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The growing concerns about the Earth’s climate system and the increasing importance of saving raw materials are critical challenges that supply chain members mostly face, leading companies to susta...

Climate change is a “super wicked” problem. Policy regulation and research suggest that a systemic approach is needed and that education is a key element of the necessary multi-disciplinary, transformative, and holistic solutions. Higher education institutions can play a crucial role in facilitating mitigation and adaptation by enabling and empowering young generations to act. This article presents the work of Montanuniversität Leoben Resources Innovation Center (MUL RIC) in climate education actions, within the framework of EIT Climate-KIC. It gives insights from the largest summer school regarding climate system innovation in the EU—“The Journey”, which has been co-organized by MUL RIC since 2018. In this contribution, The Journey is shown as an example of a systemic approach applied to higher education as a driver of climate solutions. It also discusses how it relates to EU policy and to recommendations of higher education for climate change.

Climate change due to increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is one of the most pressing issues facing society on a global scale. The growth of GHG emissions between 2000 and 2010 was higher than in each of the previous three decades, and each of the past four decades has been successively warmer than any preceding decades since 1850. Continued GHG emissions will cause further warming and changes in the climate system. Climate change affects livestock production in multiple ways, both directly and indirectly. Many of the impacts on the livestock sector result from increasing frequency and magnitude of weather and climate extremes such as droughts, flash floods, untimely rains, frost, hail and severe storms. This article describes some of the most vulnerable disaster communities in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe and South America. It then describes the importance of meteorological information provided by national Meteorological and Hydrological Services to help Veterinary Services support sustainable management of livestock in vulnerable pastoral communities.

While climate models have rapidly advanced in sophistication over recent decades, they lack dynamic representation of human behavior and social systems despite strong feedbacks between social processes and climate. The impacts of climate change alter perceptions of risk and emissions behavior that, in turn, influence the rate and magnitude of climate change. Addressing this deficiency in climate models requires a substantial interdisciplinary effort to couple models of climate and human behavior. We suggest a multi-model approach that considers a range of theories and implementations of human behavior and social systems, similar to the multi-model approach that has been used to explore the physical climate system. We describe the importance of linking social factors with climate processes and identify four priorities essential to advancing the development of coupled social-climate models.

Machine learning methods have recently created high expectations in the climate modelling context in view of addressing climate change, but they are often considered as non-physics-based ‘black boxes’ that may not provide any understanding. However, in many ways, understanding seems indispensable to appropriately evaluate climate models and to build confidence in climate projections. Relying on two case studies, we compare how machine learning and standard statistical techniques affect our ability to understand the climate system. For that purpose, we put five evaluative criteria of understanding to work: intelligibility, representational accuracy, empirical accuracy, coherence with background knowledge, and assessment of the domain of validity. We argue that the two families of methods are part of the same continuum where these various criteria of understanding come in degrees, and that therefore machine learning methods do not necessarily constitute a radical departure from standard statistical tools, as far as understanding is concerned.

Greenhouse gases play a vital role in the climate system by absorbing the longwave infrared radiation and cause warming of the earth’s atmosphere. Therefore, it is important to be aware of the spat...

Climate change and variability remain a pressing global challenge directly and indirectly affecting human health. This has increased the demand for usable climate information for adaptation to climate related health challenges and for building effective response strategies. Climate services for health can help to enhance human well-being and in extreme cases can save human lives by reducing morbidity and mortality. Very little has been done and understood about how we can enhance climate services for health. The main aim of this perspective article is to bring empirical evidence, conceptual clarity and interdisciplinary approaches to policy makers and practitioners dealing with this crucial issue. The article explores the application of a holistic, broadly termed ‘systems’ approach to climate services for health in the context of adaptation and resilience. It uses illustrative examples from Ethiopia, Bhutan and Germany to demonstrate and elaborate the application and merits of the systems approach to emerging climate services for health. The systems approach improves conceptual thinking about climate services for health. In addition, it is a valuable analytical framework that unifies the diverse stakeholders involved in health adaptation and resilience planning, interventions and policy making. This perspective article fills in the existing gaps in scientific literature on the subject and enhances conceptualisation of climate services for health. It makes suggestions to improve understanding of climate services for health.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Montreal Protocol) can be further strengthened to control ozone-depleting substances and hydrofluorocarbons used as feedstocks to provide additional protection of the stratospheric ozone layer and the climate system while also mitigating plastics pollution. The feedstock exemptions were premised on the assumption that feedstocks presented an insignificant threat to the environment; experience has shown that this is incorrect. Through its adjustment procedures, the Montreal Protocol can narrow the scope of feedstock exemptions to reduce inadvertent and unauthorized emissions while continuing to exempt production of feedstocks for time-limited, essential uses. This upstream approach can be an effective and efficient complement to other efforts to reduce plastic pollution. Existing mechanisms in the Montreal Protocol such as the Assessment Panels and national implementation strategies can guide the choice of environmentally superior substitutes for feedstock-derived plastics. This paper provides a framework for policy makers, industries, and civil society to consider how stronger actions under the Montreal Protocol can complement other chemical and environmental treaties.

Climate plays an important role for mankind. It determines the conditions in which societies can develop as well as the resources available to them such as water and biological inputs (agriculture, forests, livestock). However, climate is a complex system. It is the result of interactions not only between the atmosphere, the oceans, landmasses and ice but also the biosphere: the living world. It varies depending on the timescale, and different mechanisms may come into play at different scales. The aim of this book is to show how a multi-disciplinary scientific community can now reconstruct, with increasing accuracy, the major features of past climates and discover how they are regulated by the geological evolution, geochemistry, physics and biology of our living planet, Earth.

Vb cyclones are major drivers of extreme precipitation and floods in the study area of hydrological Bavaria (Germany). When assessing climate change impacts on Vb cyclones, internal variability of the climate system is an important underlying uncertainty. Here, we employ a 50-member single-model initial-condition large ensemble of a regional climate model to study climate variability and forced change on Vb cyclones. An artificial neural network detects cutoff lows over central Europe, which are associated with extreme precipitation Vb cyclones. Thus, machine learning filters the large ensemble prior to cyclone tracking. Our results show a striking change in Vb seasonality with a strong decrease of Vb cyclones in summer (−52%) and a large increase in spring (+73%) under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5. This change exceeds the noise of internal variability and leads to a peak shift from summer to spring. Additionally, we show significant increases in the daily precipitation intensity during Vb cyclones in all seasons.

Many developing nations are faced with severe food insecurity partly because of their overdependence on rainfed agriculture. In Kenya, climate system variations that impact staple food crops like m...

Future projections of evapotranspiration (ET) are of critical importance for agricultural and freshwater management and for predicting land–atmosphere feedbacks on the climate system. However, ET from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) simulations exhibits substantial biases, bolstering little confidence in future ET projections. Despite poor predictive skill and large bias of ET from the global climate models, the information content necessary to calculate ET offline is available in the models’ archived outputs: temperature T, water vapor pressure e, atmospheric pressure P, and surface net radiation R. A relatively simple three-source energy balance model [Penman–Monteith (PM)], along with the mean annual cycle of remotely sensed vegetation properties, can then be used to reconstruct ET with a substantially reduced bias relative to in situ turbulent heat flux measurements. This methodology is used here to reconstruct ET projections from 2006 through 2100 over North America using output from selected CMIP5 models and to attribute projected ET trends to specific atmospheric controls. CMIP5 ET exhibits substantial bias in annual ET relative to in situ flux measurements across North America (38%–73%; 2006–15), but ET reconstructed from the CMIP5 meteorology with the PM method greatly reduces this bias (−8% to +14%). Present-day North American ET is more sensitive to changes in atmospheric demand for ET (temperature and water vapor pressure) than energy limitation (net radiation), and to a lesser extent vegetation properties (leaf area index). Accordingly, ET is projected to increase 0.26–0.87 mm yr−1 yr−1 over North America through 2100 driven primarily by trends in temperature.

It is so true that climate change becomes the common concern of humankind which does not adversely affect any individual country only, but its effects also threaten the global community as a whole. As provided by international framework, climate change should be mitigated with the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a safe and appropriate level. Although Thailand is not one of industrialized countries contributed to greenhouse gases emissions, it should take actions to cooperate with those countries to comply with such international framework. This article focuses on exploring and examining Thailand’s policy and law adopted to reduce greenhouse gases emissions in order to prove how Thailand is highly potential to comply and cooperate with the global community. This will reflect the substantial creation of low carbon society in Thailand where Thai people will be finally secured against the dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

There is extensive evidence showing that the climate system is warming and human behavior is linked to the change. Despite increasing attempts to integrate climate change into school curricula, tea...

There is a possible connection between energy technologies and climate change. The set point and basis for the following discussion are: there is climate change and there are considerations to deliberately and artificially influence it. In the context of pro-active interventions in the climate system there are two fundamentally different technological approaches, which will be explained in detail: causal removal technologies and technologies for symptomatic compensation of climate change. What will be the consequences of such acts? What are the possibilities and associated risks? How do physical processes look like in this context? What are the ethical aspects touched upon?

Reconstruction and explanation of past climate evolution using proxy records is the essence of paleoclimatology. In this study, we use dimensional analysis and concepts of similarity to recognize theoretical limits of such forensic inquiries. Specifically, we demonstrate that incomplete similarity in the dynamical ice-climate system implies the absence of physical similarity in conglomerate similarity parameters. It means that major events of the past such as, for example, the middle-Pleistocene transition could have been produced by different physical processes, and, therefore, the task of disambiguation of the historical paleo-records may be fundamentally difficult, if not impossible. It also means that any future scenario may not have a unique cause and, in this sense, the orbital time-scale future may be to some extent insensitive to specific physical circumstances.

For the purpose of identifying the key processes and sectors involved in the interaction between Earth and socio-economic systems, we review existing studies on those processes/sectors through which the climate impacts socio-economic systems, which then in turn affect the climate. For each process/sector, we review the direct physical and ecological impacts and, if available, the impact on the economy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Based on this review, land sector is identified as the process with the most significant impact on GHG emissions, while labor productivity has the largest impact on the gross domestic product (GDP). On the other hand, the energy sector, due to the increase in the demand for cooling, will have increased GHG emissions. Water resources, sea level rise, natural disasters, ecosystem services, and diseases also show the potential to have a significant influence on GHG emissions and GDP, although for most of these, a large effect was reported only by a limited number of studies. As a result, more studies are required to verify their influence in terms of feedbacks to the climate. In addition, although the economic damage arising from migration and conflict is uncertain, they should be treated as potentially damaging processes.

Forecasting the formation and development of clouds is a central element of modern weather forecasting systems. Incorrect clouds forecasts can lead to major uncertainty in the overall accuracy of weather forecasts due to their intrinsic role in the Earth's climate system. Few studies have tackled this challenging problem from a machine learning point-of-view due to a shortage of high-resolution datasets with many historical observations globally. In this paper, we present a novel satellite-based dataset called ``CloudCast''. It consists of 70,080 images with 10 different cloud types for multiple layers of the atmosphere annotated on a pixel level. The spatial resolution of the dataset is 928 x 1530 pixels (3x3 km per pixel) with 15-min intervals between frames for the period 2017-01-01 to 2018-12-31. All frames are centered and projected over Europe. To supplement the dataset, we conduct an evaluation study with current state-of-the-art video prediction methods such as convolutional long short-term memory networks, generative adversarial networks, and optical flow-based extrapolation methods. As the evaluation of video prediction is difficult in practice, we aim for a thorough evaluation in the spatial and temporal domain. Our benchmark models show promising results but with ample room for improvement. This is the first publicly available global-scale dataset with high-resolution cloud types on a high temporal granularity to the authors' best knowledge., Comment: For the novel dataset, see https://vision.eng.au.dk/cloudcast-dataset/

The objectives of the present study are to examine the consequences of increasing temperatures in the Artic and provide policy recommendations. We present a review of the connections between climate indicators and how these are amplified in the Arctic region. This has a direct effect in distant regions around the world. Increasing temperatures have direct consequences in many ecosystems ranging from the disruption of phytoplankton communities, ice-albedo feedbacks in the retreat of sea ice, sea rising levels and increasing wind induced coastal upwelling. Thanks to state-of-the-art technologies researchers can extract ecosystem related data and understand historical changes to visualize future changing patterns. The latter will serve to illustrate economic impacts for all the above-mentioned issues which not only affect the Arctic. The Arctic mirrors what the rest of the world could experience in the future if we do not achieve the temperature reduction needed. For this reason, the goal of this paper is to connect the climate system with current economic schemes to provide distinctive policy recommendations to support the road towards carbon negative economies.

Aerosols are a critical component of the climate system and a risk to human health. Here, the lockdown response to the coronavirus outbreak is used to analyse effects of dramatic reduction in anthropogenic aerosol sources on satellite-retrieved aerosol optical depth (AOD). A machine learning model is applied to estimate daily AOD during the initial lockdown in China in early 2020. The model uses information on aerosol climatology, geography and meteorological conditions, and explains 69% of the day-to-day AOD variability. A comparison of model-expected and observed AOD shows that no clear, systematic decrease in AOD is apparent during the lockdown in China. During March 2020, regional AOD is observed to be significantly lower than expected by the machine learning model in some coastal regions of the North China Plains and extending to the Korean peninsula. While this may possibly indicate a small lockdown effect on regional AOD, and potentially pointing trans-boundary effects of the lockdown measures, due to uncertainties associated with the method and the limited sample sizes, this AOD decrease cannot be unequivocally attributed to reduced anthropogenic emissions. Climatologically expected AOD is compared to a weather-adjusted expectation of AOD, indicating that meteorological influences have acted to significantly increase AOD during this time, in agreement with recent literature. The findings highlight the complexity of aerosol variability and the challenges of observation-based attribution of columnar aerosol changes.

Climate models are sophisticated computer programs that simulate the mathematical equations representing the known physics of the climate system, which includes the atmosphere, ocean, land surface and ice. Climate models are used for a variety of purposes from studying the dynamics, interactions and feedbacks in the climate system, quantifying the climate variability in the past and present, to predicting and projecting future climate change. The overall objective of ARCPATH is to combine improved regional climate predictions with enhanced understanding of environmental, societal, and economic interactions in order to supply new knowledge on potential “pathways to action”. In ARCPATH climate modelling is one of the most important methods applied to understand how climate in the Arctic affects, and is affected by, the rest of the global climate system. Here we introduce the basic concept of climate modelling with examples from the two models used in the ARCPARTH project: the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM) and the European Earth System Model (EC-Earth).

IPCC Working Group I has long employed socioeconomic scenarios, based on discrete storylines, to sample the uncertainty in future forcing of the climate system, but analogous scenarios to sample the uncertainty in the global climate response have not been employed. Here, we argue that to enable development of robust climate policies this gap should be addressed, and we propose a simple methodology.

Committed warming describes how much future warming can be expected from historical emissions due to inertia in the climate system. It is usually defined in terms of the level of warming above the present for an abrupt halt of emissions. Owing to socioeconomic constraints, this situation is unlikely, so we focus on the committed warming from present-day fossil fuel assets. Here we show that if carbon-intensive infrastructure is phased out at the end of its design lifetime from the end of 2018, there is a 64% chance that peak global mean temperature rise remains below 1.5 °C. Delaying mitigation until 2030 considerably reduces the likelihood that 1.5 °C would be attainable even if the rate of fossil fuel retirement was accelerated. Although the challenges laid out by the Paris Agreement are daunting, we indicate 1.5 °C remains possible and is attainable with ambitious and immediate emission reduction across all sectors., Power plants, vehicles and industry will continue to produce emissions for as long as they are used. Here, the authors show that retiring existing fossil fuel infrastructure at the end of its expected lifetime provides a good chance that the 1.5 °C Paris Agreement target can still be met.

Geoengineering, the deliberate modification of the climate system, is a proposed set of techniques to counter some of the effects of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW; Shepherd, 2009). Geoengineeri...

The long-standing expectation that poleward shifts of the midlatitude jet under global warming will lead to poleward shifts of clouds and a positive radiative feedback on the climate system has been shown to be misguided by several recent studies. On interannual time scales, free-tropospheric clouds are observed to shift along with the jet, but low clouds increase across a broad expanse of the North Pacific Ocean basin, resulting in negligible changes in total cloud fraction and top-of-atmosphere radiation. Here it is shown that this low-cloud response is consistent across eight independent satellite-derived cloud products. Using multiple linear regression, it is demonstrated that the spatial pattern and magnitude of the low-cloud-coverage response is primarily driven by anomalous surface temperature advection. In the eastern North Pacific, anomalous cold advection by anomalous northerly surface winds enhances sensible and latent heat fluxes from the ocean into the boundary layer, resulting in large increases in low-cloud coverage. Local increases in low-level stability make a smaller contribution to this low-cloud increase. Despite closely capturing the observed response of large-scale meteorology to jet shifts, global climate models largely fail to capture the observed response of clouds and radiation to interannual jet shifts because they systematically underestimate how sensitive low clouds are to surface temperature advection, and to a lesser extent, low-level stability. More realistic model simulations of cloud–radiation–jet interactions require that parameterizations more accurately capture the sensitivity of low clouds to surface temperature advection.

31 Pags.- 8 Figs., This review examines the role of the atmospheric evaporative demand (AED) in drought. AED is a complex concept and here we discuss possible AED definitions, the subsequent metrics to measure and estimate AED, and the different physical drivers that control it. The complex influence of AED on meteorological, environmental/agricultural and hydrological droughts is discussed, stressing the important spatial differences related to the climatological conditions. Likewise, AED influence on drought has implications regarding how different drought metrics consider AED in their attempts to quantify drought severity. Throughout the article, we assess literature findings with respect to: (a) recent drought trends and future projections; (b) the several uncertainties related to data availability; (c) the sensitivity of current drought metrics to AED; and (d) possible roles that both the radiative and physiological effects of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations may play as we progress into the future. All these issues preclude identifying a simple effect of the AED on drought severity. Rather it calls for different evaluations of drought impacts and trends under future climate scenarios, considering the complex feedbacks governing the climate system., Spanish Commission of Science and Technology and FEDER. Grant Numbers: PCIN‐2015‐220, CGL2017‐82216‐R, PCI2019‐103631 H2020 European Research Council. Grant Number: 715254 (DRY‐2‐DRY) WaterWorks 2014. Grant Number: IMDROFLOOD Department of Science and Technology of Qinghai Province. Grant Number: 2019‐SF‐A4 National Science Foundation of China. Grant Number: 41890821 European Union. Grant Number: 690462 (INDECIS) JPI‐Climate (AXIS). Grant Number: CROSSDRO

Sea level rise is a direct result of anthropogenic climate change, the disruption of the climate system by the burning of fossil fuels. Modern sea level rise can be understood through the functional ontology of the Old Testament. The creation account of Genesis 1 represents a demythologized account of God constraining chaos into an ordered system. The Noahic flood of Genesis 6–8 is the result of human sin releasing the forces of chaos to undo the ordering of creation. This language is taken up in the rest of the Old Testament to describe acts of judgment against Israel's covenant violations. Modern sea level rise may be understood as the release of chaos due to a violation of our role as image of God to represent the God of order to the rest of creation.

I sought to review the contributions of recent literature and prior foundational papers to our understanding of drought and fire. In this review, I summarize recent literature on drought and fire in the western USA and discuss research directions that may increase the utility of that body of work for twenty-first century application. I then describe gaps in the synthetic knowledge of drought-driven fire in managed ecosystems and use concepts from use-inspired research to describe potentially useful extensions of current work. Fire responses to climate, and specifically various kinds of drought, are clear, but vary widely with fuel responses to surplus water and drought at different timescales. Ecological and physical factors interact with human management and ignitions to create fire regime and landscape trajectories that challenge prediction. The mechanisms by which the climate system affects regional droughts and how they translate to fire in the western USA need more attention to accelerate both forecasting and adaptation. However, projections of future fire activity under climate change will require integrated advances on both fronts to achieve decision-relevant modeling. Concepts from transdisciplinary research and coupled human-natural systems can help frame strategic work to address fire in a changing world.

Due to an uncontrolled indoor climate or a poorly designed climate system, the environmental conditions in historical buildings are often suboptimal for the preservation of works of art. This is also the case for Jan and Hubert Van Eyck's Ghent altarpiece, which is located in one of the chapels of the Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. Years of poor conservation conditions have led to an urgent conservation treatment in 2010 and a conservation and restoration campaign that started in 2012 and will continue through 2019. In order to contribute to a better understanding of the state of preservation of the altarpiece and the display conditions and to assess damage risks related to the current location, this paper presents the results of a two-year monitoring campaign of the climate conditions in the glass cage in the Saint Bavo Cathedral in which the altarpiece is displayed. Based on the results of the first year, measures were taken to improve the indoor climate, including the installation of a local heating and humidification system. These new conditions were monitored during the second year of the measurement campaign and are representative for the display conditions today. The results of the second year showed that exposure to high humidity's was effectively reduced but conditions with large short-term humidity variations still occurred. However, given a correct management of the new heating and humidification systems, risks for mechanical damage may be largely eliminated.

In the face of increasingly clear climate-change impacts and continued inadequacy of efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and adapt to ongoing climate changes, increasing attention has been directed to geoengineering: deliberate large-scale interventions in the Earth’s climate system to moderate global warming. Such interventions could reduce risks in novel ways, but are controversial because they present an uncertain, high-stakes mix of potential benefits and risks. Solar geoengineering poses especially acute international governance needs, particularly in the case of potential future demands to use it. Many aspects of geoengineering present deep, ill-structured uncertainties that carry high stakes for near-term decisions, and are thus suitable for exploration through scenarios. This collection of papers reports on a major scenario exercise examining governance challenges and potential responses for solar geoengineering, held at the International Summer School on Geoengineering Governance in Banff, Canada in 2019. This opening paper introduces geoengineering and the concerns it raises, particularly as they pertain to governance; reviews the design and use of scenario exercises to inform decisions under uncertainty, including their prior uses related to climate change and geoengineering; and outlines the aims, design, and process of this scenario exercise.

Consensus has been building in recent decades that human activities are contributing to substantial modification of the Earth's climate system, leading to growing interest in the detection and asse...

Might we read the changing work of literary genre as a signature of the Holocene–Anthropocene transition, a symbolic parallel to the lithostratigraphic markers sought by geologists? I argue that the rise and fall of rural descriptive poetry in Britain may index an early but formative phase of this epochal transition. Charlotte Smith’s “Beachy Head” (1807) is my example of a late Holocene poetics closely attuned to the planetary forces energizing capitalism as a world ecology but largely unable to represent, except in the negative, the emergence of fossil capitalism. Internalized in the form of “Beachy Head,” I suggest, is a pre-thermodynamic conception of the intertwinement of planetary and socio-historical forces, a model of energy exchange that takes as its paradigmatic object not the steam engine but the climate system, and which takes as its source of input not the stock of subterranean coal but the flow of solar radiance. By recovering this late Holocene imaginary, we gain a different vantage...

Ten years ago, Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen called for research into the possibility of reflecting sunlight away from Earth by injecting sulfur particles into the stratosphere. Across academic disciplines, Crutzen's intervention caused a surge in interest in and research on proposals for what is often referred to as “geoengineering” - an unbounded set of heterogeneous proposals for intentionally intervening into the climate system to reduce the risks of climate change. To mark the 10 year anniversary of the publication of Paul Crutzen's seminal essay, this special issue reviews the developments in geoengineering research since Crutzen's intervention and reflects upon possible future directions that geoengineering research may take. In this introduction, we briefly outline the arguments made in Paul Crutzen's 2006 contribution and describe the key developments of the past 10 years. We then proceed to give an overview of some of the central issues in current discussions on geoengineering, and situate the contributions to this special issue within them. In particular, we contend that geoengineering research is characterized by an orientation toward speculative futures that fundamentally shapes how geoengineering is entering the collective imagination of scientists, policymakers, and publics, and a mode of knowledge production that recognizes the risks which may result from new knowledge and that struggles with its own socio-political dimensions.

Policy making on climate change routinely employs socio-economic scenarios to sample the uncertainty in future forcing of the climate system, but the IPCC has not developed similar discrete scenarios to sample the uncertainty in the global climate response. Here we argue that to enable development of robust policies this gap should be addressed, and we propose a simple methodology.

Polar research plays a vital role in developing our understanding of Earth’s climate system. It is intrinsically interdisciplinary, lending itself to integration into existing undergraduate courses. Here we explore introducing undergraduates to polar research through computational guided inquiry (CGI) modules taught in a variety of courses and disciplines. Students apply course disciplinary techniques to analysis of polar data or research, in the context of climate change, by working through educational modules that include spreadsheets (ExcelTM) or interactive computer programing (Python in a Jupyter Notebook), over a few class or lab periods. The goals of this exploratory curriculum project are to determine instructor perceptions of effectiveness of the educational modules for teaching preexisting disciplinary course objectives, as well as student perceptions of enjoyment and learning. Evaluation consisted of a student questionnaire and interviews with instructors by an external evaluator. Students and instructors overall reported positive experiences with the modules, highlighted the importance of polar data and climate literacy, and noted increases in student understanding of course learning goals and comfort with the computational tools. Professors further reported that students found the modules motivating, fun and engaging. Taken together, this suggests that the modules are an effective means of bringing polar research into undergraduate classrooms while satisfying instructor goals for course learning objectives. Lessons learned include the importance of providing material such as videos to help transition to the topics of polar research and climate change and of supporting widely varying computational fluency.

The ocean is the largest solar energy collector on Earth. The amount of heat it can store is modulated by its complex circulation, which spans a broad range of spatial scales, from metres to thousands of kilometres. In the classical paradigm, fine oceanic scales, less than 20 km in size, are thought to drive a significant downward heat transport from the surface to the ocean interior, which increases oceanic heat uptake. Here we use a combination of satellite and in situ observations in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to diagnose oceanic vertical heat transport. The results explicitly demonstrate how deep-reaching submesoscale fronts, with a size smaller than 20 km, are generated by mesoscale eddies of size 50–300 km. In contrast to the classical paradigm, these submesoscale fronts are shown to drive an anomalous upward heat transport from the ocean interior back to the surface that is larger than other contributions to vertical heat transport and of comparable magnitude to air–sea fluxes. This effect can remarkably alter the oceanic heat uptake and will be strongest in eddy-rich regions, such as the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the Kuroshio Extension and the Gulf Stream, all of which are key players in the climate system. Deep-reaching, small-scale oceanic fronts can drive upward heat transport from the ocean interior to the surface in eddy-rich regions, suggest satellite and in situ observations of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

Rapid changes in climate system due to anthropogenic activities are responsible for increasing temperatures and rising sea levels, and have significant implications for socio-economic activities across the globe. There is an urgent need for appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies to address climate change threat on different sectors including agriculture. Climate information and products at various temporal and spatial scales are needed for managing risks in agriculture and provide food security. Suitable mechanism at global, regional and national levels needs to be created for delivering effective climate products and services. The chapter focuses on climate change impacts and the role of climate services in addressing implications for agriculture.

Ocean boundary current systems are key components of the climate system, are home to highly productive ecosystems, and have numerous societal impacts. Establishment of a global network of boundary current observing systems is a critical part of ongoing development of the Global Ocean Observing System. The characteristics of boundary current systems are reviewed, focusing on scientific and societal motivations for sustained observing. Techniques currently used to observe boundary current systems are reviewed, followed by a census of the current state of boundary current observing systems globally. The next steps in the development of boundary current observing systems are considered, leading to several specific recommendations. Fil: Todd, Robert E.. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Estados Unidos Fil: Chavez, Francisco. Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute; Estados Unidos Fil: Clayton, Sophie. Old Dominion University; Estados Unidos Fil: Cravatte, Sophie E.. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Institut de Recherche pour le Développement; Francia. Universite de Toulouse; Francia Fil: Goes, Marlos P.. University of Miami; Estados Unidos Fil: Graco, Michelle I.. Instituto del Mar del Peru; Perú Fil: Lin, Xiaopei. Ocean University of China; China Fil: Sprintall, Janet. University of California; Estados Unidos Fil: Zilberman, Nathalie V.. University of California; Estados Unidos Fil: Archer, Matthew. California Institute of Technology; Estados Unidos Fil: Arístegui, Javier. Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; España Fil: Balmaseda, Magdalena A.. European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts; Reino Unido Fil: Bane, John M.. University of North Carolina; Estados Unidos Fil: Baringer, Molly O.. Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory ; Estados Unidos Fil: Barth, John A.. State University of Oregon; Estados Unidos Fil: Beal, Lisa M.. University of Miami; Estados Unidos Fil: Brandt, Peter. Geomar-Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel; Alemania Fil: Calil, Paulo H.. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande; Brasil Fil: Campos, Edmo. Universidade de Sao Paulo; Brasil Fil: Centurioni, Luca R.. University of California; Estados Unidos Fil: Chidichimo, María Paz. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Ministerio de Defensa. Armada Argentina. Servicio de Hidrografía Naval; Argentina Fil: Cirano, Mauro. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; Brasil Fil: Cronin, Meghan F.. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory; Estados Unidos Fil: Curchitser, Enrique N.. Rutgers University; Estados Unidos Fil: Davis, Russ E.. University of California; Estados Unidos Fil: Dengler, Marcus. Geomar-Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel; Alemania Fil: DeYoung, Brad. Memorial University of Newfoundland; Canadá Fil: Dong, Shenfu. University of Miami; Estados Unidos Fil: Escribano, Ruben. Universidad de Concepción; Chile Fil: Fassbender, Andrea J.. Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute; Estados Unidos

In some instances, research is a key to resolving complex issues associated with improving the capacity of individual persons, governments, and international organizations to cope with drought. Three components of climate research can be distinguished: theory, general circulation modeling, and empirical analysis. All three components, as well as interaction between them, are essential for the diagnostic understanding of the climate system, which in turn is basic to the development of drought prediction. Drought has a considerable impact on the hydrology of a stricken region. Participating agencies must have good internal communication and established priorities to ensure that their programs are responsive to any drought contingency plan. Depending on the duration, intensity, and spatial characteristics of drought, the agricultural recovery of an area could be handicapped despite average or better rainfall. Decisions made by governments during periods of drought are made for humanitarian and political reasons.

Precipitation or rainfall prediction is an important practical problem in meteorology research. However, a reliable forecast is difficult to achieve due to the complexity of the climate system and the huge set of available climatic data at nearby sites. Thus, in most existing precipitation prediction systems or methods, inevitable partial (selective) consideration of the types of climatic data has often led to less satisfactory prediction results. Thanks to the advent of modern sensor technology, various types of climatic data in time-series forms can be collected at observation sites or satellites. In this work, we reconstruct a climate dataset including more than 30 climatic variables measured by more than 103,473 observation sites covering the world surface from 1800 to 2017. Then, we apply state-of-the-art machine learning methods, including deep learning (CNN, RNN, and LSTM networks) and ensemble learning (Adaboost, GBDT, and XGBoost), to develop a short-term precipitation system. Experiments on real-world data show that incorporating multiple climate variables into a prediction system improves the prediction results. The best performance of the proposed method reaches an accuracy of more than 80%.

s Understanding the impacts of climate change on electricity supply infrastructure (ESI) is important to maintain a reliable power supply. Nonetheless, most existing studies focus on the physical impacts rather than the economic impacts, failing to provide references for the cost-benefit analysis of different abatement policies and measures. With this motivation, this study firstly employs a downscaled climate system model to project temperature paths in the future. Then, an integrated model is established to quantify both physical and economic impacts of long-term future temperature rise on the existing ESI components. Finally, the maximum climate-attributable impacts on China's ESI are assessed for the period from 2018 to 2099. Our major findings are that: (1) 10.2% of the generator ratings, 17.8% of the transmission and distribution line ratings and 10.0% of the transformer ratings are at risk of outage from expected climate change effects. (2) Around $258 billion of the existing ESI assets are at risk of outage due to the future surface temperature rise, representing 14.2% of the ESI assets in 2017. (3) The impacts of climate change on ESI vary substantially among different provinces and among different infrastructure components. These obtained results can provide important guidance for the mitigation and adaption strategies for the climate change impacts on the electricity sector.

Do graduate students believe they are being well equipped to understand the implications of climate change as part of their research and professional careers? With climate change impacting our ecosystems, infrastructure, and societies, do we see higher-education institutions preparing future generations to lead us through these challenges? Previous studies have captured individuals’ knowledge of the climate system ranging from the K-12 level to adulthood, but very few studies have investigated the perception of climate education held by graduate students. We focused our efforts on three unique research questions: (i) what is the level of climate education that graduate students believe they are receiving, (ii) what is their view on the importance of climate education, and (iii) to what level do they perceive they are incorporating the impacts of a changing climate in their research? We developed and distributed a nationwide survey (495 respondents) to graduate students to capture their perception of the level of climate education being offered and the importance of climate education. We show that graduate students in the agricultural, atmospheric, biological, computer, engineering, environmental, geographic, geologic, health, and social sciences indicate that climate education is very important and find that there are a number of climate courses offered at institutions nationwide; however, most students do not feel they are receiving a large breadth or depth of climate education.

An appropriate design of climate mitigation policies such as carbon taxes may face a lot of challenges in reality, e.g., the strategic behavior of fossil fuel producers, and huge uncertainty surrounding the climate system. This paper investigated the effect of possible climate tipping events on optimal carbon taxation and energy pricing, taking into account the strategic behavior of energy consumers/producers and the uncertainty of tipping points through a stochastic dynamic game. The game was solved numerically to get some insights into the equilibrium carbon taxation and energy pricing strategies under the threat of possible tipping events. The results suggest that the sudden occurrence of tipping events will shift the carbon tax upwards but shift the (wellhead) fuel price downwards, which generates an overall effect of a sudden increase in the consumer price. The irreversibility of the damage caused by a tipping point implies more aggressive carbon taxation. Moreover, the design of climate policy should adjust to tipping probabilities, damage uncertainty, and types of tipping events.

We study optimal climate policy when climate tipping points and solar geoengineering are present. Solar geoengineering reduces temperatures without reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Climate tipping points are irreversible and uncertain events that cause large damages. We analyze three different rules related to the availability of solar geoengineering: a ban, using solar geoengineering as insurance against the risk of tipping points, or using solar geoengineering only as remediation in the aftermath of a tipping point. We model three distinct types of tipping points: two that alter the climate system and one that yields a direct economic cost. Using an analytic model, we find that an optimal policy, which minimizes expected losses from the tipping point, includes both emissions reductions and solar geoengineering from the onset. Using a numerical simulation model, we quantify optimal policy and various outcomes under the alternative scenarios. The presence of tipping points leads to more mitigation and more solar geoengineering use and lower temperatures.

The unilateral use of technologies for counteracting global warming is regarded as a threat by decision-makers, academics and the wider public, yet existing studies do not address the scenario in a systematic manner. I develop a conceptual framework for the study of unilateral geoengineering which distinguishes different types of actors, their capacities and decision-making contexts. Focusing on Ocean Iron Fertilization and Stratospheric Aerosol Injections, I develop several short- and long-term scenarios in which actors are conceivably both willing and able to deploy those technologies on a scale sufficient for impacting the climate system. Beyond being the first paper to develop a systematic approach to unilateral geoengineering, I show that some scenarios which stir public concern are implausible.

Geoengineering is the deliberate modification of the climate system. It has been discussed as a technique to counteract changes expected as a result of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW).1 Speculation has occurred that the possibility of geoengineering will reduce or delay efforts to mitigate AGW. This possible delay or reduction in mitigation has been described as ‘moral hazard’ by various authors. We investigate the definitions and use of the term ‘moral hazard’, and the related (but significantly different) concept of ‘morale hazard’, in relevant law, economic and insurance literatures. We find that ‘moral hazard’ has been generally misapplied in discussions of geoengineering, which perhaps explains unexpected difficulties in detecting expected effects experimentally.2 We clarify relevant usage of the terms, identifying scenarios that can properly be described as moral hazard (malfeasance), and morale hazard (lack of caution or recklessness). We note generally the importance of correctly applying this distinction when discussing geoengineering. In conclusion, we note that a proper consideration of the risks of both moral and morale hazards allows us to easily segment framings for both geoengineering advocacy and the advocate groups who rely on these framings. We suggest mnemonics for groups vulnerable to moral hazard (Business as Usuals) and morale hazard (Chicken Littles) and suggest the development of an experimental methodology for validating the distinction thus drawn.

It is useful to gauge the relative importance of different values that are placed on Antarctica, in order to advance the communication of Antarctic science as well as to facilitate decisions regarding the management of human activity, in particular surrounding climate change. This study investigates the values ascribed to Antarctica by its researchers with respect to those held by the general public. We surveyed 76 Antarctic researchers and then compared our findings with the compiled results of nine previously published studies that investigated public perceptions about the importance of Antarctica. We found that its researchers most frequently valued: the Antarctic’s role as a component of the Earth’s climate system, its role as a science laboratory for the benefit of mankind, its role as a pristine wilderness, and as an environment for wildlife. Fewer researchers placed value on its role as a key part of the history of human exploration, as a tourist destination, or as a source of mineral resou...

The paper proposes a multi-agent climate-economic model, the “battle of perspectives 2.0”. It is an updated and improved version of the original “battle of perspectives” model, described in Janssen (1996) and Janssen/de Vries (1998). The model integrates agents with differing beliefs about economic growth and the sensitivity of the climate system and places them in environments corresponding or non-corresponding to their beliefs. In a second step, different agent types are ruling the world conjointly. Using a learning procedure based on some operators known from Genetic Algorithms, the model shows how they adapt wrong beliefs over time. It is thus an evolutionary model of climate protection decisions. The paper argues that such models may help in analyzing why cost-minimizing protection paths, derived from integrated assessment models a la Nordhaus/Sztorc (2013), are not followed. Although this view is supported by numerous authors, few such models exist. With the “battle of perspectives 2.0” the paper offers a contribution to their development. Compared to the former version, more agent types are considered and more aspects have been endogenized.

A temperatura do planeta vem apresentando aumento desde o início da revolução industrial, conforme documentado nos relatórios do Painel Intergovernamental sobre Mudanças Climáticas (IPCC). Isso afeta os diferentes componentes do sistema climático, que, por sua vez, influenciam o clima (mecanismo de retroalimentação). Portanto, para a compreensão dos processos físicos associados às mudanças climáticas é necessário um conhecimento básico sobre o sistema climático, o que é o foco deste estudo. Apresentam-se aqui os conhecimentos necessários, em uma linguagem simples, para que o entendimento das mudanças climáticas seja adquirido por todos aqueles que tenham interesse.