Climate Change science - multiple issues

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Title: Oxford Martin School
Description: A wide range of research into climate change, biodiversity, global ecology etc....videos, publications, events... "The Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford is a world-leading centre of pioneering research that addresses global challenges. We invest in research that cuts across disciplines to tackle a wide range of issues such as climate change, disease and inequality. We support novel, high risk and multidisciplinary projects that may not fit within conventional funding channels. We do this because breaking boundaries can produce results that could dramatically improve the wellbeing of this and future generations. We seek to make an impact by taking new approaches to global problems, through scientific and intellectual discovery, by developing policy recommendations and working with a wide range of stakeholders to translate them into action..." Affordable Medicines... Ageing Populations... Biodiversity... Carbon Investment... Climate Partnership... Collective Responsibility for Infectious Disease... Complexity... Cyber Security... Deep Medicine... Economics, INET Oxford... Emerging Infections... Food... Geoengineering... Human Rights... Illegal Wildlife Trade... Inequality and Prosperity... Mind & Machine... Natural Governance... Our World in Data... Quantum Technology... Renewable Energy... Science & Society... Sustainable Oceans... Technological & Economic Change.
Source/publisher: Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
Date of entry/update: 2017-04-13
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Title: Assessing recent warming using instrumentally homogeneous sea surface temperature records
Description: Abstract: "Sea surface temperature (SST) records are subject to potential biases due to changing instrumentation and measurement practices. Significant differences exist between commonly used composite SST reconstructions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration?s Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST), the Hadley Centre SST data set (HadSST3), and the Japanese Meteorological Agency?s Centennial Observation-Based Estimates of SSTs (COBE-SST) from 2003 to the present. The update from ERSST version 3b to version 4 resulted in an increase in the operational SST trend estimate during the last 19 years from 0.07° to 0.12°C per decade, indicating a higher rate of warming in recent years. We show that ERSST version 4 trends generally agree with largely independent, near-global, and instrumentally homogeneous SST measurements from floating buoys, Argo floats, and radiometer-based satellite measurements that have been developed and deployed during the past two decades. We find a large cooling bias in ERSST version 3b and smaller but significant cooling biases in HadSST3 and COBE-SST from 2003 to the present, with respect to most series examined. These results suggest that reported rates of SST warming in recent years have been underestimated in these three data sets." Keywords: sea surface temperature, Climate change, homogeneity
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Source/publisher: AAAS (Science Advances Vol. 3, no. 1, e1601207)
Date of publication: 2017-01-04
Date of entry/update: 2018-11-03
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Title: The Oceans Are Heating Up Faster Than Expected
Description: "The planet may be more sensitive to warming that previously thought, making climate goals more difficult to meet...The new study published yesterday in the journal Nature concluded that the global oceans may be absorbing up to 60 percent more heat since the 1990s than older estimates had found. Previous estimates from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that the oceans were taking up around 8 zetajoules of energy each year. That?s an ?8” followed by a whopping 21 zeros. ADVERTISEMENT The new research, though, put it at around 13 zetajoules. For comparison, total energy consumption around the world is around half a zetajoule annually, according to the International Energy Agency. This suggests that the Earth, as a whole, is more sensitive to climate change than previous estimates would imply. And that means the planet may respond more strongly to future greenhouse gas emissions than expected..."
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Source/publisher: "Scientific American"
Date of publication: 2018-11-01
Date of entry/update: 2018-11-02
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Title: Quantification of ocean heat uptake from changes in atmospheric O2 and CO2 composition
Description: "The ocean is the main source of thermal inertia in the climate system. During recent decades, ocean heat uptake has been quantified by using hydrographic temperature measurements and data from the Argo float program, which expanded its coverage after 2007. However, these estimates all use the same imperfect ocean dataset and share additional uncertainties resulting from sparse coverage, especially before 2007. Here we provide an independent estimate by using measurements of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2)—levels of which increase as the ocean warms and releases gases—as a whole-ocean thermometer. We show that the ocean gained 1.33±0.20×1022joules of heat per year between 1991 and 2016, equivalent to a planetary energy imbalance of 0.83± 0.11watts per square metre of Earth?s surface. We also find that the ocean-warming effect that led to the outgassing of O2 and CO2 can be isolated from the direct effects of anthropogenic emissions and CO2 sinks. Our result—which relies on high-precision O2 measurements dating back to 1991—suggests that ocean warming is at the high end of previous estimates, with implications for policy-relevant measurements of the Earth response to climate change, such as climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases and the thermal component of sea-level rise...Here we introduce a third method, based on changes in the abundances of gases in the atmosphere, which respond to whole-ocean warming through the temperature dependence of gas solubility in sea water. This method is not limited by data sparseness, because fast mixing in the atmosphere efficiently integrates the global ocean signal..."
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Source/publisher: "Nature" (research letter)
Date of publication: 2018-11-01
Date of entry/update: 2018-11-02
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Title: Startling new research finds large buildup of heat in the oceans, suggesting a faster rate of global warming
Description: "The world?s oceans have been soaking up far more excess heat in recent decades than scientists realized, suggesting that Earth could be set to warm even faster than predicted in the years ahead, according to new research published Wednesday. Over the past quarter-century, Earth?s oceans have retained 60 percent more heat each year than scientists previously had thought, said Laure Resplandy, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the startling study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The difference represents an enormous amount of additional energy, originating from the sun and trapped by Earth?s atmosphere — the yearly amount representing more than eight times the world?s annual energy consumption..."
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Source/publisher: "Washington Post" (Energy and Environment)
Date of publication: 2018-10-31
Date of entry/update: 2018-11-02
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Title: Extreme Heat Could Make One Third of Planet Uninhabitable (video)
Description: "Climate scientist Michael Mann says that, under a business-as-usual scenario, the mass displacement of billions could trigger an unprecedented national security crisis"
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Source/publisher: Real News via Youtube
Date of publication: 2018-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2018-10-14
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Title: North China Plain threatened by deadly heatwaves due to climate change and irrigation
Description: Abstract: "North China Plain is the heartland of modern China. This fertile plain has experienced vast expansion of irrigated agriculture which cools surface temperature and moistens surface air, but boosts integrated measures of temperature and humidity, and hence enhances intensity of heatwaves. Here, we project based on an ensemble of high-resolution regional climate model simulations that climate change would add significantly to the anthropogenic effects of irrigation, increasing the risk from heatwaves in this region. Under the business-as-usual scenario of greenhouse gas emissions, North China Plain is likely to experience deadly heatwaves with wet-bulb temperature exceeding the threshold defining what Chinese farmers may tolerate while working outdoors. China is currently the largest contributor to the emissions of greenhouse gases, with potentially serious implications to its own population: continuation of the current pattern of global emissions may limit habitability in the most populous region, of the most populous country on Earth."
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Source/publisher: "Nature Communications" volume 9, Article number: 2894 (2018)
Date of publication: 2018-07-31
Date of entry/update: 2018-10-14
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Title: The Scientific Case for Urgent Action to Limit Climate Change
Description: (Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/) Distinguished Professor Emeritus Richard Somerville, a world-renowned climate scientist and author of "The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change," discusses the scientific case for urgent action to limit climate change. Series: "Perspectives on Ocean Science" [5/2013] [Science] [Show ID: 24910]
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Source/publisher: University of California Television (UCTV)
Date of publication: 2013-03-11
Date of entry/update: 2018-08-25
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Title: Study suggests Earth may enter Hothouse Climate State
Description: Earth Could Spiral Into A ?Hothouse? State Even If We Reduce CO2 Emissions, Warns New Report... https://www.inquisitr.com/5019576/earth-could-spiral-into-a-hothouse-state-even-if-we-reduce-co2-emissions-warns-new-report ...Read the study paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1810141115 ... Tipping Elements ? the Achilles Heels of the Earth System https://www.pik-potsdam.de/services/infodesk/tipping-elements ... The Climate State of the Holocene and Anthropocene (Rates of Change) http://climatestate.com/2018/08/08/the-climate-state-of-the-holocene-and-anthropocene-rates-of-change ... Additional sources: Donald Trump?s Paris Exit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulcj3gkAbLo Rockström: The Earth System https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkXcIu1USDk Lester Brown: Climate mobilization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7jsR3yXtr8
Source/publisher: Climate State
Date of publication: 2018-08-08
Date of entry/update: 2018-08-11
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Title: Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene
Description: Abstract: "We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a ?Hothouse Earth” pathway even as human emissions are reduced. Crossing the threshold would lead to a much higher global average temperature than any interglacial in the past 1.2 million years and to sea levels significantly higher than at any time in the Holocene. We examine the evidence that such a threshold might exist and where it might be. If the threshold is crossed, the resulting trajectory would likely cause serious disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies. Collective human action is required to steer the Earth System away from a potential threshold and stabilize it in a habitable interglacial-like state. Such action entails stewardship of the entire Earth System—biosphere, climate, and societies—and could include decarbonization of the global economy, enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements, and transformed social values"... Earth System trajectories, climate change, Anthropocene, biosphere feedbacks, tipping elements...Authors also include Ricarda Winkelmann, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber...N.B. references with links to full-text documents
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Source/publisher: Proceedings of the National Acadamy of Sciences of the USA
Date of publication: 2018-08-06
Date of entry/update: 2018-08-09
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Title: Greater future global warming inferred from Earth?s recent energy budget
Description: "We have a paper out in Nature titled ?Greater future global warming inferred from Earth?s recent energy budget”. The Carnegie press release can be found here and Coverage from the Washington Post can be found here. A video abstract summarizing the study is below...The study addresses one of the key questions in climate science: How much global warming should we expect for a given increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases?...[I] we were to assume that humans will continue to increases greenhouse gas emissions substantially throughout the 21st century (the RCP8.5 future emissions scenario), climate models tell us that we can expect anywhere from about 3.2°C to 5.9°C (5.8°F to 10.6°F) of global warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100. This means that for identical changes in greenhouse gas concentrations (more technically, identical changes in radiative forcing), climate models simulate a range of global warming that differs by almost a factor of 2...Using the steepest future emissions scenario as an example (the RCP8.5 emissions scenario), the figure below shows the comparison of the raw-model projections used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to our projections that incorporate information from observations..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Patrick T. Brown? blog
Date of publication: 2017-11-29
Date of entry/update: 2018-07-18
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Title: Sea Level Rise, Migration, Security and War (video)
Description: Cornell University - 2017 Climate Change Seminar by (Development Sociology). Recorded at Cornell University - February 12, 2018, part of Perspectives on the Climate Change Challenge seminar series.
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Source/publisher: Cornell University via Climate State
Date of publication: 2012-02-12
Date of entry/update: 2018-05-03
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Title: Power surge (video)
Description: "Can emerging technology defeat global warming? The United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in clean energy"
Source/publisher: Nova Documentary
Date of publication: 2017-03-14
Date of entry/update: 2017-11-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Reservoir Water Surfaces: A New Global Synthesis
Description: "Collectively, reservoirs created by dams are thought to be an important source of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the atmosphere. So far, efforts to quantify, model, and manage these emissions have been limited by data availability and inconsistencies in methodological approach. Here, we synthesize reservoir CH4, CO2, and N2O emission data with three main objectives: (1) to generate a global estimate of GHG emissions from reservoirs, (2) to identify the best predictors of these emissions, and (3) to consider the effect of methodology on emission estimates. We estimate that GHG emissions from reservoir water surfaces account for 0.8 (0.5?1.2) Pg CO2 equivalents per year, with the majority of this forcing due to CH4. We then discuss the potential for several alternative pathways such as dam degassing and downstream emissions to contribute significantly to overall emissions. Although prior studies have linked reservoir GHG emissions to reservoir age and latitude, we find that factors related to reservoir productivity are better predictors of emission."
Creator/author: Bridget R. Deemer, John A. Harrison, Siyue Li, Jake J. Beaulieu, Tonya DelSontro, Nathan Barros, José F. Bezerra-Neto, Stephen M. Powers, Marco A. dos Santos, J. Arie Vonk
Source/publisher: BioScience (2016) 66 (11): 949-964.
Date of publication: 2016-10-05
Date of entry/update: 2017-04-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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