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Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49, 2019
Posted on 11 December 2019 by Doug Bostrom
Our crowdfunding campaign to complete development of the Cranky Uncle game for improving our climate cognition reached its initial goal of $15,000 in only 7 days. We've activated our first stretch goal, to port the app to Android. You can help by contributing right now while you're thinking about it! To all those who've already contributed, a massive Thank You!
Greenland mass balance refined by IMBIE
The IMBIE team have published a new analysis, Mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2018. This improved, more comprehensive study finds loss of ice from Greenland at the upper end of IPCC assumptions. The loss is due to subaerial surface melting and and warmer waters touching certain parts of the periphery of Greenland, in particular the terminus of Jakobshavn Isbræ. The implication is routine flooding or loss of living space for another 40 million or so persons by the end of this century, up to ~400 million from the previously estimated 360 million. The paper is open access courtesy of the authors; follow links here rather than trying to access via Nature. [Error.This is an important paper especially when taken alongside Mouginot et al 2019. We're seeking a copy.]
NOAA 2019 Arctic Report Card
NOAA has released the 2019 Arctic Report Card. Our grades are not good.
Burgeoning reasons for not being a pantomime ostrich
The "Humans dealing with our global warming" section of our weekly research harvest illustrates how global warming unpacks into myriad challenges, all of which need to be addressed lest we end up with an even larger collection of unnecessary bad outcomes. Jenkins et al take a look at spent nuclear fuel repositories in the United States in Unmanaged climate risks to spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants: The case of sea-level rise. As with the rest of such investigations into warming knock-on effects, this paper helps to illustrate future costs being imposed on us by politicians thwarting construction of perspicacious policy while expediently posing as climate science deniers. It would be better if these artistes dropped their acts and spoke as adult-adult to their constituencies. From the abstract:
A geospatial analysis of coastal sites shows that with six feet of sea-level rise, seven spent fuel sites will be juxtaposed by seawater. Of those, three will be near or completely surrounded by water, and should be considered a priority for mitigation: Humboldt Bay (California), Turkey Point (Florida), and Crystal River (Florida). To ensure policy-makers manage such climate risks, a risk management approach is proposed. Further, we recommend that policy-makers 1) transfer overdue spent fuel from cooling pools to dry casks, particularly where located in high risk sites; 2) develop a long-term and comprehensive storage plan that is less vulnerable to climate change; and 3) encourage international nuclear treaties and standards to take climate change into account.
Housekeeping
For people without academic or other rare library privileges it's quite annoying to be intrigued by an article link here and then be thwarted by a publisher fee. The system smacks a bit of alchemists and secret writing but in part it's legacy effects of old publication modes and— to be fair— accounting for some actual costs. Find a link below to a useful collection of advice for obtaining papers in this and subsequent editions of SkS research news, at Obtaining legal copies of "paywalled" articles
Skeptical Science is all about communicating climate change, particularly when and where prior attitudes and beliefs are clouding the picture. Our society's capacity to deal with climate change is as much a communications and cognitive psychology problem as it is a matter of physical science, technology and engineering. In respect of this and further sorting the weekly stew of publications into separate bowls, find a new division Climate change communications and cognition below.
Over the past couple of weeks we've pushed posting of research news back a day, in deference to the Cranky Uncle campaign. This move only confirmed an interesting fact: publishing on Tuesdays often left important papers announced later on Monday unaddressed for an entire week. RN will henceforth appear regularly on Wednesday.
89 Articles:
Physical science of global warming
Potential problems measuring climate sensitivity from the historical record
Changes in Convective Available Potential Energy and Convective Inhibition Under Global Warming
Evidence against a long-term control on Earth climate by Galactic Cosmic Ray Flux
Observations and observational methods of global warming and effects
Mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2018
Countrywide climate features during recorded climate-related disasters (open access)
Reduction in surface climate change achieved by the 1987 Montreal Protocol
Modeling and simulation of global warming & global warming effects
Probable maximum precipitation in a warming climate over North America in CanRCM4 and CRCM5
Climate models disagree on the sign of total radiative feedback in the Arctic (open access)
Dynamical Downscaling of Future Hydrographic Changes over the Northwest Atlantic Ocean
Estimating the Effective Radiative Forcing of Contrail Cirrus
Regionalization of anthropogenically forced changes in 3 hourly extreme precipitation over Europe
Latitudinal heterogeneity and hotspots of uncertainty in projected extreme precipitation
Humans dealing with our global warming
Persistent fossil fuel growth threatens the Paris Agreement and planetary health
Changing risks of simultaneous global breadbasket failure
Climate change risks and adaptation: new indicators for Mediterranean viticulture
Unmanaged climate risks to spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants: The case of sea-level rise
Simulating combined SO2 and CO2 capture from combustion flue gas
Climate variability reduces employment in New England fisheries (open access)
Long-run trend in agricultural yield and climatic factors in Europe (open access)
Changing yields in the Central United States under climate and technological change
Carbon dioxide emissions continue to grow amidst slowly emerging climate policies
Facilitating International Collaboration on Climate Change Research (open access)
Hydropower potential in the Kabul River under climate change scenarios in the XXI century
Large increase in yield is predicted by wheat ideotypes for Europe under future climate
Taxing Consumption to Mitigate Carbon Leakage
Persistence of the high solar potential in Africa in a changing climate
Prompt active restoration of peatlands substantially reduces climate impact
Tracking banking in the Western Climate Initiative cap-and-trade program
Climate change communications and cognition
Climate change beliefs shape the interpretation of forest fire events
Event attribution and partisanship shape local discussion of climate change after extreme weather
Does Public Knowledge of Climate Change Really Matter in Australia?* (open access)
Biology and global warming
Simulated climate change decreases nutrient resorption from senescing leaves
Climate change undermines the global functioning of marine food webs
Halving sunlight reveals no carbon limitation of aboveground biomass production in alpine grassland
Global divergent responses of primary productivity to water, energy, and CO 2
Decadal changes in masting behaviour of oak trees with rising temperature
Shared morphological consequences of global warming in North American migratory birds
GHG sources and sinks, flux
Advancing scientific understanding of the global methane budget in support of the Paris Agreement
The spatiotemporal dynamics of the sources and sinks of CO2 in the global coastal ocean
Greenhouse gas emissions from windrow composting of organic wastes: Patterns and emissions factors
Other
Illustrative Analysis of Probabilistic Sea-Level Rise Hazard
Causes of climate change over the historical record
Informed opinion and nudges
Global change biology: A primer
Understanding plant communities of the future requires filling knowledge gaps
NOAA 2019 Arctic Report Card Executive Summary
NOAA 2019 Arctic Report Card Full Report
Obtaining legal copies of "paywalled" articles
We know it's frustrating that many articles we cite here are not free to read. Here's an excellent collection of tips and techniques for obtaining articles, legally.
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.
A list of journals we cover may be found here. We welcome pointers to omissions, new journals etc.
The previous edition of Skeptical Science New Research may be found here.
The link below the Greenland headline leads to a paper about the Antarctic, not about Greenland.
Thanks Jeff. Sadly due to mental fragmentation I twice found what I thought were author-supplied copies of the paper. Drawing a blank— have contacted IMBIE to see if they can cough an accepted submission version or whatever.
Check your email