Skeptical Science New Research for Week #16 2022

Posted on 21 April 2022 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack

Water packing heat: it's not only the oceans

It's often remarked that we don't directly notice or feel most global warming because most excess energy being retained by the planet is ending up "stored" in Earth's oceans. Given its high specific heat capacity, liquid water is an effective sponge for a tremendous amount of heat energy. In a WIREs Climate Change perspective piece, Tom Matthews and a team of authors including Roger Pielke Sr. remind us that water vapor is also a highly effective means of energy storage, transport and liberation; ounce for ounce, water vapor can store much more energy than can liquid water, as we can see with steam locomotives. As the article demonstrates in numbers, this is a lot of ammunition for chaos and disruption being loaded into our atmosphere. As well, Matthews et al. describe how global warming "hot spots" can go unidentified thanks to our arguable overemphasis on sensible heat, the measurement seen on conventional thermometers. The authors go to offer that this latent heat stored in water vapor in Earth's atmosphere is given short shrift in communications about climate change to the general public, and policymakers. Latent heat must be visible in climate communications explains why this communications gap needs to be remedied. 

Other notables:

Solar geoengineering could redistribute malaria risk in developing countries. "What could possibly go wrong?" We may well end up playing this ace in the hole, but let's know our odds. Here's another downside risk.

How Do Right-Wing Populist Parties Influence Climate and Renewable Energy Policies? Evidence from OECD Countries. In a word? "Badly," if clawing our way out of the "burn everything" caveman mode is our objective. This article details how. 

Sources of opposition to renewable energy projects in the United States. It's not only outmoded legacy energy suppliers who oppose updating our energy supplies. Others do as well, for reasons that are more complex and less selfish and can't be ignored or bulldozed. This paper identifies and explores such issues in detail. 

136 articles in 44 journals by 601 contributing authors

Observations of climate change, effects

2021: A Year of Unprecedented Climate Extremes in Eastern Asia, North America, and Europe
Zhou et al. Advances in Atmospheric Sciences
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00376-022-2063-9

New seasonal pattern of pollution emerges from changing North American wildfires
Buchholz et al. Nature Communications
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-022-29623-8

Sea ice–air interactions amplify multidecadal variability in the North Atlantic and Arctic region
Deng & Dai Nature Communications
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-022-29810-7

Increasing Multiyear Sea Ice Loss in the Beaufort Sea: A New Export Pathway for the Diminishing Multiyear Ice Cover of the Arctic Ocean
Babb et al.
10.1002/essoar.10509833.1

The 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave and associated blocking: meteorology and the role of an upstream cyclone as a diabatic source of wave activity
Neal et al.
Open Access 10.1002/essoar.10510031.1

Stratospheric moistening after 2000
Konopka et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl097609

Identifying temporal trend patterns of temperature means and extremes over the Central Highlands, Vietnam
Phuong et al. Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics
10.1007/s00703-022-00886-6

The 2020 California fire season: A year like no other, a return to the past or a harbinger of the future?
Drlica et al. Global Ecology and Biogeography
Open Access 10.111/geb.13498

Increasing stratification as observed by satellite sea surface salinity measurements
Olmedo et al. Scientific Reports
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-022-10265-1

Decadal observations of internal wave energy, shear, and mixing in the western Arctic Ocean
Fine & Cole Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
10.1029/2021jc018056

Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, contributors, effects

Integrated analysis of carbon dioxide and oxygen concentrations as a quality control of ocean float data
Wu et al. Communications Earth & Environment
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-022-00421-w

Alpha power exponentiated Teissier distribution with application to climate datasets
Poonia & Azad Theoretical and Applied Climatology
10.1007/s00704-022-04039-y

Decadal changes in Arctic Ocean Chlorophyll a: Bridging ocean color observations from the 1980s to present time
Oziel et al. Remote Sensing of Environment
Open Access 10.1016/j.rse.2022.113020

Insights from 20 years of temperature parallel measurements in Mauritius around the turn of the 20th century
Awe et al. Climate of the Past
Open Access pdf 10.5194/cp-18-793-2022

Global seasonal forecasts of marine heatwaves
Spillman et al. Frontiers in Climate
Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2021.801217

Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

(provisional link) Assessment of 21st century changing sea surface temperature, rainfall, and sea surface height patterns in the tropical Pacific Islands using CMIP6 greenhouse warming projections

(provisional link) Influence of Anthropogenic Warming on the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability and Its Impact on Global Climate in the Twenty-First Century in the MPI-GE Simulations

Global Increases in Compound Flood-Hot Extreme Hazards Under Climate Warming
Gu et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2022gl097726

Change in Climate Sensitivity and Its Dependence on the Lapse-Rate Feedback in 4 × CO2 Climate Model Experiments
Journal of Climate
10.1175/jcli-d-21-0623.1

Impact of SST on Present and Future Extreme Precipitation in Hokkaido Investigated Considering Weather Patterns
Hatsuzuka & Sato Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
10.1029/2021jd036120

When will humanity notice its influence on atmospheric rivers?
Tseng et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
10.1029/2021jd036044

Tropical and Subtropical Pacific Sources of the Asymmetric El Niño-La Niña Decay and their Future Changes
Chen et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2022gl097751

Influence of Convective Heating Over the Maritime Continent on the West Antarctic Climate
Chen et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl097322

Dynamical downscaling projections of late twenty-first-century U.S. landfalling hurricane activity
Knutson et al. Climatic Change
10.1007/s10584-022-03346-7

Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Superior Daily and Sub-Daily Precipitation Statistics for Intense and Long-Lived Storms in Global Storm-Resolving Models
Ma et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl096759

To Accurately and Lightly Downscale the Temperature Field by Deep Learning
Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
10.1175/jtech-d-21-0099.1

Southern Ocean cloud and shortwave radiation biases in a nudged climate model simulation: does the model ever get it right?
Fiddes et al.
Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-2022-259

Conservation of Dry Air, Water, and Energy in CAM and Its Potential Impact on Tropical Rainfall
Pritchard et al. Journal of Climate
10.1175/jcli-d-21-0512.1

On deep learning-based bias correction and downscaling of multiple climate models simulations
Wang & Tian Climate Dynamics
10.1007/s00382-022-06277-2

Reducing uncertainty in simulated increases in heavy rainfall occurrence
Nature Climate Change
10.1038/s41558-022-01338-0

Constraining the increased frequency of global precipitation extremes under warming
Thackeray et al. Nature Climate Change
10.1038/s41558-022-01329-1

Cryosphere & climate change

A 20-year study of melt processes over Larsen C Ice Shelf using a high-resolution regional atmospheric model: Part 1, Model configuration and validation
Gilbert et al., JGR Atmospheres
10.1029/2021JD034766

A 20-year study of melt processes over Larsen C Ice Shelf using a high-resolution regional atmospheric model: Part 2, Drivers of surface melting
Gilbert et al., JGR Atmospheres
10.1029/2021JD036012

Increasing Multiyear Sea Ice Loss in the Beaufort Sea: A New Export Pathway for the Diminishing Multiyear Ice Cover of the Arctic Ocean
Babb et al.
10.1002/essoar.10509833.1

Antarctic sea-ice expansion and Southern Ocean cooling linked to tropical variability
Chung et al. Nature Climate Change
10.1038/s41558-022-01339-z

Global Snowmelt Onset Reflects Climate Variability: Insights from Spaceborne Radiometer Observations
Journal of Climate
10.1175/jcli-d-21-0265.1

Spatial Patterns, Mechanisms, and Predictability of Barents Sea Ice Change
Efstathiou et al. Journal of Climate
Open Access pdf 10.1175/jcli-d-21-0044.1

Intense atmospheric rivers can weaken ice shelf stability at the Antarctic Peninsula
Wille et al. Communications Earth & Environment
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-022-00422-9

Sea level & climate change

(provisional link) The contribution of Humboldt Glacier, North Greenland, to sea-level rise through 2100 constrained by recent observations of speedup and retreat

Paleoclimate

(provisional link) Human forager response to abrupt climate change at 8.2 ka on the Atlantic coast of Europe

Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Acidification impacts and acclimation potential of foraminifera
François et al.
Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-2022-91

(provisional link) Impacts of future climate change and atmospheric CO2 concentration on ecosystem water retention service

Regional sensitivity patterns of Arctic Ocean acidification revealed with machine learning
Krasting et al. Communications Earth & Environment
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-022-00419-4

Climate-driven range expansion through anthropogenic landscapes: Landscape connectivity matters
Maes & Van Dyck Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.16180

Managing for the unexpected: building resilient forest landscapes to cope with global change
Mina et al. Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.16197

Short-term exposure to heatwave-like temperatures affects learning and memory in bumblebees
Maxence et al. Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.16196

The coral reef-dwelling Peneroplis spp. shows calcification recovery to ocean acidification conditions
Charrieau et al. Scientific Reports
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-022-10375-w

Coping with heatwaves: How a key species of seaweed responds to heat stress along its latitudinal gradient
Nauer et al. Marine Environmental Research
10.1016/j.marenvres.2022.105620

Effects of phenological mismatch under warming are modified by community context
Pardikes et al. Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.16195

Planning for resilience: Incorporating scenario and model uncertainty and trade-offs when prioritizing management of climate refugia
Chollett et al. Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.16167

Time changes everything: a multispecies analyses of temporal patterns in evaporative water loss
Žagar et al. Oecologia
10.1007/s00442-022-05166-z

Plant hydraulics, stomatal control, and the response of a tropical forest to water stress over multiple temporal scales
Detto & Pacala Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.16179

Agriculture and climate change are reshaping insect biodiversity worldwide
Outhwaite
10.26226/morressier.617bbb307c09fc044a974d4d

Elevated extinction risk of cacti under climate change
Pillet et al. Nature Plants
10.1038/s41477-022-01130-0

GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

(provisional link) Identifying the biological control of the interannual and long-term variations in South Atlantic air-sea CO2 flux

(provisional link) Grazing enhances carbon cycling but reduces methane emission during peak growing season in the Siberian Pleistocene Park tundra site

Organic matter characteristics of a rapidly eroding permafrost cliff in NE Siberia (Lena Delta, Laptev Sea region)
Haugk et al. Biogeosciences
Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-19-2079-2022

Field-based tree mortality constraint reduces estimates of model-projected forest carbon sinks
Yu et al. Nature Communications
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-022-29619-4

Methane emissions from US low production oil and natural gas well sites
Omara et al. Nature Communications
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-022-29709-3

Extreme rainstorms drive exceptional organic carbon export from forested humid-tropical rivers in Puerto Rico
Clark et al. Nature Communications
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-022-29618-5

(provisional link) Impact of present and future aircraft NOx and aerosol emissions on atmospheric composition and associated direct radiative forcing of climate

Identifying main uncertainties in estimating past and present radiative forcing of peatlands
Mathijssen et al. Global Change Biology
Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.16189

Reconciling the total carbon budget for boreal forest wildfire emissions using airborne observations
Hayden et al.
Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-2022-245

Decipher soil organic carbon dynamics and driving forces across China using machine learning
Li et al. Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.16154

CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

Tree growth sensitivity to climate varies across a seasonal precipitation gradient
Yocom et al. Oecologia
10.1007/s00442-022-05156-1

Decarbonization

Sources of opposition to renewable energy projects in the United States
Susskind et al. Energy Policy
Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.112922

Nigeria's energy review: Focusing on solar energy potential and penetration
Chanchangi et al. Environment, Development and Sustainability
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10668-022-02308-4

Reversible Power-to-Gas systems for energy conversion and storage
Glenk & Reichelstein Reichelstein Zong Nature Communications
Open Access 10.1038/s41467-022-29520-0

Electrifying passenger road transport in India requires near-term electricity grid decarbonisation
Abdul-Manan et al. Nature Communications
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-022-29620-x

R&D performance and relevant factors of renewable energy projects: separating innovation and economic perspectives
Malisch et al. European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry
Open Access 10.1002/(sici)1099-0682(199811)1998:113.0.co;2-k

Hotspots in the grid: Avian sensitivity and vulnerability to collision risk from energy infrastructure interactions in Europe and North Africa
Gauld et al. Journal of Applied Ecology
10.1111/1365-2664.14160

Factors influencing wind turbine avoidance behaviour of a migrating soaring bird
Santos et al. Scientific Reports
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-022-10295-9

Geoengineering climate

Concerns of climate intervention: understanding geoengineering security concerns in the Arctic and beyond
Versen et al. Climatic Change
10.1007/s10584-022-03345-8

Solar geoengineering could redistribute malaria risk in developing countries
Carlson et al.
Open Access pdf 10.1101/2020.10.21.20217257

Aerosols

(provisional link) Impact of present and future aircraft NOx and aerosol emissions on atmospheric composition and associated direct radiative forcing of climate

Formation, radiative forcing, and climatic effects of severe regional haze
Lin et al.
Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-2021-799

Climate change communications & cognition

Advocating inaction: a historical analysis of the Global Climate Coalition
Brulle Environmental Politics
10.1080/09644016.2022.2058815

Thunberg’s Way in the Climate Debate: Making Sense of Climate Action and Actors, Constructing Environmental Citizenship
Fonseca & Castro Environmental Communication
10.1080/17524032.2022.2054842

Construing Climate Change: Psychological Distance, Individual Difference, and Construal Level of Climate Change
Chu Environmental Communication
10.1080/17524032.2022.2061027

Media coverage of CPEC in Pakistan: the case of the missing frame
Qusien & Robbins Climate and Development
10.1080/17565529.2022.2052258

How Do Right-Wing Populist Parties Influence Climate and Renewable Energy Policies? Evidence from OECD Countries
Lockwood & Lockwood Global Environmental Politics
10.1162/glep_a_00659

Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

The impact of climate change on coffee production of small farmers and their adaptation strategies: a review
Jawo et al. Climate and Development
10.1080/17565529.2022.2057906

Responses of CO2 emissions and soil microbial community structures to organic amendment in two contrasting soils in Zambia
Hamamoto et al. Scientific Reports
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-022-10368-9

Combining stakeholder perception and ecological approaches for assessing vulnerability of floodplain wetlands in changing climate: a regional study
Sarkar et al. International Journal of Biometeorology
10.1007/s00484-022-02286-2

Variations in water-balance components and carbon stocks in poplar plantations with differing water inputs over a whole rotation: implications for sustainable forest management under climate change
Liu et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
10.1016/j.agrformet.2022.108958

Hydrology & climate change

(provisional link) Decadal Background for Active Extreme Drought Episodes in the Decade of 2010–19 over Southeastern Mainland Asia

(provisional link) Impacts of future climate change and atmospheric CO2 concentration on ecosystem water retention service

(provisional link) Intra-annual variation of high and low-flow extremes associated with land use and climate change in the Upper Tekeze of the Nile river basin

An agent-based model for evaluating reforms of the National Flood Insurance Program: A benchmarked model applied to Jamaica Bay, NYC
Ruig et al. Risk Analysis
Open Access pdf 10.1111/risa.13905

Projected climate change and its impacts on glaciers and water resources in the headwaters of the Tarim River, NW China/Kyrgyzstan
Wortmann et al. Climatic Change
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-022-03343-w

Temporal downscaling of daily precipitation to 10 min data for assessment of climate change impact on floods in small-size watersheds applied to Jinju, South Korea
Lee et al. Climate Dynamics
10.1007/s00382-022-06216-1

Effect of CO2 concentration on drought assessment in China
Jiang et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7657

Characterizing U.S. Drought over the Past Twenty Years using the U.S. Drought Monitor
Leeper et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7653

Twentieth century precipitation trends in the upper Mzingwane sub-catchment of the northern Limpopo basin, Zimbabwe
Maviza et al. Theoretical and Applied Climatology
Open Access 10.1007/s00704-022-04040-5

Climate change economics

A multi-model assessment of climate change damage in China and the World
Wang & Teng Advances in Climate Change Research
Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2022.04.005

Climate change and regional inequality: The effect of high teperatures on fiscal stress
Yang & Tang Urban Climate
10.1016/j.uclim.2022.101167

Climate change mitigation public policy research

(provisional link) How injustice can lead to energy policy failure: A case study from Guatemala

Understanding pledge and review: learning from analogies to the Paris Agreement review mechanisms
Raiser et al. Climate Policy
10.1080/14693062.2022.2059436

(provisional link) Did Germany reach its 2020 climate targets thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Rational planning strategies of urban structure, metro, and car use for reducing transport carbon dioxide emissions in developing cities
Yang et al. Environment, Development and Sustainability
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10668-022-02344-0

Jobs for a just transition: Evidence on coal job preferences from India
Blankenship et al. Energy Policy
10.1016/j.enpol.2022.112910

Public attitude and policy selection of future energy sustainability in China: Evidence of the survey of the college students
Fang et al. Energy Policy
Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.112961

The market for electric vehicles in China: modelling the abolition of policy incentives
Wang et al. Climate Policy
10.1080/14693062.2022.2063246

Realization of Paris Agreement pledges may limit warming just below 2 °C
Meinshausen et al. Nature
10.1038/s41586-022-04553-z

Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

Spatial overview of climate change impacts in Bangladesh: a systematic review
Ahmed & Khan Climate and Development
10.1080/17565529.2022.2062284

An agent-based model for evaluating reforms of the National Flood Insurance Program: A benchmarked model applied to Jamaica Bay, NYC
Ruig et al. Risk Analysis
Open Access pdf 10.1111/risa.13905

Barriers and ways forward to climate risk management against indirect effects of natural disasters: A case study on flood risk in Austria
Reiter et al. Climate Risk Management
Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2022.100431

Who defines community in community-based adaptation: different perceptions of community between government and citizens in Ethiopia
Chung Climate and Development
10.1080/17565529.2022.2061894

(provisional link) Riverscapes as natural infrastructure: Meeting challenges of climate adaptation and ecosystem restoration

Climate change impacts on human health

(provisional link) Changes in heat stress considering temperature, humidity, and wind over East Asia under RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios

Earth system’s gatekeeping of “One Health" approach to manage climate-sensitive infectious diseases
Dovie et al. GeoHealth
10.1029/2021gh000543

Other

(provisional link) Intensification of Pacific trade wind and related changes in the relationship between sea surface temperature and sea level pressure

Trends and space–time patterns of near-surface temperatures on Maxwell Bay, King George Island, Antarctica
Bello et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7661

Characteristics of rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones in the South China Sea, 1980?2016
Yang et al. Advances in Climate Change Research
Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2022.04.004

Southern Ocean sea ice concentration budgets of five ocean-sea ice reanalyses
Nie et al. Climate Dynamics
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-022-06260-x

Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

Latent heat must be visible in climate communications
Matthews et al. WIREs Climate Change
10.1002/wcc.779

Government shareholders, wasted resources and climate ambitions: why is China still building new coal-fired power plants?
Clark et al. Climate Policy
Open Access pdf 10.1080/14693062.2022.2062285

The Global South is the climate movement’s unsung leader
Frischmann et al. Nature Climate Change
10.1038/s41558-022-01351-3

Reinventing energy efficiency for net zero
Rosenow & Eyre Energy Research & Social Science
10.1016/j.erss.2022.102602

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Drought and California’s Agriculture, Escriva-Bou et al., Public Policy Institute of California

California’s agricultural sector—the nation’s largest—generates more than $50 billion dollars in annual revenue and employs more than 420,000 people. The ongoing drought is reducing water availability and increasing crop water demands taking a toll on agriculture and related sectors. Economic impacts of the drought in 2021 were modest statewide, but more costly in the Sacramento and North Coast regions. Dry conditions will persist in 2022, increasing impacts. Addressing the negative impacts of pumping, accelerating water demand management, and improving storage would increase agriculture’s resilience.

Assessing Risk to the National Critical Functions as a Result of Climate Change, Miro et al., RAND Corporation

National Critical Functions (NCFs) are government and private-sector functions so vital that their disruption would debilitate security, the economy, public health, or safety. Researchers developed a risk management framework to assess and manage the risk that climate change poses to the NCFs and use the framework to assess 27 priority NCFs. The report details the risk assessment portions of the framework. The authors assessed risk based on a scale that the National Risk Management Center uses that ranges from a rating of 1 (no disruption or normal operations) to 5 (critical disruption on a national scale). A rating of 3 (moderate disruption) on the national level, although it still allows normal functioning on a national scale, should be regarded as highly significant and includes the potential for major disruptions or failure of NCFs at a local or regional level and for significant economic loss, health and safety impacts, and other consequences. Using this risk rating scale and projected changes in eight climate drivers identified in the analysis, flooding, sea-level rise, tropical cyclones and hurricanes, severe storm systems, extreme cold, extreme heat, wildfire, and drought, the authors examined how NCFs could be affected by and at risk from climate change in three future time periods (by 2030, by 2050, and by 2100) and two future greenhouse gas emission scenarios, current and high.

Proposed Redesigned NAIC Climate Risk Disclosure Survey,  National Association of Insurance Commissioners

The Climate Risk Disclosure Survey is a voluntary risk management tool for state insurance regulators to annually request from insurers a non-confidential disclosure of the insurers’ assessment and management of their climate-related risks. The purpose of the Climate Risk Disclosure Survey is to:

• Enhance transparency about how insurers manage climate-related risks and opportunities.

• Identify good practices and vulnerabilities.

• Provide a baseline supervisory tool to assess how climate-related risks may affect the insurance industry.

• Promote insurer strategic management and encourage shared learning for continual improvement.

• Enable better-informed collaboration and engagement on climate-related issues among regulators and interested parties.

• Align with international climate risk disclosure frameworks to reduce redundancy in reporting requirements.

The Power of Community Utilities, Hanna et al., Democracy Collaborative and the Climate and Community Project

Publicly and cooperatively owned electric utilities (community utilities) have the potential to demonstrate what an equitable, clean energy system looks like in the United States. They could become powerful “anchor institutions” in their community by grounding their decisions in democratic governance and community partnership, affordable energy and community wealth building, and access to renewable energy. Community utilities (i.e. public and cooperatively owned utilities) are better suited for a “Green New Deal”-style transition than for-profit corporate utilities (i.e. investor-owned utilities, IOUs). Many community utilities as they currently exist must be significantly reformed to fulfill their full potential.

Accufacts’ Perspectives on the State of Federal Carbon Dioxide Transmission Pipeline Safety Regulations as it Relates to Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration within the U.S., Kuprewicz, Pipeline Safety Trust

In response to the recent flurry of multibillion dollar CO2 pipeline proposals driven by the expanded tax credit incentives provided by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, the report highlights the many issues a major CO2 pipeline buildout poses. Carbon dioxide has different physical properties from products typically moved in the U.S.’s current hazardous hydrocarbon liquid or natural gas transmission pipeline system. Those differences pose unique safety hazards to the public. Existing federal regulations do not appear to for the safe transportation of CO2 via pipelines. The Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration (PHMSA) should update its regulations of CO2 pipelines as quickly as possible. PHMSA currently exercises no jurisdiction over pipelines transporting CO2 as a gas or liquid, and only regulates CO2 pipelines with a concentration of more than 90% carbon dioxide compressed to a supercritical state, rendering any pipeline moving CO2 in any other state or with less than 90% purity entirely unregulated by the agency. There are also no regulations requiring the addition of an odorant to help detect leaks and ruptures, establishing an appropriate process for determining a potential impact area in case of a rupture, limiting dangerous impurities, or several other common-sense regulatory needs.

Evaluation of the Department of Defense’s Efforts to Address the Climate Resilience of U.S. Military Installations in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic, Department of Defense Inspector General

U.S. military installation leaders at the six Arctic and sub-Arctic installations we visited did not conduct installation resilience assessments and planning required by DoD directive and public law. DoD Directive 4715.21, “Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience” (2016), requires DoD Components to integrate climate change considerations into DoD Component policy, guidance, plans, and operations. In addition, 10 U.S.C. § 2864 (2020) requires commanders of major military installations to identify, assess, and develop plans to address military installation resilience and environmental risks and threats to assets, infrastructure, and mission. However, most installation leaders at the six installations we visited in the Arctic and sub-Arctic region were unfamiliar with military installation resilience planning requirements, processes, and tools, and did not comply with requirements to identify current and projected environmental risks, vulnerabilities, and mitigation measures or incorporate these considerations into plans and operations. These conditions occurred because of a lack of DoD and Service Component emphasis on installation climate resilience. Specifically, military installation leaders focused on existing weather and energy challenges rather than analyzing their installations’ infrastructure, assets, and mission exposure and vulnerability to climate change; the DoD and Service Components did not provide guidance for implementing military installation resilience assessments; and installation leaders lacked resources to analyze and assess climate change.

Shining Cities 2022, The Top U.S. Cities for Solar Energy, Pforzheimer and Neumann, Environment America Research and Policy Center and Frontier Group

In the eighth survey of solar energy in America’s biggest cities the authors found that the amount of solar power installed in just nine U.S. cities exceeds the amount installed in the entire United States 10 years ago. Of the 56 cities surveyed in all eight editions of this report, 15 recorded a tenfold increase in their solar capacity between 2014 and 2022. To continue America’s progress toward renewable energy, cities, states, and the federal government should adopt strong policies to make it easy and affordable for homeowners, businesses, and utilities to “go solar.” The cities with the most solar PV installed per resident are the “Solar Superstars” – cities with 100 or more watts of solar PV capacity installed per capita. Next are “Solar Stars” with over 50 watts per person. In 2014, only eight of the cities surveyed for the report had enough solar PV per capita to be ranked as “Solar Stars,” but now 34 cities have earned the title. The top cities for solar per capita are, in order, Honolulu, HI, Las Vegas, NV; San Diego, CA; Albuquerque, NM; and San Jose, CA.

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The objective of New Research isn't to cast a tinge on scientific results, to color readers' impressions. Hence candidate articles are assessed via two metrics only:

• Was an article deemed of sufficient merit by a team of journal editors and peer reviewers? The fact of journal RSS output assigns a "yes" to this automatically. 
• Is an article relevant to the topic of anthropogenic climate change? Due to filter overlap with other publication topics of inquiry, of a typical week's 550 or so input articles about 1/4 of RSS output makes the cut.

A few journals offer public access to "preprint" versions of articles for which the review process is not yet complete. For some key journals this all the mention we'll see in RSS feeds, so we include such items in New Research. These are flagged as "preprint."

The section "Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives" includes some items that are not scientific research per se but fall instead into the category of "perspectives," observations of implications of research findings, areas needing attention, etc.

What does "(provisional link)" mean?

When the input list for New Research is processed, some articles do not produce a result from the journal databases we employ. Usually this is because the publisher has not yet supplied information to doi.org for the given article. In these cases and in order to still include timely listing of articles, we employ an alternate search tactic. While this method is usually correct, sometimes the link shown will lead to an incorrect destination (available time does not always permit manual checking of these). We invite readers to submit corrections in comments below.

Each edition of New Research is reprocessed some two weeks after intitial publication to catch stragglers into the DOI ecosystem. Many "provisional links" will end up being corrected as part of this process. 

Suggestions

Please let us know if you're aware of an article you think may be of interest for Skeptical Science research news, or if we've missed something that may be important. Send your input to Skeptical Science via our contact form.

Journals covered

A list of journals we cover may be found here. We welcome pointers to omissions, new journals etc.

Previous edition

The previous edition of Skeptical Science New Research may be found here.