Arguments
New research, May 7-13, 2018
Posted on 18 May 2018 by Ari Jokimäki
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.
Climate change
Temperature, precipitation, wind
Projected change in characteristics of near surface temperature inversions for southeast Australia
Unidirectional trends in annual and seasonal climate and extremes in Egypt
An asymmetric rainfall response to ENSO in East Asia
Extreme events
Post-disaster social recovery: disaster governance lessons learnt from Tropical Cyclone Yasi
An analysis of the prevalence of heat waves in the United States between 1948 and 2015
"Results confirmed strong increase in the prevalence of heat waves between the mid-1970s and dataset end (2015), and that increase was preceded by mild decrease since dataset beginning (1948). Results were unclear whether the prevalence of nighttime or simultaneous daytime-nighttime heat waves increased the most, but were clear that increases were largest in the summer."
Climate Change and Drought: From Past to Future
Forcings and feedbacks
The Impact of Stratospheric Ozone Feedbacks on Climate Sensitivity Estimates
Regional Climate Sensitivity? and Historical?Based Projections to 2100
Reproducing Long?Range Correlations in Global Mean Temperatures in Simple Energy Balance Models
A Revisit of Global Dimming and Brightening Based on the Sunshine Duration
Contrails and their impact on shortwave radiation and photovoltaic power production – a regional model study (open access)
Cryosphere
Ocean as the main driver of Antarctic ice sheet retreat during the Holocene
"Here, we present a new Holocene δ18Odiatom record from Prydz Bay, East Antarctica, also suggesting an increase in glacial ice discharge since ~4500?years before present (~4.5 kyr BP) as previously observed in Antarctic Peninsula and Adélie Land. Similar results from three different regions around Antarctica thus suggest common driving mechanisms. Combining marine and ice core records along with new transient accelerated simulations from the IPSL-CM5A-LR climate model, we rule out changes in air temperatures during the last ~4.5 kyr as the main driver of enhanced glacial ice discharge. Conversely, our simulations evidence the potential for significant warmer subsurface waters in the Southern Ocean during the last 6 kyr in response to enhanced summer insolation south of 60°S and enhanced upwelling of Circumpolar Deep Water towards the Antarctic shelf. We conclude that ice front and basal melting may have played a dominant role in glacial discharge during the Late Holocene."
Cryosphere: a kingdom of anomalies and diversity (open access)
Variable Basal Melt Rates of Antarctic Peninsula Ice Shelves, 1994–2016
Export of Strongly Diluted Greenland Meltwater From a Major Glacial Fjord
Improved simulation of the present-day Greenland firn layer (1960–2016) (open access)
Globally scalable alpine snow metrics
"Overall, between 2011 and 2017 the Patagonian Ice Fields have lost mass at a combined rate of 21.29?±?1.98?Gt?a−1, contributing 0.059?±?0.005?mm?a−1 to SLR."
Hydrosphere
Climate Change and Drought: a Precipitation and Evaporation Perspective
Spatiotemporal pattern of terrestrial evapotranspiration in China during the past thirty years
The relationship between cool and warm season moisture over the central United States, 1685-2015
Atmospheric and oceanic circulation
Changes in ENSO amplitude under climate warming and cooling
Underlying mechanisms leading to El Niño-to-La Niña transition are unchanged under global warming
Nonlinear Response of the Stratosphere and the North Atlantic?European Climate to Global Warming
Fast Response of the Tropics to an Abrupt Loss of Arctic Sea Ice via Ocean Dynamics
Regional climatology of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean—high-resolution mapping of ocean structure and change (open access)
Equatorial Atlantic variability—Modes, mechanisms, and global teleconnections
The internal generation of the Atlantic ocean interdecadal variability
Carbon cycle
Deconvolving the fate of carbon in coastal sediments (open access)
Climatic role of terrestrial ecosystem under elevated CO2: a bottom?up greenhouse gases budget (open access)
Massive carbon addition to an organic-rich Andosol increased the subsoil but not the topsoil carbon stock (open access)
Climate change impacts
Mankind
Investigating changes in mortality attributable to heat and cold in Stockholm, Sweden
"Total mortality attributable to non-optimal temperatures varied between periods and cold consistently had a larger impact on mortality than heat. Cold-related attributable fraction (AF) remained stable over time whereas heat-related AF decreased. AF on cold days remained stable over time, which may indicate that mortality during colder months may not decline as temperatures increase in the future."
Does the increase in ambient CO2 concentration elevate allergy risks posed by oak pollen?
Climate change, air pollution and human health in Sydney, Australia: A review of the literature (open access)
Six languages for a risky climate: how farmers react to weather and climate change
"The results showed that a warming climate advanced the phenology of cotton bollworm larvae and cotton flowering. However, the phenological rate of change was faster in cotton bollworm larvae than that in cotton flowering, and the larval period was prolonged, resulting in a great increase of the larval population. The abrupt phenological changes in cotton bollworm larvae occurred earlier than that in cotton, and the abrupt phenological changes in cotton flowering occurred earlier than that in larval abundance. However, the timing of abrupt changes in larval abundance all occurred later than that in temperature. Thus, the abrupt changes that occurred in larvae, cotton flowering and climate were asynchronous. The interval days between the cotton flowering date (CFD) and the half-amount larvae date (HLD) expanded by 3.41 and 4.41 days with a 1 °C increase of Tmean in May and June, respectively. The asynchrony between cotton bollworm larvae and cotton flowering will likely broaden as the climate changes. The effective temperature in March and April and the end date of larvae (ED) were the primary factors affecting asynchrony."
Biosphere
Phenotypic plasticity may help lizards cope with increasingly variable temperatures
Revisiting the boron systematics of aragonite and their application to coral calcification (open access)
Legacy effects of land-use modulate tree growth responses to climate extremes
Climate change mitigation
Climate change communication
Emission savings
Effectiveness of electric vehicle incentives in the United States
Air quality impacts of implementing emission reduction strategies at southern California airports
Determinants of enterprises use of energy efficient technologies: Evidence from urban Ethiopia
A driving–driven perspective on the key carbon emission sectors in China
Energy production
Carbon emissions from oil palm development on deep peat soil in central kalimantan indonesia
The effect of income on the energy mix: Are democracies more sustainable?
Photovoltaic and wind power feed-in impact on electricity prices: The case of Germany
Climate Policy
Carbon pricing in practice: a review of existing emissions trading systems
Metropolitan planning organizations and climate change action
On the road to China's 2020 carbon intensity target from the perspective of “double control”
Other papers
General climate science
PyTroll: An open source, community driven Python framework to process Earth Observation satellite data (open access)
It occures to me after perusing several weeks of research roundups that the "uncertaintity" around climate science is predominantly on the side of uncertain about how and/or why things are getting worse in almost every area of study.
I understand that this is normal wrt the scientific principal but it is consistantly used as a reason for doubt.
Military leaders, corporate CEOs, fiancial investors, and decision makers at many other levels also deal with uncertainty when making decisions. It is not unique to science and uncertainty is usually not a good reason for inaction. It is simply being overstated in the context of science as an excuse for doing nothing.