House drew on the views of more than 200 climate scientists and other specialists to assess which immediate climate hazards and impacts should most concern decision-makers in the coming decade. According to the report the ten “hazard-impact pathways” of greatest near-term concern all relate to Africa or Asia. The vulnerability of the place where they happen means impacts cascade and have knock-on impacts that are global in their nature, or at least cover large regions. Without more aid for adaptation and poverty reduction storm damage and multiple crop failures […]
US intelligence services see security threat in climate change
Phys.org October 22, 2021 According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence more extreme weather will increasingly exacerbate a number of risks to US national security interests, from physical impacts that could cascade into security challenges, to how countries respond to the climate challenge. It is driving increased geopolitical tension as countries argue over who should be doing more, cross-border “flashpoints” as countries respond to climate change impact by trying to secure their own interests, and fallout from climate on national stability in some countries. With more than 85 percent of global emissions coming from beyond US borders […]