Pace Of Climate Change Research Articles

Designing technology for smart and sustainable cities of tomorrow – What can we learn from IPCC’s sixth assessment report?

Since their emergence, technologies have been applied to sustainable development in urban contexts. However, as the pace of climate change is still rapidly increasing, the question remains: what are the most urgent actions that designers of urban technology should focus on during the next ten years? In the HCI community, we need to consider the arguments of climate change experts more extensively. This paper reviews the latest recommendations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change related to technology development in an urban context, aiming to respond to these sustainable urban technology design requests. Based on the principles of social sustainability and mixed methods approach and analysis of the IPCC's sixth assessment report, this review offers insights into the most urgent challenges that technology design should focus on. The findings suggest priorities and directions for future work when the aim is to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Climate Activism and the Destabilization of Business-as-Usual in Milan, Italy

The aim of this article is to describe and analyse how climate activists in the city of Milan try to intervene in the production and consumption of fossil fuels. The material worked on here was accumulated over three years (2019–2021): it consists of field notes through participant observation, conversations held on messaging apps and documents made available to participants in the local coalition about the internal workings and strategic objectives of the activists. The article explores their political experiments to slow down the pace of climate change and transform the socio-political conditions that underpin the trajectory of business-as-usual. Along the way, we will witness the emergence of various agents and practices that seek to intervene to reduce or block business-as-usual—through actions that can erode the material and immaterial spaces for the reproduction of fossil fuels.

Limited range shifting in biocrusts despite climate warming: A 25‐year resurvey

Abstract The ranges of many species globally have already shifted to maintain climatic equilibrium in the face of climate change. Biocrusts—soil surface dwelling communities of lichens, bryophytes and microbes—play important functional roles in many ecosystems, particularly in drylands. Compared to better studied animal and plant taxa, dryland biocrusts have different establishment requirements and have never been assessed for historical range shifts. Here, we revisited the sites (N = 204) of a 25‐year‐old biocrust survey across a large area (400,000 km2) of drylands in south‐eastern Australia. We used quadratic models to quantify changes in the climate niches of 15 lichen, eight moss and five liverwort taxa, as well as biocrust cover and richness. Our models showed that the observed climatic niches of most taxa have become hotter and drier in the past quarter century, yet the responses of the vast majority of taxa are consistent with remaining in the same geographic space. A similar pattern was observed at the community level, where the peak of biocrust cover and richness now occurs in a hotter, drier environment. Notable exceptions were the liverwort Riccia lamellosa and lichens in the genera Cladonia and Xanthoparmelia, which showed signs of contraction at their arid range edges. Unlike more mobile taxa, most biocrust species have yet to shift geographically and may already be lagging behind the pace of climate change. One explanation for the mortality lag is that long‐term climate variability in the system is extensive, which may have selected for the ability to withstand multi‐year warm periods as long as there is an eventual return to milder conditions. However, no forecasts of future climate include a return to milder conditions, suggesting there will be an eventual loss of ecosystem multifunctionality at the contracting front. Expansion lags are most likely due to delays in the mortality of competing vascular plants. Synthesis: Our study provides a valuable contribution to the knowledge of range shifts in understudied taxa and highlights a future need to promote the expansion of biocrusts to maintain the provision of ecosystem functions and services across their range.

How Blockchain Technology Can Address Circularity and Trace Emission in the Energy Sector

This paper outlines the European perspective on circularity in the energy sector and details how blockchain could support it. Moreover, while the need for raw materials and e-fuels is increasing (due to the economic, industrial, and societal ecological transformation to slow down the pace of climate change), their supply becomes more and more risky. Therefore technologies to support tracing and certification are on the spot. To achieve resilience to new threats, Europe is pointing at circularity in all fields. Circularity requires the need for tracing substances and devices, food, and products, to retrieve and recycle as much as possible. Else than the need to limit the exploitation of the planet’s resources and thus stay within the planetary boundaries, circularity is tightly connected to strategic dependencies from highly unstable or politically distant countries. This issue is further aggravated by the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Digital technologies, like Distributed Ledger Technologies, can well support the implementation of circularity in many fields. The paper identifies challenges and proposes potential solutions related to the implementation of circularity. It also explores the application of circularity principles in the energy sector, with a focus on energy communities. Energy communities involve local stakeholders coming together to generate, consume, and manage renewable energy collectively. Overall, the paper provides insights into the European perspective on ecological transition, highlighting the importance of systemic transformation, resilience, and circularity in addressing climate change and achieving sustainability goals. It explores the role of digital technologies, such as Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), in supporting circular practices and discusses specific applications in the energy sector.

A large ensemble illustration of how record-shattering heat records can endure

The record-shattering hot day in the Pacific Northwest in June 2021 is used to motivate a study of record-shattering temperature extremes in a very large hindcast ensemble. The hottest days in the Pacific Northwest in the large ensemble have similar large scale and synoptic patterns to those associated with the observed event. From the perspective of a fixed location, the hottest ensemble days are acutely sensitive to the chance sequencing of a dry period with a precisely positioned weather pattern. These days are thus rare and require very large samples (tens of thousands of years) to capture. The enduring nature of record-shattering heat records can be understood through this lens of weather ‘noise’ and sampling. When a record-shattering event occurs due to chance alignment of weather systems in the optimal configuration, any small sample of years subsequent to the (very unlikely) record event has an extremely low chance of finding yet another chance extreme. While warming of the baseline climate can narrow the gap between more regular extremes and record-shattering extremes, this can take many decades depending on the pace of climate change. Climate models are unlikely to capture record-shattering extremes at fixed locations given by observations unless the model samples are large enough to provide enough weather outcomes to include the optimal weather alignments. This underscores the need to account for sampling in assessing models and changes in weather-sensitive extremes. In particular, climate models are not necessarily deficient in representing extremes if that assessment is based on their absence in undersize samples.

Functional connectivity of an imperilled Arctic ungulate – where melting sea ice and human trails increase isolation

Sea ice loss, disturbance, and habitat modification by humans can alter functional landscape connectivity, with negative impacts on wildlife. Connectivity facilitates movement and gene flow, and contributes to genetic diversity, metapopulation dynamics, and species range-shifts under climate change. For Arctic ungulates, which disperse over large areas including sea ice, environmental change threatens further isolation. Protecting habitat and its linkages is critical and depends on identifying such areas at commensurate, broad scales. Using caribou, the world's most vagile species, we modelled and mapped the drivers of connectivity across ca. 2 million km2 of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago — where the pace of climate change is among the fastest and caribou are threatened with extinction. First, we quantified hierarchical genetic structure and identified two discrete groups. Next, using circuit theory and simultaneous multi-surface optimization, we tested whether land- and sea-scape heterogeneity or geographic distance better accounted for movement and gene flow within each group. We show that anthropogenic interference is far-reaching. High Arctic Peary caribou displayed isolation-by-resistance, where glacier cover, low sea-ice concentrations during fall, and human trails impeded connectivity. In contrast, more southerly barren-ground caribou displayed largely unrestricted gene flow. These divergent outcomes underscore that organism-landscape relationships can vary across space and highlight the importance of intra-specific structure and responses. By leveraging genetic data, our study demonstrates how critical movement pathways can be identified, even for remote and imperilled species. Such knowledge supports broad-scale conservation planning, in particular, by accounting for complex organism-landscape relationships, across vast, heterogeneous ecosystems.

Disentangling Population Level Differences in Juvenile Migration Phenology for Three Species of Salmon on the Yukon River

Migration phenology influences many important ecological processes. For juvenile Pacific salmon, the timing of the seaward migration from fresh to marine waters is linked to early marine survival and adult returns. Seaward migration phenology is determined by interactions between the intrinsic attributes of individual species and environmental factors that are acting upon them. Temperature and discharge are two factors of the freshwater environment that have been shown to influence intra- and interannual variation in juvenile salmon phenology, but these factors may affect the migrations of sympatric species differently. Understanding how variations in phenology change with environmental heterogeneity is a critical first step in evaluating how the future climate may affect salmon. This is especially crucial for high-latitude rivers, where the pace of climate change is nearly twice as rapid as it is for more temperate areas. This research investigates the influence of river conditions on the seaward migration phenology of Chinook, chum, and coho salmon in the Yukon River. The results identified species-specific differences in the factors affecting migration duration, concentration, and skew and provide a starting point for a more detailed examination of how phenological variability may affect the temporal matching of juvenile salmon with biological resources and environmental conditions for optimal survival.

Exploring the Invisibility of Women’s Resilience in Facing Anthropogenic Disasters

The intensity of anthropogenic disasters increases with the pace of climate change, but on the other hand, the invisibility of women’s experiences has negated women’s capacity to build disaster resilience. This study aims to determine the factors that support women’s participation in anthropogenic disaster management. The Publish or Perish (PoP) application is used to review and retrieve articles on the Google Scholar database and find 15 relevant articles on women’s resilience. Based on the results of the article review, it was found that there were two important factors related to one another, namely, community support for women and access to resources, which provide space, opportunities, and appreciation for women as important agents in disaster management. In addition, there are also individual factors and their influence on women’s resilience, namely the level of spirituality, optimism, and hope that women bring to their domestic experiences. Thus, this paper has shown that women’s participation in public space is an important part of disaster management schemes.

Climate change impacts on soil, water, and biodiversity conservation

The effects of the atmosphere on climate, particularly the effects of carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration, have been studied and related to Earth’s temperature by physical and climate scientists since the 1800s (Fourier 1824; Arrhenius 1896). However, as industrialization rapidly increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, agriculturalists and conservationists were largely unaware of the link between fossil fuel emissions and warming in the atmosphere. Now, it is increasingly clear that the pace of climate change has been more rapid and societal impacts more severe than scientists projected.

Abiotic conditions shape spatial and temporal morphological variation in North American birds.

Quantifying environment-morphology relationships is important not only for understanding the fundamental processes driving phenotypic diversity within and among species but also for predicting how species will respond to ongoing global change. Despite a clear set of expectations motivated by ecological theory, broad evidence in support of generalizable effects of abiotic conditions on spatial and temporal intraspecific morphological variation has been limited. Using standardized data from >250,000 captures of 105 landbird species, we assessed intraspecific shifts in the morphology of adult male birds since 1989 while simultaneously measuring spatial morphological gradients across the North American continent. We found strong spatial and temporal trends in average body size, with warmer temperatures associated with smaller body sizes both at more equatorial latitudes and in more recent years. The magnitude of these thermal effects varied both across and within species, with results suggesting it is the warmest, rather than the coldest, temperatures that drive both spatial and temporal trends. Stronger responses to spatial-rather than temporal-variation in temperature suggest that morphological change may not be keeping up with the pace of climate change. Additionally, as elevation increases, we found that body size declines as relative wing length increases, probably due to the benefits that longer wings confer for flight in thin air environments. Our results provide support for both existing and new large-scale ecomorphological 'rules' and highlight how the response of functional trade-offs to abiotic variation drives morphological change.

The Role of Reducing Global Methane Emissions in Achieving Carbon Neutrality: Russia's Interests

The article analyzes the policy of reducing methane emissions as one of the directions of joint efforts of countries to curb the pace of climate change. Climate changes caused by the accumulation of methane in the atmosphere directly affect the socio-economic and political processes taking place in various regions of the world: food security, water supply, the development of military-political conflicts, the growth of international migration flows, etc. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the need and identify potential opportunities for Russia to reduce methane (CH4) emissions in the oil and gas sector. A brief description of the results of the Global Climate Summit SOR26, breakthrough solutions and problems in the field of reducing methane emissions is given. Based on the IEA's interactive database, the indicators of CH4 emissions in the oil and gas sector of the largest countries and the main categories of emissions in the oil and gas sector of Russia are described. Legislative initiatives to reduce methane emissions in the EU and Russia are considered. The article concludes that it is expedient for the Russian Federation to participate in international in international cooperation to achieve global goals in this area, in particular from the point of view of increasing the commercial attractiveness of Russian oil and gas projects and the development of green financing.

Linking species traits and demography to explain complex temperature responses across levels of organization.

Microbial communities regulate ecosystem responses to climate change. However, predicting these responses is challenging because of complex interactions among processes at multiple levels of organization. Organismal traits that determine individual performance and ecological interactions are essential for scaling up environmental responses from individuals to ecosystems. We combine protist microcosm experiments and mathematical models to show that key traits-cell size, shape, and contents-each explain different aspects of species' demographic responses to changes in temperature. These differences in species' temperature responses have complex cascading effects across levels of organization-causing nonlinear shifts in total community respiration rates across temperatures via coordinated changes in community composition, equilibrium densities, and community-mean species mass in experimental protist communities that tightly match theoretical predictions. Our results suggest that traits explain variation in population growth, and together, these two factors scale up to influence community- and ecosystem-level processes across temperatures. Connecting the multilevel microbial processes that ultimately influence climate in this way will help refine predictions about complex ecosystem-climate feedbacks and the pace of climate change itself.

The Green Deal Policy for Renewable Energy: A Bibliometric Analysis

The industry attention to the environment has been reducing lately, leading to irreversible climate change, reaching the limit of mining, and critical indicators of СО2 emissions. That is why the EU has launched a new Green Policy which includes strategic directions for energy efficiency and which is expected to restore biodiversity and slow down the pace of climate change. Thus, on December 11, 2019, there was held the presentation of the “European Green Course”, the main targets of which are to increase the level of energy saving by creating closed cycles in the economy; to minimize greenhouse gas emissions by 2050; to form biodiversity and climate neutrality. Accordingly, countries that accept the terms of the green deal policy need to review all aspects of their economy, from energy production to food consumption, from industry to transport and construction. The purpose of the article is to analyse publications in order to identify public’s awareness of radical changes in economic and ecological spheres. The article provides a bibliometric analysis of research in the field of green deal policy, energy conservation and energy efficiency through the introduction of renewable energy sources. The authors selected 337 papers which were published in 1999-2019. Scopus provided the database for analysis. By means of VOSviewer the results of bibliometric analyses were visualized in a definitions map. It allowed identifying six clusters that combine 131 terms. As a result of the research, the connection between the terms – renewable energy sources and energy saving – was revealed with the help of the constructed bibliographic map.

Simulated Tropical Precipitation Assessed across Three Major Phases of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP)

Abstract The representation of tropical precipitation is evaluated across three generations of models participating in phases 3, 5, and 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). Compared to state-of-the-art observations, improvements in tropical precipitation in the CMIP6 models are identified for some metrics, but we find no general improvement in tropical precipitation on different temporal and spatial scales. Our results indicate overall little changes across the CMIP phases for the summer monsoons, the double-ITCZ bias, and the diurnal cycle of tropical precipitation. We find a reduced amount of drizzle events in CMIP6, but tropical precipitation occurs still too frequently. Continuous improvements across the CMIP phases are identified for the number of consecutive dry days, for the representation of modes of variability, namely, the Madden–Julian oscillation and El Niño–Southern Oscillation, and for the trends in dry months in the twentieth century. The observed positive trend in extreme wet months is, however, not captured by any of the CMIP phases, which simulate negative trends for extremely wet months in the twentieth century. The regional biases are larger than a climate change signal one hopes to use the models to identify. Given the pace of climate change as compared to the pace of model improvements to simulate tropical precipitation, we question the past strategy of the development of the present class of global climate models as the mainstay of the scientific response to climate change. We suggest the exploration of alternative approaches such as high-resolution storm-resolving models that can offer better prospects to inform us about how tropical precipitation might change with anthropogenic warming.

Plant community dynamics and carbon sequestration in Sphagnum‐dominated peatlands in the era of global change

AbstractAimHydroclimatic shifts and anthropogenic‐driven nitrogen deposition are major outcomes of global change that could compromise the functioning of many peatlands as a carbon sink. For Sphagnum‐dominated peatlands, an emerging hypothesis is that the change could be triggered by shifts in competitive dominance among plant functional groups, specifically from the currently predominant decay‐resistant Sphagnum to the more decomposable vascular plants. However, the relationship between Sphagnum and vascular plant occurrence is notably complex and also includes facilitative interactions that are crucial to the productivity of Sphagnum, and therefore, carbon sequestration.LocationGlobal.TaxaNorthern peatlands—Sphagnum moss and vascular plants.Time periodPresent day and the future.MethodsWe use a conceptual review to examine underlying mechanisms for the competitive exclusion hypothesis and the nature of facilitative interactions between Sphagnum and vascular plants under potential global change conditions. We complement the review with an empirical study of peatlands with contrasting hydrology to provide some critical insights into the potential effects of change in plant communities on carbon sequestration. We also propose a conceptual model that presents probable combinations of global change factors and their implications for carbon sequestration.ResultsVegetation structure in Sphagnum‐dominated peatland appears to be driven largely by hydrology, rather than competition among plant functional groups. The peat deposit also exerts some controls (e.g., nutrient immobilization) on biotic structure, thereby acting as resistance against an abrupt shift in plant communities.Main conclusionsPeatland controls that constrain vegetation shifts have developed over a millennial time‐scale in many peatlands, and the pace of climate change may not allow enough time for the establishment of those mechanisms in younger peatlands. Thus, the persistence of a given peatland as a carbon sink also likely depends on the successional stage of the peatland.

Power system decarbonization: Impacts of energy storage duration and interannual renewables variability

Decarbonization of the electricity sector is one of the major measures in slowing down the pace of climate change. In this paper, we analyze the impacts of energy storage systems (ESS) and year-to-year variability and uncertainty in the hourly profiles of variable renewable energy (VRE) on power system decarbonization in 2050. We perform this analysis through capacity expansion optimization based on technology cost projections and CO2 emission restrictions based on 11 years of wind, solar, and load data variations in Italy’s power system, with a particular focus on how ESS changes the optimal generation portfolio and system performance. We also explore the impact of ESS duration on the renewables’ adoption and system costs. To quantify the impact of VRE variability in different years, we present a comparative analysis of capacity expansion optimization based on multiple-year and single-year data. Our results indicate a high RES penetration even in the absence of decarbonization policies, due to expected declines in future technology costs. In the transition to a zero-carbon electricity system, carbon capture and storage (CCS) with less than 100% carbon capture efficiency will play a role only in intermediate low-emission scenarios unless future technology advancements improve its capture efficiency. ESS investments contribute to lower total system costs by replacing more expensive flexibility resources. However, the value of ESS changes by its duration, with longer ESS durations having lower marginal value per added kWh storage capacity. Variability in VRE profiles leads to substantial variation in the system’s configuration and energy cost, depending on what year is used in the optimization. Decision making based on single-year data can therefore lead to substantial increases in the systems’ operational costs in other years due to increased probability of capacity shortages and load curtailments. In contrast, optimizing over multiple VRE and load years provides a more robust and cost-effective generation expansion strategy.

Research priorities for natural ecosystems in a changing global climate.

Climate change poses significant emerging risks to biodiversity, ecosystem function and associated socioecological systems. Adaptation responses must be initiated in parallel with mitigation efforts, but resources are limited. As climate risks are not distributed equally across taxa, ecosystems and processes, strategic prioritization of research that addresses stakeholder-relevant knowledge gaps will accelerate effective uptake into adaptation policy and management action. After a decade of climate change adaptation research within the Australian National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, we synthesize the National Adaptation Research Plans for marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. We identify the key, globally relevant priorities for ongoing research relevant to informing adaptation policy and environmental management aimed at maximizing the resilience of natural ecosystems to climate change. Informed by both global literature and an extensive stakeholder consultation across all ecosystems, sectors and regions in Australia, involving thousands of participants, we suggest 18 priority research topics based on their significance, urgency, technical and economic feasibility, existing knowledge gaps and potential for cobenefits across multiple sectors. These research priorities provide a unified guide for policymakers, funding organizations and researchers to strategically direct resources, maximize stakeholder uptake of resulting knowledge and minimize the impacts of climate change on natural ecosystems. Given the pace of climate change, it is imperative that we inform and accelerate adaptation progress in all regions around the world.

Impact of internal variability on climate change for the upcoming decades: analysis of the CanESM2-LE and CESM-LE large ensembles

The pace of climate change can have a direct impact on the efforts required to adapt. For short timescales, however, this pace can be masked by internal variability (IV). Over a few decades, this can cause climate change effects to exceed what would be expected from the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions alone or, to the contrary, cause slowdowns or even hiatuses. This phenomenon is difficult to explore using ensembles such as CMIP5, which are composed of multiple climate models and thus combine both IV and inter-model differences. This study instead uses CanESM2-LE and CESM-LE, two state-of-the-art large ensembles (LE) that comprise multiple realizations from a single climate model and a single GHG emission scenario, to quantify the relationship between IV and climate change over the next decades in Canada and the USA. The mean annual temperature and the 3-day maximum and minimum temperatures are assessed. Results indicate that under the RCP8.5, temperatures within most of the individual large ensemble members will increase in a roughly linear manner between 2021 and 2060. However, members of the large ensembles in which a slowdown of warming is found during the 2021–2040 period are two to five times more likely to experience a period of very fast warming in the following decades. The opposite scenario, where the changes expected by 2050 would occur early because of IV, remains fairly uncommon for the mean annual temperature, but occurs in 5 to 15% of the large ensemble members for the temperature extremes.

Zwierzęta a zmiany klimatu - aspekty unijne i prawnomiędzynarodowe

The article consists of three parts. Firstly, it introduces the connection between animal and climate change. On the one hand, the impact of agricultural emissions (livestock emissions) on climate change has been introduced. On the other hand, it has been presented that the climate change has a negative impact not only for the humankind, but also for the biodiversity (animals) which have an economic and socio-cultural significance. Th second part provides an analysis of relevant international legal frameworks (UN Climate Change regime) that stipulate specifically in relation to livestock emissions globally and existing legal and policy frameworks in the EU that address livestock emissions, namely the Effort Sharing Decision and the Common Agricultural Policy. Thirdly, the paper focuses on the problem of biodiversity conservation though the signifiant pace of climate change has been regulated by a number of international conventions. EU-wide ecological network is being created in Europe that ensures the preservation of the natural environment of animals and the ways of their migration, regardless of the existing borders of the countries. Climate change is already having adverse effcts on animal and those effects are likely to prove devastating in the future. Nonetheless, the relevant harms to animals have yet to become a serious part of the analysis of climate change policy.

Distribution and protection of climatic refugia in North America.

As evidenced by past climatic refugia, locations projected to harbor remnants of present-day climates may serve as critical refugia for current biodiversity in the face of modern climate change. We mapped potential climatic refugia in the future across North America, defined as locations with increasingly rare climatic conditions. We identified these locations by tracking projected changes in the size and distribution of climate analogs over time. We used biologically derived thresholds to define analogs and tested the impacts of dispersal limitation with 4 distances to limit analog searches. We identified at most 12% of North America as potential climatic refugia. Refugia extent varied depending on the analog threshold, dispersal distance, and climate projection. However, in all cases refugia were concentrated at high elevations and in topographically complex regions. Refugia identified using different climate projections were largely nested, suggesting that identified refugia were relatively robust to climate-projection selection. Existing conservation areas cover approximately 10% of North America and yet protected up to 25% of identified refugia, indicating that protected areas disproportionately include refugia. Refugia located at lower latitudes (≤40°N) and slightly lower elevations (approximately 2500 m) were more likely to be unprotected. Based on our results, a 23% expansion of the protected-area network would be sufficient to protect the refugia present under all 3 climate projections we explored. We believe these refugia are high conservation priorities due to their potential to harbor rare species in the future. However, these locations are simultaneously highly vulnerable to climate change over the long term. These refugia contracted substantially between the 2050s and the 2080s, which supports the idea that the pace of climate change will strongly determine the availability and effectiveness of refugia for protecting today's biodiversity.