Filtering by Subject: Climate
Published: 2022-06-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Sustainability
As anthropogenic activities continue to warm the Earth, the fundamental solution of reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains elusive. Given this mitigation gap, global warming may lead to intolerable climate changes as local adaptive capacity is exceeded. Thus, there is emerging interest in solar radiation management, which is the process of deliberately increasing Earth's albedo to cool the [...]
Published: 2022-06-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Environmental Monitoring, Mechanical Engineering, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models
Thorough understanding of probabilities of detection (POD) and quantification uncertainties is fundamentally important when applying aerial measurement technologies as part of alternative means of emission limitation (AMEL) or alternate fugitive emissions management programs (Alt-FEMP), as part of monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) efforts, and in surveys designed to support [...]
Published: 2022-06-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Hydrology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Speleology
Speleothem δ18O is widely used as a proxy for rainfall amount in the tropics on glacial-interglacial to interannual scales. However, uncertainties in the interpretation of this renowned proxy pose a vexing problem in tropical paleoclimatology. Here, we present paired measurements of Mg/Ca and δ18O for multiple stalagmites from southwest Sulawesi, Indonesia, that that confirm changes in rainfall [...]
Published: 2022-06-02
Subjects: Climate, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Understanding the response of monsoon dynamics to climatic forcing is cru- cial for anticipating future shifts in freshwater availability across the global tropics. In this regard, a recent study [1] concludes that precipitation within the core of the North American Monsoon (NAM) should be understood as “convectively enhanced orographic rainfall in a mechanically forced stationary wave, not as a [...]
Published: 2022-05-29
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Environmental Sciences, Sedimentology
Terminal lakes are important archives of continental hydroclimate and in some cases contain important economic resources. Here we present an ~3.6 Myr lacustrine carbonate carbon and oxygen stable isotope record from a Great Basin continental drill core. We pair these measurements with bulk lithium concentrations to reveal a relationship between past climate and lithium enrichment in authigenic [...]
Published: 2022-05-19
Subjects: Climate
Climate models are primary tools to investigate processes in the climate system, to project future changes, and to inform decision makers. The latest generation of models provides simulations of unprecedented complexity and resolution, resulting in increasingly realistic representations of the real climate system. At the same time, there is growing awareness that not all models produce equally [...]
Published: 2022-05-19
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Methane emissions are a major driver of human-induced climate change. Moreover, reduction of the rate of methane emissions is the fastest and least disruptive way to moderate global temperature rise over the next several decades. The production of fossil fuels - principally coal, oil, and natural gas – is an important source of anthropogenic methane. As one of the world’s most important [...]
Published: 2022-05-03
Subjects: Climate, Geomorphology
Sand seas are vast expanses of Earth’s surface containing large areas of aeolian dunes—topographic patterns manifest from above-threshold winds and a supply of loose sand. Predictions of the role of future climate change for sand-sea activity are sparse and contradictory. Here we examine the impact of climate on all of Earth’s presently-unvegetated sand seas, using ensemble runs of an Earth [...]
Published: 2022-04-14
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Southwestern North America, like many subtropical regions, is predicted to become drier in response to anthropogenic warming. However, during the Pliocene, when carbon dioxide was above pre-industrial levels, multiple lines of evidence suggest that southwestern North America was much wetter. While existing explanations for a wet Pliocene invoke increases in winter rain, recent modeling studies [...]
Published: 2022-03-11
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Hydrology
The mean state of the tropical Pacific ocean-atmosphere climate, in particular its east-west asymmetry, has profound consequences for regional climates and for the El Niño/ Southern Oscillation variability. Here we present a new high-resolution paleohydrological record using the stable-hydrogen-isotopic composition of terrestrial-lipid biomarkers (δDwax) from a 1,400-year-old lake sedimentary [...]
Published: 2022-02-25
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
In northern Australia (NAUS), mean rainfall during the Australian summer monsoon (AUSM) season exhibits distinct interannual variability despite weak influence from tropical sea surface temperature (SST) variability. The present study investigates mechanisms for the strong and persistent rainfall anomalies throughout the AUSM season. When the AUSM is stronger than normal, the low-level monsoonal [...]
Published: 2022-02-23
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Climate, Design of Experiments and Sample Surveys, Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Numerical Analysis and Computation, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Risk Analysis, Statistical Methodology
Modelling the risk of natural hazards for society, ecosystems, and the economy is subject to strong uncertainties, even more so in the context of a changing climate, evolving societies, growing economies, and declining ecosystems. Here we present a new feature of the climate risk modelling platform CLIMADA which allows to carry out global uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. CLIMADA underpins [...]
Published: 2022-02-03
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Heat conditions in North America in summer 2021 exceeded prior heatwaves by margins many would have considered impossible under current climate conditions. Associated severe impacts highlight the need for understanding its physical drivers and relations to climate change, to improve the projection and prediction of future extreme heat risks. Here, we find that slow- and fast-moving components of [...]
Published: 2022-01-22
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Hydroclimatic extremes, such as heavy daily rainfall and dry spells, are expected to intensify under anthropogenic warming. Often, these changes are diagnostically related to thermodynamic increases in humidity with warming. Here, we develop a framework that uses an on-line calculation of the thermodynamically induced changes of the full precipitation distribution with warming in an idealized [...]
Published: 2021-12-05
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Meteorology, Physical and Environmental Geography
Recent advances in citizen weather station (CWS) networks, with data accessible via crowd-sourcing, provide relevant climatic information to urban scientists and decision makers. In particular, CWS can provide long-term measurements of urban heat and valuable information on spatio-temporal heterogeneity related to horizontal heat advection. In this study, we make the first compilation of a [...]