Preprints
Search for carbon dioxide removal (42 results)
A realistic climate strategy
Published: 2025-04-12
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability
The international climate strategy is failing. Current policies will act too slowly to prevent rising temperatures from crossing critical climate tipping points. IPCC assessments underestimate the non-linear risks and catastrophic costs of overshooting Paris Agreement targets. Opponents of solar geoengineering cite concerns about moral hazard and other potential risks; however, at this juncture [...]
Quantifying potential carbon dioxide removal via enhanced weathering using porewater from a field trial in Scotland
Published: 2025-04-08
Subjects: Engineering
Enhanced weathering (EW) is cited as a promising carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategy, and is being rapidly commercialized. Rigorous monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) are essential to ensure carbon claims are accurate and carbon credits are not mis-sold. MRV protocols incorporate multiple approaches, including soil and porewater sampling. This paper calculates potential CDR from [...]
A practical metric for estimating the current climate forcing of natural mires
Published: 2025-02-13
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Commensuration of the radiative effects of different greenhouse gases (GHGs) is crucial for understanding the effects of land cover and ecosystem changes on the global climate. However, none of the current commensuration approaches are suitable for addressing the current climatic effect of mire ecosystems as compared to the situation in which such mires would not exist. The mire ecosystems have [...]
Carbon dioxide removal could perpetuate community-scale inequalities of U.S. air pollution in net-zero scenarios
Published: 2024-11-28
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies
Pathways to net-zero reduce GHG emissions and improve air quality, but the magnitude and distribution of these improvements will depend on specific mitigation decisions, such as the amount of carbon dioxide removals (CDR). Here, we combine a series of models and datasets to analyze community-scale PM2.5 impacts across the contiguous U.S. of net-zero scenarios with different levels of CDR. Both [...]
Improved Precision and Reference Materials for Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis in Basaltic Glasses using Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry
Published: 2024-09-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Volcanology
We introduce three new reference materials and a new high-precision set-up for stable carbon isotope analysis in basaltic glasses using large-geometry secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) instrument. The new hydrous basaltic reference materials, characterised for carbon concentration and isotope composition by step-heating gas extraction and manometry followed by isotope ratio mass [...]
Constraining Earth's core composition from inner core nucleation.
Published: 2024-08-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Mineral Physics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Mineral Physics, Planetary Sciences
The composition of Earth’s core is a fundamental property of the Earth’s deep interior, defining its present structure and long term thermal and magnetic evolution. However, the composition of the core is not well understood, with several combinations of light elements being able to satisfy the traditional constraints from cosmochemistry, core formation and seismology.The traditional view of [...]
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 [...]
Monitoring CO2 Concentrations in Soil Gas: A Novel MRV Approach for Cropland-Based ERW?
Published: 2023-12-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
This paper discusses the challenges we have faced in the past 2.5 years of field experiments trying to measure the speed of Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) in agricultural settings for removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. Traditional measurements that allow quantification of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in laboratory ERW tests include chemical analyses of the leached out soil water and monitoring [...]
Methods for assessing Giant Kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) biomass sinking rates and decomposition for carbon dioxide removal applications
Published: 2023-12-07
Subjects: Life Sciences
One promising carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategy to achieve negative emissions of carbon dioxide is the sinking of farmed seaweed into the ocean where it may be sequestered. Methods to quantify the sinking rates, degradation rates and the release of degradation products from kelp is fundamental to understanding the durability of the strategy if applied to scale. The aim of this white paper is [...]
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 [...]
A Review of Measurement for Quantification of Carbon Dioxide Removal by Enhanced Weathering in Soil
Published: 2023-11-28
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
All pathways which limit global temperature rise to <2oC above pre-industrial temperatures now require carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in addition to rapid greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Novel and durable CDR strategies need to rapidly scale over the next few decades in order to reach Paris Agreement Targets. Terrestrial enhanced weathering (EW) involves the acceleration of natural weathering [...]
Bad science and good intentions prevent effective climate action
Published: 2023-11-10
Subjects: Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
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 [...]
Global ocean spatial suitability for macroalgae offshore cultivation and sinking
Published: 2023-10-17
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Macroalgae offshore cultivation and sinking is considered a potentially practical approach for ocean-based carbon dioxide removal. However, several considerations need to be resolved to assess the effectiveness and sustainability of this approach. Currently, several studies focus on the area required for climate-relevant carbon sequestration through macroalgae cultivation and sinking without [...]
Knowledge co-production for identifying sustainability indicators and prioritising solutions for food and land system transformation in Australia.
Published: 2023-10-10
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
The sustainable transformation of food and land systems requires the rapid implementation and scaling up of a broad suite of solutions to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Decision-making frameworks are needed to identify suitable indicators and prioritise solutions at national scales. Using a knowledge co-production framework, we convened 150 stakeholders from 100+ organisations to [...]
Independent estimates of net carbon uptake in croplands: UAV-LiDAR and machine learning vs. eddy-covariance
Published: 2023-08-30
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Understanding sequestration of organic carbon (C) in agroecosystems is of primary importance for greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting in managed ecosystems, reducing the environmental footprint of land use, and inform crediting programs. However, a broader application of precise C accounting is currently constrained by a limited number of direct flux measurements. Aside well-studied ecosystems via [...]