Arguments
New research, December 11-17, 2017
Posted on 21 December 2017 by Ari Jokimäki
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.
The figure is from paper #4.
Climate change
1. The Response of Ice Sheets to Climate Variability
"Resulting oscillations in grounded ice volume amplitude is shown to grow as a nonlinear function of ocean forcing period. This implies that slower oscillations in climatic forcing are disproportionately important to ice sheets. The ice shelf residence time offers a critical time scale, above which the ice response amplitude is a linear function of ocean forcing period and below which it is quadratic. These results highlight the sensitivity of West Antarctic ice streams to perturbations in heat fluxes occurring at decadal time scales."
"We find that human-induced climate change likely increased the chances of the observed precipitation accumulations during Hurricane Harvey in the most affected areas of Houston by a factor of at least 3.5. Further, precipitation accumulations in these areas were likely increased by at least 18.8% (best estimate of 37.7%), which is larger than the 6-7% associated with an attributable warming of 1° C in the Gulf of Mexico and Clausius-Clapeyron scaling."
3. Global land surface air temperature dynamics since 1880
"For the period of 1901–2010, the warming trend was found to be 0.109 °C decade−1 with 95% confidence intervals between 0.081 °C and 0.137 °C. Additionally, warming exhibited different spatial patterns in different periods. In the early 20th century (1923–1950), warming occurred mainly in the mid-high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, whereas in the most recent decades (1977–2014), warming was more spatially extensive across the global land surface."
4. Rainfall over the African continent from the 19th through the 21st century
"• Around 1968 a change to more arid conditions occurred in the Sahel and North Africa.
- • For the continent as a whole more arid conditions began in the 1980s.
- • In equatorial regions, the boreal spring has become drier and the boreal autumn wetter."
"Without protective measures, revised median RSL projections would by 2100 submerge land currently home to 153 million people, an increase of 44 million."
6. Timescales of AMOC decline in response to fresh water forcing
7. Global mean sea-level rise in a world agreed upon in Paris
8. Long-term drainage reduces CO2 uptake and CH4 emissions in a Siberian permafrost ecosystem
9. Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt and Its Relation to Daily Atmospheric Conditions
16. Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017
18. A continuum model for meltwater flow through compacting snow
19. Decrease of tropical cyclone genesis frequency in the western North Pacific since 1960s
20. Impacts of SST patterns on rapid intensification of Typhoon Megi (2010)
21. On the dynamics of Austral heat-waves
22. Heat wave exposure in India in current, 1.5 °C, and 2.0 °C worlds
24. Evaluation of six indices for monitoring agricultural drought in the south-central United States
32. Storm wave clustering around New Zealand and its connection to climatic patterns
33. Spatial and temporal trends of dust storms across desert regions of Iran
34. The diversity of cloud responses to twentieth-century sea surface temperatures
37. What drove the Pacific and North America climate anomalies in winter 2014/15?
38. Sixty years of radiocarbon dioxide measurements at Wellington, New Zealand: 1954–2014
39. Reconciliation of top-down and bottom-up CO2 fluxes in Siberian larch forest
40. What controls the atmospheric methane seasonal variability over India?
41. Effects of El Niño on summertime ozone air quality in the eastern United States
Climate change impacts
"In particular, we document: (i) a trend of increasing winter temperatures and concurrent decline in skull size (decline of 19% for males and 13% for females) and (ii) a negative correlation between skull size and winter temperatures during the first year of life. These patterns could be plausibly interpreted as an adaptive phenotypic response to climate warming given that latitudinal/temperature clines are often accepted as evidence of adaptation to local climate. However, we also observed: (iii) that moose with smaller skulls had shorter lifespans, (iv) a reduction in lifespan over the 4-decade study period, and (v) a negative relationship between lifespan and winter temperatures during the first year of life. Those observations indicate that this phenotypic change is not an adaptive response to climate change. However, this decline in lifespan was not accompanied by an obvious change in population dynamics, suggesting that climate change may affect population dynamics and life-histories differently."
43. Evidence for declining forest resilience to wildfires under climate change
"Results highlight significant decreases in tree regeneration in the 21st century. Annual moisture deficits were significantly greater from 2000 to 2015 as compared to 1985–1999, suggesting increasingly unfavourable post-fire growing conditions, corresponding to significantly lower seedling densities and increased regeneration failure. Dry forests that already occur at the edge of their climatic tolerance are most prone to conversion to non-forests after wildfires."
"District average yield of wheat varied from 1757 kg ha−1 at Jalpaiguri to 2421 kg ha−1at Birbhum. The actual yield trend ranged from − 4.7 kg ha−1 year−1 at Nadia to 32.8 kg ha−1 year−1 at Birbhum. Decreasing trend of potential yield was observed in Terai (Jalpaiguri), New Alluvial Zone (Nadia) and Coastal saline zone (South 24 Parganas), which is alarming for food security in West Bengal."
47. Africa's urban adaptation transition under a 1.5° climate
48. Planning for adaptation to climate change: exploring the climate science-to-practice disconnect
49. Impacts of climate change on rice production in Africa and causes of simulated yield changes
50. Adaption to climate change: a case study of two agricultural systems from Kenya
53. Climate-driven diversity change in annual grasslands: drought plus deluge does not equal normal
56. Larger temperature response of autumn leaf senescence than spring leaf-out phenology
62. Calling phenology of a diverse amphibian assemblage in response to meteorological conditions
63. Estimating aboveground live understory vegetation carbon in the United States
Climate change mitigation
64. United States non-cooperation and the Paris agreement
"We argue that US non-cooperation does not fundamentally alter US emissions, which are unlikely to rise even in the absence of new federal climate policies. Nor does it undermine nationally determined contributions under pledge and review, as the Paris Agreement has introduced a new logic of domestically driven climate policies and the cost of low-carbon technologies keeps falling."
65. The Paris warming targets: emissions requirements and sea level consequences
"For an eventual 2 °C warming target, this could be achieved even if CO2 emissions remained positive. For a 1.5 °C target, CO2 emissions could remain positive, but only if a substantial and long-lasting temperature overshoot is accepted. In both cases, a warming overshoot of 0.2 to 0.4 °C appears unavoidable. If the allowable (or unavoidable) overshoot is small, then negative emissions are almost certainly required for the 1.5 °C target, peaking at negative 1.3 GtC/year. In this scenario, temperature stabilization occurs, but cumulative emissions continue to increase, contrary to a common belief regarding the relationship between temperature and cumulative emissions. Changes to the Paris Agreement to accommodate the overshoot possibility are suggested. For sea level rise, tipping points that might lead to inevitable collapse of Antarctic ice sheets or shelves might be avoided for the 2 °C target (for major ice shelves) or for the 1.5 °C target for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Even with the 1.5 °C target, however, sea level will continue to rise at a substantial rate for centuries."
66. Global Energy Consumption in a Warming Climate
"Almost all continents experience increases in energy demand, driven by the commercial and industrial sectors. In Europe declines in energy use by residences drive an overall reduction in aggregate final energy. Energy use increases in almost all G20 economies located in the tropics, while outside of Europe G20 countries in temperate regions experience both increasing and declining total energy use, depending on the incidence of changes in the frequency of hot and cold days. The effect of climate change is regressive, with the incidence of increased energy demand overwhelmingly falling on low- and middle-income countries, raising the question whether climate change could exacerbate energy poverty."
67. Simulated effect of carbon cycle feedback on climate response to solar geoengineering
"By year 2100, solar geoengineering reduces the burden of atmospheric CO2 by 47 PgC with enhanced carbon storage in the terrestrial biosphere. As a result of reduced atmospheric CO2, consideration of the carbon cycle feedback reduces required insolation reduction in 2100 from 2.0 to 1.7 W m-2. With a higher climate sensitivity the effect from carbon cycle feedback becomes more important."
"We find that the co-benefits from GHG mitigation that have received the largest attention of researchers are impacts on ecosystems, economic activity, health, air pollution, and resource efficiency. The co-benefits that have received the least attention include the impacts on conflict and disaster resilience, poverty alleviation (or exacerbation), energy security, technological spillovers and innovation, and food security. Most research has investigated co-benefits from GHG mitigation in the agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU), electricity, transport, and residential sectors, with the industrial sector being the subject of significantly less research."
"The econometric analyses provide suggestive evidence that higher perceived justification and effectiveness of international climate policy crowd in voluntary individual climate protection activities in the US and Germany. In both countries, these activities are also positively related to the warm glow indicator, confirming that feelings which go beyond pure altruism help explain individual voluntary climate protection efforts. For the German (but not the US) sample, the effect of warm glow is stronger when international climate policy is believed to be ineffective."
70. Community resilience for a 1.5 °C world
71. Local governments as drivers for societal transformation: towards the 1.5 °C ambition
72. Is Trade in Permits Good for the Environment?
73. Optimal Climate Policy for a Pessimistic Social Planner
79. Climate Change in the Media: Poland’s Exceptionalism
80. The potential influence of the carbon market on clean technology innovation in China
81. Strategies for the utilization of alternative fuels in the cement industry
83. Rooftop solar photovoltaic potential in cities: how scalable are assessment approaches?
84. Exploring optimal mitigation and adaptation investment strategies in China
Other papers
85. Geographic evidence of the early anthropogenic hypothesis
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