Skeptical Science New Research for Week #23 2022

Posted on 9 June 2022 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack

Terms and conditions may change

For myriad reasons we'd like to think and know that dumping our outmoded and dangerous fossil fuel energy sources may be difficult and may require a lot of investment but that when we're done, we'll be back to business as usual in terms of what we expect to pay for the energy to do useful work. However, our expectations are quite arguably warped by our good fortune; we stumbled upon a trove of ridiculously inexpensive previously stored energy and have consequently shaped our entire perspective as though winning the lottery was a daily occurrence. 

The authors are looking only at cost impacts of reaching net zero by 2050 and so are not prognosticating what we might expect 100 or 200 years from now, or any such reasonable time-frame for people with the inkling of conscience needed to reject nihilism about our future. Even so, Zhuo et al. perhaps offer some indications of what's to come in their scrupulously calculated and highly granular assessment Cost increase in the electricity supply to achieve carbon neutrality in China. While there are of course differences in the mix of individual country electrical generation systems, the starting points  and decarbonization scenarios employed in this paper are not so special to China that we cannot plausibly hypothesize from their results how electricity in general might not be as weirdly and artificially cheap as we've trained oursevles to expect. For China, the research team estimates that costs will rise by some 9.6 CNY¢/kWh (US $0.15/kWh) in order to reach carbon neutrality. As the authors say in other words, it's not an existential threat but it's going to leave a bit of a bruise on the collective wallet.

On the fully bright side, electricity cost increases will eventually level off after which we're left with a durable, permanent improvement in our welfare, rather than bovinely following the inexorable decline of our briefly beneficial but also nearly permanently disastrous fossil fuel lash-up. How much of a subsequent decline to levels more resembling our "abnormally cheap" current state of bliss we may expect is another matter to explore. 

Parenthetically, this is yet another in a steady torrent of papers authored by researchers practicing in China and who are directly confronting climate change as an operational challenge needing solid backgrounding for policy planning purposes. Doubtless this is a better approach than paralytic quavering in denial, ignorance and fear. 

Other notables:

What shapes cognitions of climate change in Europe? Ideology, morality, and the role of educational attainment. We've heard about Left/Right differences in perceptions of climate change, but we shouldn't be surprised to hear that packages with different wrapping may contain similar objects. The first thing we learn is often not quite the whole picture when witnesses and storytellers themselves are new to a topic.  This paper goes a bit beyond othe recent research and peels away ideological identity and looks at underlying factors shaping our beliefs.

New York State Hurricane Hazard: History and Future Projections. Due to limitations in our models the picture is still somewhat hazy, but our best ability to form projections of hurricane behavior in this populous state indicates "more intense and traveling more slowly" by late in this century. Given the damage profile caused by hurricanes which is mostly to do with water, "slower" is especially not good.

The risks from climate change to sovereign debt. The world of research pertaining to goverment finance is at least slightly roiled now thanks to attempts to demythologize economics and update "the dismal science" with hard-earned information gleaned by comparing untethered abstract models with  observed real world facts about what money is and where it comes from. Regardless of whether our thinking is that of 100 years ago or today, the impacts of climate change on national economies unfolds as quite large. This paper looks at how climate change will wreak havoc in state finances as viewed from a more tradtional "sovereign debt" perspective. 

Quantifying the influence of climate variability on armed conflict in Africa, 2000–2015 explores via empirical data the contentious hypothesis that climate change will contribute to armed conflict. Unfortunately, we have enough real-world data to test this, to the extent that we can isolate a climate signal from the complex factors leading to organized violence. By indications from their chosen array of methods to tease apart the rotten combinations leading to warfare, the authors identify such a signal in this paper. 

All of the above open access and free to read. This week's government/NGO section can be found here and sports a collection of items concerning reliable water supplies in the face of climate change. See California, USA for a high-profile right-now example of  "adaptation" to climatological drought in the absence of a long term plan.

167 articles in 60 journals by 986 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

The role of atmospheric blocking in regulating Arctic warming
You et al., Geophysical Research Letters, Open Access pdf 10.1029/2022gl097899

Turbulent structure of the Arctic boundary layer in early summer driven by stability, wind shear and cloud top radiative cooling: ACLOUD airborne observations
Chechin et al. Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-2022-398

Which Is the More Effective Driver of the Poleward Eddy Heat Flux Variability: Zonal Gradient of Tropical Convective Heating or Equator-to-Pole Temperature Gradient?
Mous, Predictability and Nonlinear Modelling in Natural Sciences and Economics, Open Access 10.1007/978-94-011-0962-8_8

Observations of climate change, effects

Long-term trends in extreme precipitation indices in Ireland
Ryan et al., International Journal of Climatology, Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.7475

Spatiotemporal variation of precipitation on a global scale from 1960 to 2016 in a new normalized daily precipitation dataset
Liu et al., International Journal of Climatology, 10.1002/joc.7437

Lived experiences of ‘peak water’ in the high mountains of Nepal and Peru
McDowell et al., Climate and Development, Open Access 10.1080/17565529.2021.1913085

Sub-aerial talik formation observed across the discontinuous permafrost zone of Alaska
Farquharson et al., Nature Geoscience, 10.1038/s41561-022-00952-z

Changing Hydrographic, Biogeochemical, and Acidification Properties in the Gulf of Maine as Measured by the Gulf of Maine North Atlantic Time Series, GNATS, Between 1998 and 2018
Balch et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, Open Access pdf 10.1029/2022jg006790

Climatic warming in Shanghai during 1873–2019 based on homogenised temperature records
LIANG et al., Advances in Climate Change Research, Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2022.05.006

Signals in temperature extremes emerge in China during the last millennium based on CMIP5 simulations
Sui & Chen, Climatic Change, Open Access 10.1007/s10584-022-03377-0

Climate change effects on riverbank erosion Bait community flood-prone area of Punjab, Pakistan: an application of livelihood vulnerability index
Ahmad et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability, 10.1007/s10668-022-02440-1

Climate extremes related with rainfall in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: a review of climatological characteristics and recorded trends
Luiz-Silva & Oscar-Júnior, Natural Hazards, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11069-022-05409-5

Heat and cold waves in mainland Spain: Origins, characteristics, and trends
Serrano-Notivoli et al., Weather and Climate Extremes, Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2022.100471

Correction to: The role of human-induced climate change in heavy rainfall events such as the one associated with Typhoon Hagibis
Li & Otto, Climatic Change, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-022-03379-y

Long-term trends in atmospheric rivers over East Asia
Liang et al., Climate Dynamics, Open Access 10.1007/s00382-022-06339-5

Climate extremes and their impacts on agriculture across the Eastern Corn Belt Region of the U.S.
Wilson et al., Weather and Climate Extremes, Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2022.100467

Record-breaking statistics detect islands of cooling in a sea of warming
Sena et al.,  Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-2022-316

Modulation of Sea Surface Temperature over the North Atlantic and Indian-Pacific warm pool on interdecadal change of summer precipitation over Northwest China
Wu et al., International Journal of Climatology, 10.1002/joc.7743

Detecting impacts of surface development near weather stations since 1895 in the San Joaquin Valley of California
Kim & Christy Christy, Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00704-022-04107-3

A Comparison of Land Surface Phenology in the Northern Hemisphere Derived from Satellite Remote Sensing and the Community Land Model
Li et al., Journal of Hydrometeorology, Open Access pdf 10.1175/jhm-d-21-0169.1

Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, contributors, effects

Decadal-scale phenology and seasonal climate drivers of migratory baleen whales in a rapidly warming marine ecosystem
Pendleton et al., Global Change Biology, Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.16225

Size-Resolved Dust Direct Radiative Effect Efficiency Derived from Satellite Observations
Song et al.,  Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-2022-350

Source and variability of formaldehyde (HCHO) at northern high latitudes: an integrated satellite, aircraft, and model study
Zhao et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-22-7163-2022

Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

Role of the internal atmospheric variability on the warming trends over Northeast Asia during 1970–2005
Piao et al., Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 10.1007/s00704-022-04115-3

Estimating the timing of geophysical commitment to 1.5 and 2.0 °C of global warming
Dvorak et al., Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-022-01372-y

A geophysical commitment to warming over 1.5 °C by 2029 after cessation of emissions
Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-022-01375-9

Global Radiative Convective Equilibrium with a Slab Ocean: SST Contrast, Sensitivity and Circulation
Hartmann & Dygert Dygert, , 10.1002/essoar.10510345.1

Meteorological drought duration–severity and climate change impact in Iran
Behzadi et al., Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 10.1007/s00704-022-04113-5

Prediction of drought/flood intensities based on a 500-year time series in three different climate provinces of China
Peng et al., Regional Environmental Change, 10.1007/s10113-022-01936-w

Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Evaluation of statistical downscaling methods for climate change projections over Spain: Future conditions with pseudo reality (transferability experiment)
Hernanz et al., International Journal of Climatology, Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.7464

Potential influence of sea surface temperature representation in climate model simulations over CORDEX-SEA domain
Magnaye et al., International Journal of Climatology, 10.1002/joc.7440

The Super-large Ensemble Experiments of CAS FGOALS-g3
Lin et al., Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00376-022-1439-1

Will increasing climate model resolution be beneficial for ENSO simulation?
Liu et al., Geophysical Research Letters, Open Access pdf 10.1029/2021gl096932

Circulation patterns and associated rainfall over South Tropical South America: GCMs evaluation during the dry-to-wet transition season
Olmo et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 10.1029/2022jd036468

Evaluation of CMIP6 model-simulated extreme precipitation over Indonesia
Kurniadi et al., International Journal of Climatology, 10.1002/joc.7744

Cryosphere & climate change

The impact of tides on Antarctic ice shelf melting
Richter et al., The Cryosphere, Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-16-1409-2022

Does the Recent Revival of Western Disturbances Govern the Karakoram Anomaly?
Javed et al., Journal of Climate, 10.1175/jcli-d-21-0129.1

Impact of atmospheric forcing uncertainties on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice simulation in CMIP6 OMIP
Lin et al., , Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-2022-110

Observed mechanism for sustained glacier retreat and acceleration in response to ocean warming around Greenland
Carnahan et al., , Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-2022-114

The predictive power of ice sheet models and the regional sensitivity of ice loss to basal sliding parameterisations: A case study of Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers, West Antarctica
Barnes & Gudmundsson, , Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-2022-109

Record low Antarctic sea ice cover in February 2022
Turner et al., Geophysical Research Letters, Open Access pdf 10.1029/2022gl098904

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau permafrost at risk in the late 21st century
Zhang et al., Earth's Future, 10.1029/2022ef002652

Greenland Ice Sheet Rainfall, Heat and Albedo Feedback Impacts From the Mid-August 2021 Atmospheric River
Box et al., Geophysical Research Letters, Open Access pdf 10.1029/2021gl097356

Sea level & climate change

Decadal and Long-term Variability of Sea Level in the Southwestern Pacific during 1948–2018
Sun et al., Geophysical Research Letters, 10.1029/2022gl098747

Should Swedish sea level planners worry more about mean sea level rise or sea level extremes?
Sayol & Marcos, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, Open Access 10.1002/2017jc013355

Paleoclimate

Precipitation in Northeast Mexico Primarily Controlled by the Relative Warming of Atlantic SSTs
Wright et al., , 10.1002/essoar.10510492.1

Holocene wildfire regimes in western Siberia: interaction between peatland moisture conditions and the composition of plant functional types
Feurdean et al., Climate of the Past, Open Access pdf 10.5194/cp-18-1255-2022

Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Dramatic impact of future climate change on the genetic diversity and distribution of ecologically relevant Western Mediterranean Carex (Cyperaceae)
Open Access pdf 10.7287/peerj.13464v0.1/reviews/1

Extreme minimum temperatures in the Great Lakes region of the United States: A climatology with implications for insect mortality
Kiefer et al., International Journal of Climatology, 10.1002/joc.7434

Climate Change and the Cost-Effective Governance Mode for Biodiversity Conservation
Schöttker & Wätzold, Environmental and Resource Economics, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10640-022-00684-z

Predictive models aren't for causal inference
Arif & MacNeil, Ecology Letters, 10.1111/ele.14033

Effects of climate and human activity on the current distribution of amphibians in China
Mi et al., Conservation Biology, 10.1111/cobi.13964

From white to green: Snow cover loss and increased vegetation productivity in the European Alps
Rumpf et al., Science, 10.1126/science.abn6697

Mangrove forests under climate change in a 2°C world
Friess et al., WIREs Climate Change, Open Access pdf 10.1002/wcc.792

Soil moisture determines the effects of climate warming on spring phenology in grasslands
Liu et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 10.1016/j.agrformet.2022.109039

The Importance of Lake Emergent Aquatic Vegetation for Estimating Arctic-Boreal Methane Emissions
Kyzivat et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 10.1029/2021jg006635

Observation-based Evaluation of Local Climate Effect of Terrestrial Vegetation in Temperate Zones
Du et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 10.1029/2021jd036313

Non-native plant invasion can accelerate global climate change by increasing wetland methane and terrestrial nitrous oxide emissions
Bezabih et al., Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.16290

Extreme 2020 Summer SSTs in the Northern South China Sea: Implications for the Beibu Gulf Coral Bleaching
Chen et al., Journal of Climate, 10.1175/jcli-d-21-0649.1

Meta-analysis suggests negative, but pCO2-specific, effects of ocean acidification on the structural and functional properties of crustacean biomaterials
Siegel et al., Ecology and Evolution, 10.1002/ece3.8922

Citizen science reveals waterfowl responses to extreme winter weather
Masto et al., Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.16288

Contrasting responses of phytoplankton productivity between coastal and offshore surface waters in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea to short-term seawater acidification
Gao et al., Biogeosciences, Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-19-2795-2022

Heavy Rainfall, Sewer Overflows, and Salmonellosis in Black Skimmers (Rynchops niger)
Shender et al., EcoHealth, 10.1007/s10393-022-01596-6

A Song of Wind and Ice: Increased Frequency of Marine Cold-Spells in Southwestern Patagonia and Their Possible Effects on Giant Kelp Forests
Mora?Soto et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 10.1029/2021jc017801

Tree growth is connected with distribution and warming-induced degradation of permafrost in southern Siberia
Peng et al., Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.16284

Climate change reshuffles northern species within their niches
Antão et al., Nature Climate Change, Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-022-01381-x

Strategic roadmap to assess forest vulnerability under air pollution and climate change
De Marco et al., Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.16278

GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

Long-term trends in pCO2 in lake surface water following rebrowning
Couturier et al., Geophysical Research Letters, 10.1029/2022gl097973

Reply to Wang et al.: Uncertainty of terrestrial ecosystem CO2 exchange of the Tibetan Plateau
Qi et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.2205799119

Hydrologic Export of Soil Organic Carbon: Continental Variation and Implications
Hararuk et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 10.1029/2021gb007161

The Importance of Lake Emergent Aquatic Vegetation for Estimating Arctic-Boreal Methane Emissions
Kyzivat et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 10.1029/2021jg006635

Effects of elevation gradient on soil carbon and nitrogen in a typical karst region of Chongqing, southwest China
Guangyu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 10.1029/2021jg006742

Unexpected response of nitrogen deposition to nitrogen oxide controls and implications for land carbon sink
Liu et al., Nature Communications, Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-022-30854-y

Non-native plant invasion can accelerate global climate change by increasing wetland methane and terrestrial nitrous oxide emissions
Bezabih et al., Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.16290

Data processing uncertainties may lead to an overestimation of the land carbon sink of the Tibetan Plateau
Wang et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.2202343119

Urban carbon accounting: An overview
Yin et al., Urban Climate, 10.1016/j.uclim.2022.101195

The Influence of Mussel Restoration on Coastal Carbon Cycling
Sea et al., Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.16287

Observation-based global soil heterotrophic respiration indicates underestimated turnover and sequestration of soil carbon by terrestrial ecosystem models
He et al., Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.16286

Spatial patterns and driving factors of carbon stocks in mangrove forests on Hainan Island, China
Meng et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography, 10.1111/geb.13549

UV radiation doubles microbial degradation of standing litter in a subtropical forest
Jiang et al., Journal of Ecology, 10.1111/1365-2745.13939

Global soil organic carbon–climate interactions: Why scales matter
Jungkunst et al., WIREs Climate Change, Open Access pdf 10.1002/wcc.780

Response of vegetation and carbon fluxes to brown lemming herbivory in northern Alaska
Plein et al., Biogeosciences, Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-19-2779-2022

Nitrogen input enhances microbial carbon use efficiency by altering plant–microbe–mineral interactions
Feng et al., Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.16229

Soil moisture regulates warming responses of autumn photosynthetic transition dates in subtropical forests
Fu et al., Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.16227

A 130-year global inventory of methane emissions from livestock: trends, patterns, and drivers
Zhang et al., Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.16280

CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

The Tongass National Forest, Southeast Alaska, USA: A Natural Climate Solution of Global Significance
DellaSala et al., Land, Open Access pdf 10.3390/land11050717

Are forest carbon projects in Africa green but mean?: A mixed-method analysis
Schmid, Climate and Development, Open Access pdf 10.1080/17565529.2022.2054400

A small CO2 leakage may induce seismicity on a sub-seismic fault in a good-porosity clastic saline aquifer
Glubokovskikh et al., Geophysical Research Letters, 10.1029/2022gl098062

Stability of alkalinity in Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) approaches – consequences for durability of CO2 storage
Hartmann et al.,  Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-2022-126

Decarbonization

Commercial wind energy installations and local economic development: Evidence from U.S. counties
Brunner & Schwegman, SSRN Electronic Journal, 10.2139/ssrn.4030617

Speed of technological transformations required in Europe to achieve different climate goals
Victoria et al., Joule, Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.joule.2022.04.016

Actions for reducing US emissions at least 50% by 2030
Bistline et al., Science, 10.1126/science.abn0661

Levelized cost-based learning analysis of utility-scale wind and solar in the United States
Bolinger et al., iScience, Open Access 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104378

Short and long-term dominance of negative information in shaping public energy perceptions: The case of shallow geothermal systems
Spampatti et al., Energy Policy, Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113070

Comparative analysis of solar - battery storage sizing in net metering and zero export systems
Kumar et al., Energy for Sustainable Development, 10.1016/j.esd.2022.05.008

Pathway to a land-neutral expansion of Brazilian renewable fuel production
Ramirez Camargo et al., Nature Communications, Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-022-30850-2

The role of residential distributed energy resources in Pakistan's energy transition
Mehmood et al., Energy Policy, Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113054

Method for analyzing the economic viability of net energy metering regulation based on risk analysis
Figueiredo Komeno et al., Energy for Sustainable Development, 10.1016/j.esd.2022.05.009

Managing e-waste from off-grid solar systems in Kenya: Do investors have a role to play?
Hansen et al., Energy for Sustainable Development, Open Access 10.1016/j.esd.2022.05.010

Innovation trends in electricity storage: What drives global innovation?
Feng & Lazkano Lazkano Lazkano, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113084

A global comparison of building decarbonization scenarios by 2050 towards 1.5–2 °C targets
Camarasa et al., Nature Communications, Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-022-29890-5

Aerosols

Tropospheric warming over the northern Indian Ocean caused by South Asian anthropogenic aerosols: possible impact on the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere
Fadnavis et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-22-7179-2022

Evaluation of aerosol number concentrations from CALIPSO with ATom airborne in situ measurements
Choudhury et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-22-7143-2022

Fast climate responses to emission reductions in aerosol and ozone precursors in China during 2013–2017
Gao et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-22-7131-2022

Climate change communications & cognition

Economic framing dominates climate policy reporting: a fifty-state analysis
Garth & Roberts, Climatic Change, 10.1007/s10584-022-03371-6

What shapes cognitions of climate change in Europe? Ideology, morality, and the role of educational attainment
Welsch, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s13412-021-00745-7

The climate advocacy gap
Trachtman & Meckling, Climatic Change, 10.1007/s10584-022-03381-4

Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

Adoption patterns of Climate-Smart Agriculture in integrated crop-livestock smallholder farming systems of Zimbabwe
Mujeyi et al., Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2021.1930507

Relevant local climatic knowledge for sustainable agro-ecological practices by small-scale farmers in northern Ghana
Jabik, Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2022.2057403

Effects of social capital on farmers’ choices of climate change adaptation behavior in Dazu District, China
Li et al., Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2022.2061403

Intensive and extensive rice farm adaptations in salinity-prone areas of the Mekong Delta
Mills et al., Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2022.2072800

Scaling climate resilient seed systems through SMEs in Eastern and Southern Africa: challenges and opportunities
Shilomboleni et al., Climate and Development, Open Access pdf 10.1080/17565529.2022.2073956

Carbon and nitrogen stocks in cultivation systems of a Quilombola community in the Brazilian Cerrado
Ramos et al., Regional Environmental Change, 10.1007/s10113-022-01941-z

Degrowing alternative agriculture: institutions and aspirations as sustainability metrics for small farmers in Bosnia and India
Flachs, Sustainability Science, 10.1007/s11625-022-01160-9

Environmental Kuznets curve for deforestation in Eastern Europe: a panel cointegration analysis
Zafeiriou et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability, 10.1007/s10668-022-02435-y

Climate extremes and their impacts on agriculture across the Eastern Corn Belt Region of the U.S.
Wilson et al., Weather and Climate Extremes, Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2022.100467

Perceptions and attitudes towards climate change in fishing communities of the Sudd Wetlands, South Sudan
Benansio et al., Regional Environmental Change, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10113-022-01928-w

A 130-year global inventory of methane emissions from livestock: trends, patterns, and drivers
Zhang et al., Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.16280

Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Do recent meteorological drought events in central Italy result from long-term trend or increasing variability?
GRANGER, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Open Access 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1979.tb01280.x

Effect of increased greenhouse gas concentration on mean, extreme, and timing of precipitation over Arizona (USA)
Georgescu et al., International Journal of Climatology, 10.1002/joc.7444

Characterizing Drought Behavior in the Colorado River Basin Using Unsupervised Machine Learning
Talsma et al., Earth and Space Science, Open Access pdf 10.1029/2021ea002086

Inundation of depressional wetlands declines under a changing climate
Londe et al., Climatic Change, 10.1007/s10584-022-03386-z

Climate extremes related with rainfall in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: a review of climatological characteristics and recorded trends
Luiz-Silva & Oscar-Júnior, Natural Hazards, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11069-022-05409-5

New York State Hurricane Hazard: History and Future Projections
Lee et al., Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 10.1175/jamc-d-21-0173.1

Projecting the impact of human activities and climate change on water resources in the transboundary Sre Pok River Basin
Pradhan et al., Climatic Change, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-022-03367-2

Climate change economics

Effectiveness of emerging mechanisms for financing national climate actions; example of the Indonesia Climate Change Trust Fund
Sheriffdeen et al., Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2022.2057905

The risks from climate change to sovereign debt
Zenios, Climatic Change, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-022-03373-4

Cost increase in the electricity supply to achieve carbon neutrality in China
Zhuo et al., Nature Communications, Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-022-30747-0

Analysis of the relationship between investment inefficiency and climate risk and the moderating effects of managerial ownership
Kim & Kim, Environment, Development and Sustainability, 10.1007/s10668-022-02438-9

From green to amber: is Australia's National Electricity Market signalling a financial warning for wind and solar power?
Srianandarajah et al., Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113052

Climate change mitigation public policy research

Climate services for the Greater Horn of Africa: interviews exploring practitioner perspectives from Kenya and beyond
Rigby et al., Climate and Development, Open Access pdf 10.1080/17565529.2022.2074350

How do cities challenge patterns of demand? Characterising the local governance of climate change in Nordic cities
Schrage & Kjærås, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, Open Access pdf 10.1177/23996544221083238

On the regulation of solar distributed generation in Brazil: A look at both sides
Iglesias & Vilaça Gomes, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113091

Ex Ante Governance in the European Union: Energy and climate policy as a ‘test run’ for the post-pandemic recovery
Mišík & Oravcová, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113076

Path-breaking industrial development reduces carbon emissions: Evidence from Chinese Provinces, 1999–2011
Li, Energy Policy, Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113046

Resilience of environmental policy amidst the rise of conservative populism
Mostafavi et al., Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s13412-021-00721-1

A review of stakeholder participation studies in renewable electricity and water: does the resource context matter?
Rountree et al., Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 10.1007/s13412-021-00726-w

Policy, regulation effectiveness, and sustainability in the energy sector: A worldwide interval-based composite indicator
Drago & Gatto, Energy Policy, Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.112889

Is Blue Hydrogen a Bridging Technology? - the Limits of a CO 2 Price and the Role of State Induced Price Components for Green Hydrogen Production in Germany
George et al., SSRN Electronic Journal, 10.2139/ssrn.3989639

Did civilized city policy improve energy efficiency of resource-based cities? Prefecture-level evidence from China
Li et al., Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113081

Effectiveness of environmental taxes and environmental stringent policies on CO2 emissions: the European experience
Wolde-Rufael & Mulat-weldemeskel, Environment, Development and Sustainability, 10.1007/s10668-022-02262-1

The socio-economic impacts of energy policy reform through the lens of the power sector – Does cross-sectional dependence matter?
Nepal et al., Energy Policy, Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113079

The effects of policies providing information and trialling on the knowledge about and the intention to adopt new energy technologies
Brückmann, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113047

Climate benefits from establishing marine protected areas targeted at blue carbon solutions
Jankowska et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2121705119

Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

The climate change policy integration challenge in French Polynesia, Central Pacific Ocean
Magnan et al., Regional Environmental Change, 10.1007/s10113-022-01933-z

Distinct pathways to stakeholder use versus academic contribution in climate adaptation research
Hyman et al., Conservation Letters, 10.1111/conl.12892

Governance for urban resilience in popular settlements in developing countries: a case-study review
Rivero-Villar & Vieyra Medrano, Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2021.1906203

Re-framing non-economic losses to non-economic impacts for effective policymaking: evidence from the Caribbean
Pill, Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2021.1987852

Climate change adaptation, gender, and mainstreaming: the role of gender in Fiji's relocation initiative
Bertana & Blanton, Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2022.2055524

Does development assistance reduce climate vulnerability in developing countries? an empirical investigation
Jain & Bardhan, Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2022.2065236

The politics of women’s lives: gendered re-presentations in Bangladesh’s climate change adaptation regime
Evertsen, Climate and Development, Open Access 10.1080/17565529.2022.2072264

Influence of climate change, overfishing and COVID19 on irregular migration in West Africa
Enríquez-de-Salamanca, Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2022.2076644

Climate change, labour availability and the future of gender inequality in South Africa
Shayegh & Dasgupta, Climate and Development, Open Access 10.1080/17565529.2022.2074349

Adaptive responses: the effects of temperature levels on residential electricity use in China
Teng et al., Climatic Change, Open Access 10.1007/s10584-022-03374-3

Integrated water balance and water quality management under future climate change and population growth: a case study of Upper Litani Basin, Lebanon
Abou Slaymane & Soliman Soliman, Climatic Change, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-022-03385-0

Climate change effects on riverbank erosion Bait community flood-prone area of Punjab, Pakistan: an application of livelihood vulnerability index
Ahmad et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability, 10.1007/s10668-022-02440-1

Bringing resilience-thinking into water governance: Two illustrative case studies from South Africa and Cambodia
Fallon et al., Global Environmental Change, Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102542

A systematic overview of the barriers to building climate adaptation of cultural and natural heritage sites in polar regions
Aktürk, Environmental Science & Policy, Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2022.05.016

Flood risk from geophysical and hydroclimatic hazards: an essential integration for disaster risk management and climate change adaptation in the coastal zone
Cienfuegos, Natural Hazards, 10.1007/s11069-022-05405-9

Assessing protected area vulnerability to climate change in a case study of South African national parks
Coldrey et al., Conservation Biology, 10.1111/cobi.13941

Climate change impacts on human health

Extreme temperatures and respiratory mortality in the capital cities at high latitudes in Northeast China
Ma et al., Urban Climate, 10.1016/j.uclim.2022.101206

Health trade-offs in pursuit of livelihood security: exploring the intersection of climate, migration and health from the perspective of Mekong Delta migrants in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Ngo et al., Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2022.2077691

Climate change & geopolitics

Reconciling climate change leadership with resource nationalism and regional vulnerabilities: a case-study of Kazakhstan
Poberezhskaya & Danilova, Environmental Politics, Open Access pdf 10.1080/09644016.2021.1920768

Quantifying the influence of climate variability on armed conflict in Africa, 2000–2015
Wang et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability, Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10668-022-02436-x

Other

Topography-Mediated Transport of Warm Deep Water across the Continental Shelf Slope, East Antarctica
Liu et al., Journal of Physical Oceanography, 10.1175/jpo-d-22-0023.1

IPCC emission scenarios: How did critiques affect their quality and relevance 1990–2022?
Pedersen et al., Global Environmental Change, Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102538

Recent Hadley Circulation Strengthening: A Trend or Multidecadal Variability?
Dijkstra, Nonlinear Climate Dynamics, Open Access 10.1017/cbo9781139034135.010

Land management explains the contrasting greening pattern across China–Russia border based on Paired Land Use Experiment approach
Chen et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 10.1029/2021jg006659

Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

Transforming environmental research to avoid tragedy
Turnhout & Lahsen , Climate and Development, Open Access 10.1080/17565529.2022.2062287

Don’t gloss over social science! a response to: Glavovic et al. (2021) ‘the tragedy of climate change science’
Cologna & Oreskes, Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2022.2076647

Fighting climate change
Venkataraman, SSRN Electronic Journal, Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.3837541

Northern wildlife feels the heat
Wilson, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-022-01378-6

Current Challenges in Climate and Weather Research and Future Directions
Lin et al., Atmosphere, 10.1080/07055900.2022.2079473

Book reviews

A global view on sustainability: a review of the book “Sustainability perspectives: science, policy and practice”
Stadtländer, Environment, Development and Sustainability, Open Access 10.1007/s10668-022-02449-6

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

White House Action Plan on Global Water Security, White House 

Recognizing that global water security is essential to U.S. national security, the Action Plan lays out an innovative, whole-of-government approach to the challenge of water security. It identifies key pillars of this approach that address the full scope of global water issues and will mobilize departments and agencies around concrete actions to achieve the White House’s vision of a water-secure world. The Action Plan will be operationalized through the U.S. Global Water Strategy (GWS), mandated by the Congress in the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2014; the next revision of the GWS will be submitted to the Congress in early fall 2022 as directed. The approach emphasizes the need to explicitly link water security to national security to improve global resilience; elevate data-driven methods; use resources more efficiently; and work in partnership with states, Tribes, local governments, and Indigenous peoples, as well as non-governmental entities including the private sector.

Understanding Power Systems, Protection in the Clean Energy Future, Denholm and Kroposki, National Renewable Energy Laboratory 

Wind power, solar photovoltaics (PV), and battery energy storage are often referred to as inverter-based resources (IBRs), which means they rely on power electronics (inverters) to generate grid-compatible electricity. This is unlike the fossil, nuclear, and hydroelectric plants that use spinning synchronous generators that have provided nearly all U.S. electricity until recently. Synchronous generators can inherently provide several services used to maintain a safe and stable grid. And as they are replaced with IBRs, it becomes important to understand how these services can be provided. One of these services is fault current, or the ability to inject large amounts of current during a short circuit. This current can easily be detected with low-cost equipment such as circuit breakers. IBRs do not inherently produce large amounts of fault current, and this may eventually require finding alternative sources of fault current or new system protection schemes. The report provides a brief overview of system protection and fault current in in maintaining a safe power system. It describes why alternative approaches may be needed with increasing deployment of wind and solar generation, and it addresses various approaches to maintaining system protection in the evolving grid.

Drought Resilience Interagency Working Group 1-Year Summary Report, White House 

In April 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration launched the Drought Resilience Interagency Working Group (IWG) to address worsening drought conditions in the United States and to support farmers, ranchers, Tribes, and communities affected by ongoing water shortages. The report provides a brief summary of on-going and planned drought resilience activities.

The Watershed Framework, Water Solutions Network 

Guided by broad engagement from statewide land and water leaders in California, the Framework charts a collaborative cross-sector, watershed scale path toward climate resilience. The effort envisions a bold future where humans succeed at handling our most pressing climate challenges. The Framework suggests activities that will move organizations towards that vision. The Framework is designed to build individual, local, and watershed-wide skills and capacity to, first, center equity, and then to break down silos and develop understanding and solutions that work with and restore our natural systems.

Fidelity’s Fossil Fuel Problem. How One of the World’s Top Asset Managers Stays Loyal to Harmful, Dirty Energy, Seidman et al., The Public Accountability Initiative and the Action Center on Race & the Economy

Fidelity Investments is one of the biggest asset managers in the world. By many accounts, it ranks third behind BlackRock and Vanguard in terms of total assets under management. Like other asset managers, Fidelity has made gestures around climate issues, but shareholders and stakeholders remain skeptical of the firm’s climate commitments. Moreover, while Fidelity puts out various gestures toward “engaging with investors about diversity and inclusion” and “investing for social good,” including around what they frame as “social issues, like racial justice or economic inequality,” the firm’s commanding heights of power are closely tied to, and profiting from, fossil fuel operations that have had documented harmful impacts on Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities. Fidelity’s lagging on climate and environmental justice issues comes as less of a surprise given its extremely close - but largely unscrutinized ties to the fossil fuel industry, specifically at the heights of the firm’s ownership and governance.

A Decade of Successes Against Fossil Fuel Export Projects in Cascadia, Emily Moore, Sightline Institute

Fossil fuel executives from dozens of companies, including Kinder Morgan, Pembina Pipeline Corporation, and Enbridge, once seemed to be salivating over the idea of exporting massive quantities of gas, oil, and coal from the Cascadia coast. The hydrocarbon industry envisioned the region as a way station along a path that started at coal mines in Montana and Wyoming, tar sands in Alberta, oil wells in North Dakota, and fracked gas fields in British Columbia, and that continued beyond Cascadia to traverse the Pacific Ocean before reaching markets in Asia. But local communities, Tribes, environmentalists, and local governments rejected calls to turn Cascadia into a fossil fuel export terminal. They protested projects’ abrogation of Indigenous sovereignty, the risk of oil spills and damage to sensitive ecosystems, the pollution spewing from coal trains, the climate harms of extracting, transporting, and burning hydrocarbons, and the safety hazards of transporting flammable fuels through populated areas. And for the most part, they’ve won.

State of the Global Climate 2021, World Meteorological Organization 

The global mean temperature in 2021 was around 1.11 ± 0.13 °C above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial average. This is less warm than some recent years due to the influence of La Niña conditions at the start and end of the year. The most recent seven years, 2015 to 2021, were the seven warmest years on record. Global mean sea level reached a new record high in 2021, rising an average of 4.5 mm per year over the period 2013–2021. Exceptional heatwaves broke records across western North America and the Mediterranean. Death Valley, California reached 54.4 °C on 9 July, equaling a similar 2020 value as the highest recorded in the world since at least the 19302, and Syracuse in Sicily reached 48.4 °C.

2022 Hurricane Outlooks and 2021 Hurricane Season Review, Eva Lipiec, Congressional Research Service

In May 2022, NOAA issued its initial 2022 Atlantic hurricane outlook indicating a 65% likelihood of an above-normal season rather than a near- (25%) or below-normal season (10%) (see next reference).

NOAA predicts above-normal 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

Forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center are predicting above-average hurricane activity this year — which would make it the seventh consecutive above-average hurricane season. NOAA’s outlook for the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, which extends from June 1 to November 30, predicts a 65% chance of an above-normal season, a 25% chance of a near-normal season and a 10% chance of a below-normal season.

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Obtaining articles without journal subscriptions

We know it's frustrating that many articles we cite here are not free to read. One-off paid access fees are generally astronomically priced, suitable for such as "On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light"  but not as a gamble on unknowns. With a median world income of US$ 9,373, for most of us US$ 42 is significant money to wager on an article's relevance and importance. 

• Here's an excellent collection of tips and techniques for obtaining articles, legally.

• Unpaywall offers a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that automatically indicates when an article is freely accessible and provides immediate access without further trouble. Unpaywall is also unscammy, works well, is itself offered free to use. The organizers (a legitimate nonprofit) report about a 50% success rate

• The weekly New Research catch is checked against the Unpaywall database with accessible items being flagged. Especially for just-published articles this mechansim may fail. If you're interested in an article title and it is not listed here as "open access," be sure to check the link anyway. 

How is New Research assembled?

Most articles appearing here are found via  RSS feeds from journal publishers, filtered by search terms to produce raw output for assessment of relevance. 

Relevant articles are then queried against the Unpaywall database, to identify open access articles and expose useful metadata for articles appearing in the database. 

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. 

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Journals covered

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