Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Climate
Advancing forest aboveground biomass mapping by integrating GEDI with other Earth Observation data using a cloud computing platform: A case study of Alabama, United States
Published: 2024-04-06
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Forest Management, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences
Forest aboveground biomass (AGB) is a crucial indicator for monitoring carbon and requires accurate quantification. This study aimed to advance AGB estimation using open access Earth observation (EO) data and cloud computing, focusing on Alabama, USA. The specific objectives were to: (1) develop a workflow for creating a 30 m forest AGBD map with GEDI, using GEE, (2) evaluate and compare [...]
Improving Urban Climate Adaptation Modelling in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Through Transient Urban Surface Albedo Representation
Published: 2024-04-03
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Civil Engineering, Climate, Computational Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences
Increasing the albedo of urban surfaces, through strategies like white roof installations, has emerged as a promising approach for urban climate adaptation. Yet, modelling these strategies on a large scale is limited by the use of static urban surface albedo representations in the Earth system models. In this study, we developed a new transient urban surface albedo scheme in the Community Earth [...]
Problems with Greenhouse Gas Life Cycle Analyses of U.S. LNG Exports and Locally-Produced Coal
Published: 2024-04-01
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States are growing rapidly, and the United States government must balance a multiplicity of interests in deciding to what extent the growth of LNG exports should be further encouraged. Its decisions must be consistent with the Natural Gas Act, which mandates that exports of natural gas be in the public interest. In the current [...]
Navigating uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of future tropical cyclone risk estimates
Published: 2024-03-22
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment
Future tropical cyclone risks will evolve depending on climate change and socio-economic development, entailing significant uncertainties. An uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of future tropical cyclone risks is thus vital for robust decision-making and model improvement. However, the outcomes of such uncertainty and sensitivity analyses are tied to the chosen model setup, warranting caution [...]
Linking local climate scenarios to global warming levels: Applicability, prospects and uncertainties
Published: 2024-03-08
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Global warming levels (GWLs) are increasingly becoming a central concept in climate change studies. In recent years, their integrative quality for climate change impact analysis has been demonstrated, and methodological advancements have helped to compensate for some inherent shortfalls of the concept. However, their applicability at the regional level is debatable, and no study to date has [...]
The Potential for Fuel Reduction to Offset Climate Warming Impacts on Wildfire Intensity in California
Published: 2024-02-21
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Statistics and Probability, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Probability, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability
Increasing fuel aridity due to climate warming has and will continue to increase wildfire danger in California. In addition to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, one of the primary proposals for counteracting this increase in wildfire danger is a widespread expansion of hazardous fuel reductions. Here, we quantify the potential for fuel reduction to reduce wildfire intensity using [...]
Bad science and good intentions prevent effective climate action
Published: 2024-02-17
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Although the 2015 Paris Agreement climate targets seem certain to be missed, only a few experts are questioning the adequacy of the current approach to limiting climate change and suggesting that additional approaches are needed to avoid unacceptable catastrophes. This article posits that selective science communication and unrealistically optimistic assumptions are obscuring the reality that [...]
Multi-satellite data depicts record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout
Published: 2024-02-14
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Monitoring, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Accidental blowouts in oil and gas wells can result in large and prolonged methane emissions, which are often unreported when happening in remote places. The rapid advancement of space-based methods for detecting and quantifying methane plumes provides an essential tool for uncovering these super-emission events. We use a range of methane-sensitive satellites to document a methane leak from a [...]
Impacts of global warming on hurricane-driven insurance losses in the United States
Published: 2024-02-08
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
North Atlantic hurricanes are a major driver of property losses in the United States and a critical peril for the insurance industry on a global scale. Despite the growing scientific consensus around the potential impacts of global warming on North Atlantic hurricanes, the implications for the insurance industry are still largely unquantified. We address this question by drawing on 70 years of [...]
Freshwater plume-like condition near the north-eastern coastal Arabian Sea during early Miocene: Evidence from the stable isotope record in the growth bands of gastropods (Turritella sp.)
Published: 2024-01-30
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
The Early Miocene witnessed major tectonic, palaeoceanographic and climatological reorganizations over the Asian realm. The Himalayan and Tibetan plateau upliftment influenced monsoon intensity during this age. Contemporary high-resolution tropical hydroclimate records are limited. Here, we present an early Miocene sub-annual stable isotope record from the growth bands of well-preserved [...]
Land Processes Can Substantially Impact the Mean Climate State
Published: 2024-01-23
Subjects: Climate
Terrestrial processes influence the atmosphere by controlling land-to-atmosphere fluxes of energy, water, and carbon. Prior research has demonstrated that parameter uncertainty drives uncertainty in land surface fluxes. However, the influence of land process uncertainty on the climate system remains underexplored. Here, we quantify how assumptions about land processes impact climate using a [...]
Metrological approach for permafrost temperature measurements
Published: 2024-01-12
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Monitoring, Glaciology
Permafrost degradation is a growing direct impact of climate change. Detecting permafrost reductions, in terms of its extension, deepening of the active layer and rise of the base is fundamental to capture the magnitude of trends and address actions and warnings. Temperature profiles in permafrost allow direct understanding of the status of the frozen ground layer and its evolution in time. The [...]
Designing and describing climate change impact attribution studies: a guide to common approaches
Published: 2024-01-06
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Probability, Public Health, Spatial Science, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability
Impact attribution is an emerging transdisciplinary sub-discipline of detection and attribution, focused on the social, economic, and ecological impacts of climate change. Here, we provide an overview of common end-to-end frameworks in impact attribution, focusing on examples relating to the human health impacts of climate change. We propose a typology of study designs based on whether [...]
Inverse modeling of satellite observations shows that the wet tropics drive the 2010-2022 methane increase
Published: 2024-01-04
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate
Atmospheric methane concentrations rose rapidly over the past decade and surged in 2020-2022 but the causes are unclear. We find from inverse analysis of GOSAT satellite observations that global methane emissions increased from 500 to 550 Tg a-1 from 2010 to 2019 and surged to 570-590 Tg a-1 in 2020-2022. Concentrations of tropospheric OH (the main methane sink) show no long-term trend over [...]
The Certainty of Uncertainty in Atmospheric CO2 Removal: A Crisis-Response Abrupt Mitigation Scenario (CRAMS)
Published: 2023-12-04
Subjects: Climate, Sustainability
The gap between current emission trend and the expected 1.5 °C warming target forces the deployment of different carbon dioxide removal technologies (CDRs). Even though large discrepancies and uncertainties presents in studies investigating the CDR potentials, costs and side effects of bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), direct air capture with CO2 storage (DACCS) and enhanced [...]