Arguments
New research, April 23-29, 2018
Posted on 4 May 2018 by Ari Jokimäki
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.
Climate change impacts
"We examined a future change of Köppen–Geiger climate classification zones in central Europe in the 21st century using the high?resolution (10 km) bias?corrected simulations of two regional climate models following the IPCC SRES A1B emission scenario. Temperate oceanic climate (Cfb) will remain the dominant climate type in central Europe but it will extent into higher altitudes and replace boreal or colder climate types that will practically vanish by the end of the 21st century. There is a risk of large?scale expansion of humid subtropical (Cfa) climate in lower altitudes where 20–50% of population lives nowadays. In the end of the century the majority of arable land and permanent crops areas will be in the Cfa zone. A growing occurrence of Cfa?like or Mediterranean climate?like (Csa) years will reach up to 50% at some locations where 1.4 million people live today. Almost all agriculturally important areas and two thirds of the current population will be exposed to the occurrence of Cfa? and Csa?like years at least once in 10 years which may result into a lower production of rain?fed crops as it was the case of of Cfa? and Csa?like years of 2000, 2012 and 2015."
2. Ground thermal and geomechanical conditions in a permafrost-affected high-latitude rock avalanche site (Polvartinden, northern Norway) (open access)
"It is likely that permafrost in and near the failure zone is presently subject to degradation. This degradation, in combination with the extreme warm year antecedent to the rock failure, is seen to have played an important role in the detaching of the Signaldalen rock avalanche."
Mankind
3. When do Indians feel hot? Internet searches indicate seasonality suppresses adaptation to heat (open access)
"State-level heat thresholds ranged from 25.9 °C in Madhya Pradesh to 31.0 °C in Orissa. Local adaptation was found to occur at state level: the higher the average temperature in a state, the higher the heat threshold; and the higher the intra-annual temperature range (warmest minus coldest month) the lower the heat threshold."
4. Planning for climigration: a framework for effective action
5. Integrated urban water management applied to adaptation to climate change
6. CoastAdapt: an adaptation decision support framework for Australia’s coastal managers (open access)
7. Moving toward 1.5°C of warming: implications for climate adaptation strategies
10. Climate gentrification: from theory to empiricism in Miami-Dade County, Florida
11. Transformational adaptation of agricultural systems to climate change
12. The interdecadal worsening of weather conditions affecting aerosol pollution in the Beijing area in relation to climate warming (open access)
Biosphere
13. Warming drives higher rates of prey consumption and increases rates of intraguild predation
Study on dragonfly larvae: "Warming increased feeding rates by 42% on average across species but had no effect on activity rate. The magnitude of change in feeding rate was positively correlated with the maximum temperatures species experience across their ranges. Lastly, warming increased rates of IGP twofold, however, species’ behavioral responses alone were not predictive of their susceptibility to become IG prey of other larvae at warmer temperatures."
15. Carbonate system parameters of an algal-dominated reef along West Maui (open access)
16. The role of heartwood water storage for sem-arid trees under drought
17. Phytoplankton Increases Induced by Tropical Cyclones in the South China Sea During 1998–2015
"We found that both tits and flycatchers advanced laying in response to spring warming, but resident tit populations advanced more strongly in relation to temperature increases than migratory flycatchers. These different temperature responses have already led to a divergence in laying dates between tits and flycatchers of on average 0.94 days per decade over the current study period. Interestingly, this divergence was stronger at lower latitudes where the interval between tit and flycatcher phenology is smaller and winter conditions can be considered more favorable for resident birds."
20. Quantifying Australia's dryland vegetation response to flooding and drought at sub-continental scale
21. Long-term impacts of drought on growth and forest dynamics in a temperate beech-oak-birch forest
"Our findings do not support the hypothesis that future increases in atmospheric [CO2] will, by itself, promote woody plant recruitment in eucalypt-dominated temperate grassy woodlands."
Climate change mitigation
Climate change communication
Emission savings
25. Carbon emission and abatement potential outlook in China's building sector through 2050
26. Universal access to clean cookstoves: Evaluation of a public program in Peru
27. Inventory of methane emissions from livestock in China from 1980 to 2013
28. The contribution of transport policies to the mitigation potential and cost of 2 °C and 1.5 °C goals (open access)
Energy production
29. Climate, economic, and environmental impacts of producing wood for bioenergy (open access)
"We find that increasing bioenergy production and pellet exports often increase net emissions of GHGs for decades or longer,..."
30. Does Russian unconventional oil have a future?
31. Carbon overhead: The impact of the expansion in low-carbon electricity in China 2015–2040
Climate Policy
32. Climate governance through partnerships: A study of 150 urban initiatives in China
34. Zero carbon energy system pathways for Ireland consistent with the Paris Agreement
Climate change
35. Analyzing Regional Climate Change in Africa in a 1.5, 2, and 3°C Global Warming World
38. Indices of Canada’s future climate for general and agricultural adaptation applications (open access)
Temperature, precipitation, wind
39. The early 20th century warming: Anomalies, causes, and consequences
"Attribution studies estimate that about a half (40–54%; p > .8) of the global warming from 1901 to 1950 was forced by a combination of increasing greenhouse gases and natural forcing, offset to some extent by aerosols. Natural variability also made a large contribution, particularly to regional anomalies like the Arctic warming in the 1920s and 1930s."
40. Growing Land?Sea Temperature Contrast and the Intensification of Arctic Cyclones
"By comparing statistics for years with high land?sea thermal contrast against years with low, we demonstrate that storms over the Arctic Ocean will likely become more frequent and more dynamically intense as the climate warms, increasing the risk to shipping and other human activities."
42. Maximum and minimum temperatures in the United States: Time trends and persistence
"Our results reveal evidence of significant positive trends in both maximum and minimum temperatures, while the difference between them show a significant negative trend as a consequence of the higher increase in the minimum temperatures."
44. Polarized Response of East Asian Winter Temperature Extremes in the Era of Arctic Warming
47. Inter?decadal change of leading pattern of spring rainfall over southern China during 1901–2010
49. Trend analysis of annual precipitation of Mauritius for the period 1981–2010
50. Global lake response to the recent warming hiatus (open access)
51. Basin-scale Prediction of Sea Surface Temperature with Artificial Neural Networks
Extreme events
52. Extreme heat waves under 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming (open access)
53. Climate Change and Drought: a Perspective on Drought Indices
55. Declining hailstorm frequency in China during 1961–2015 and its potential influential factors
56. Study of extreme wet and dry periods in Cyprus using climatic indices
Forcings and feedbacks
57. A systematic wavelet-based exploratory analysis of climatic variables
"Shorter-term variations in global surface temperature are associated with internally generated natural climate variability and external climate forcings, while longer-term variations are strongly related to human-induced changes only. In this respect, a long-term component of the net radiative forcing of human activities longer than 30 years displays a statistically significant relationship with global warming and cooling periods identified in the climate change literature."
58. Balloon-borne tropospheric CO2 observations over the equatorial eastern and western Pacific
59. Spatially Resolved Isotopic Source Signatures of Wetland Methane Emissions
"Concentrations of methane are increasing in the atmosphere. In order to understand the reasons behind such variations, carbon isotopes are used to help identify changes in emission sources and sinks. We present a new global map of the carbon isotope signature associated with wetland methane emissions, the largest global source of methane to the atmosphere. We show how this newly synthesized information can lead to more accurate understanding of the causes of variations in the amount and rate of increase of methane in the atmosphere."
60. Analysis of European ozone trends in the period 1995–2014 (open access)
61. Evaluating year-to-year anomalies in tropical wetland methane emissions using satellite CH4 observations (open access)
62. Can reducing black carbon and methane below RCP2.6 levels keep global warming below 1.5 °C?
63. Tundra shrub effects on growing season energy and carbon dioxide exchange (open access)
64. Different Global Precipitation Responses to Solar, Volcanic, and Greenhouse Gas Forcings
"For a given global temperature change, the global precipitation change under volcanic forcing is larger than that under solar and GHG forcings. The reason is that the volcanic forcing induces the strongest solar irradiance change in the wet tropics. Among the three forcings we examined, the GHG forcing excites the strongest high?latitude warming, especially the Arctic amplification of global warming. There is no Arctic amplification of temperature decrease under the volcanic forcing?induced global cooling. The volcanic forcing weakens the Intertropical Convergence Zone and reduces precipitation. The results suggest that while volcanic eruptions can reduce precipitation, they do not mitigate the Arctic amplification of temperature increase under the GHG?induced warming."
65. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument: overview of 14 years in space (open access)
Cryosphere
68. Accelerating glacier mass loss on Franz Josef Land, Russian Arctic
"Mass loss from FJL doubled between 2011 and 2015 compared to 1953–2011/2015, increasing from a rate of −2.18 ± 0.72 Gt yr−1 to −4.43 ± 0.78 Gt yr−1. This 2011−2015 rate indicates an acceleration in ice loss from that observed in 2003–2009 by multiple studies using ICESat and GRACE. Glacier thinning rates are spatially highly variable. We observe glacier thinning rates of up to 10?m per year, and in general we see a trend of increased thinning from the NE towards the SW. Glacier retreat is widespread and has led to the creation of at least one new island. Historically, ice wastage from FJL is thought to have been relatively small, but accelerating ice loss may be the new normal for this archipelago in a warming Arctic."
69. A Century of Stability of Avannarleq and Kujalleq Glaciers, West Greenland, Explained Using High?Resolution Airborne Gravity and Other Data (open access)
70. Volcanic impacts on modern glaciers: A global synthesis
71. Unabated wastage of the Juneau and Stikine icefields (southeast Alaska) in the early 21st century (open access)
"We find strongly negative mass balances from 2000 to 2016 for both icefields, in agreement with airborne laser altimetry. Mass losses are thus continuing unabated."
72. Simulating ice thickness and velocity evolution of Upernavik Isstrøm 1849–2012 by forcing prescribed terminus positions in ISSM (open access)
73. Aspect controls the survival of ice cliffs on debris-covered glaciers
Atmospheric and oceanic circulation
75. Gulf Stream Transport and Mixing Processes via Coherent Structure Dynamics
76. Atlantic Multidecadal Variability as a modulator of precipitation variability in the Southwest US
77. Response of North Pacific and North Atlantic decadal variability to weak global warming (open access)
78. Multidecadal fluctuation of the wintertime Arctic Oscillation pattern and its implication
Carbon cycle
81. How does the terrestrial carbon exchange respond to inter-annual climatic variations? A quantification based on atmospheric CO2 data (open access)
82. An Analytical Framework for the Steady State Impact of Carbonate Compensation on Atmospheric CO2
Other papers
Palaeoclimatology
83. Spatio-temporal variability of Arctic summer temperatures over the past 2 millennia (open access)
"The spatial average shows a millennium-scale cooling trend which is reversed in the mid-19th century. While temperatures in the 10th century were probably as warm as in the 20th century, the spatial coherence of the recent warm episodes seems unprecedented."
84. Recent climate variations in Chile: constraints from borehole temperature profiles (open access)
Some very good research, however it's astounding that there doesn't seem to be any proper published research on why mitigation of emissions is so slow, and why public and politicians are slow to make the changes required. I'm thinking something that polls the public, and asks wide ranging questions.
There are obvious well known potential reasons, but one should never assume what reasons exist, or what reasons are dominant. Efforts to persuade the public and politicians to change things are just guesstimates, if they aren't based on good research.
We have the denialist campaign and corporate capture of politicians etc. People in colder climates probably think a warmer climate is good, and they rationalise away sea level rise as a price worth paying. They would be wrong, and are not looking at the full range of problems. But a research study would clarify if these are real concerns.
Apply occams razor, and the basic problem is human stupidity.