US Climate Research Articles

Language and Social Justice in US Climate Movements: Barriers and Ways Forward

Climate movements increasingly conceptualize the climate crisis as an issue of social injustice, both in terms of its root causes and its present and future effects. Climate justice calls for participatory decision-making within climate movements, which, as communication scholars have pointed out, necessitates inclusive and accessible communicative practices. Within sociocultural linguistics, a growing body of research has explored sociolinguistic justice, or marginalized groups' struggle for self-determined language use. This analysis interweaves these two research areas, applying the theory of sociolinguistic justice to climate communication in organizing contexts. Drawing on 67 semi-structured interviews and 112 online surveys with climate activists from organizations across the United States, the analysis finds that sociolinguistic injustice impedes frontline community members' participation in climate movements. Specific barriers include: (1) English-only communications; (2) the combination of incomprehensible jargon with a dry, emotionless register; (3) the use of Dominant American English in prescriptive climate communication materials such as phonebanking scripts; (4) language policing of discourses of environmental justice and environmental racism; and (5) a form of linguistic ventriloquism in which adult organizers pressure youth to express climate grief in their stead. Climate activists' insights are synthesized to propose countermeasures to each of these problems of sociolinguistic injustice. The results suggest that sociolinguistic justice can be a useful lens for understanding climate justice communication within climate movements, and provide guidance to climate organizers and educators who wish to align their communications with the inclusive, anti-racist, and decolonial values of climate justice.

Sky Radiation Decreases Thermal Mass Requirements to Achieve 100% Ambient Cooling in Hot US Climates

Abstract Ambient House is a building that maintains indoor temperature within a comfortable range by controlling gains and losses from ambient sources and utilizing thermal mass to moderate temperature changes when the sources are unavailable. Previously, necessary building characteristics were determined for passive solar as the heating source and ventilation as the cooling source in 11 US climate zones. (Sharp, M.K., 2012, “Indoor Comfort Achieved Exclusively from Ambient Sources Across US Climates,” ASME J. Sol. Energy Eng. 143, (6), p. 061005.) It was noted that in hot climates, such as Phoenix, AZ, there are long periods during which outdoor temperature is too warm for cooling, necessitating large thermal mass to avoid indoor overheating. In this article, thermal mass requirements are compared between sky radiation and nighttime ventilation cooling in all 16 US climate zones, including marine subzones 3C and 4C and very cold and subarctic zones 7 and 8. It is shown that sky radiation provides shorter intervals of cooling unavailability and allows much smaller thermal mass to achieve year-round indoor comfort in the hot climates of Las Vegas, Miami, New Orleans, and Phoenix, while it provides no significant benefits in cool climates, where thermal mass is dictated more by the need to slow the decrease in indoor temperature during cloudy periods in the winter. In Fairbanks, AK (zone 8), in particular, the lack of significant solar gains for almost 3 months during the winter requires large thermal mass to maintain indoor comfort. Minimal thermal mass is needed to meet the small summer cooling demand, and both sky and ventilation cooling are sufficient.

A Comparative Energy Analysis of Dynamic External Shadings for Office Buildings

Abstract In this paper, the energy performance of dynamic instead of static shading devices is investigated for prototypical US office spaces. Specifically, six dynamic shading systems are considered to assess their ability to reduce heating and cooling thermal loads, total building energy use, and electrical peak demand. The most promising dynamic shading is the rotating overhang and is evaluated further using a wide range of design and operation conditions. It is found that rotating overhangs can provide effective and easily controllable dynamic shading systems for windows to reduce the energy consumption of US office buildings by up to 39% especially for mild US climates. Moreover, the rotating overhangs have the added benefit to support PV panels for on-site electricity generation. A series of sensitivity analysis results indicate that the performance of the dynamic external shading systems depends on its depth and orientation, the location climate, the window size, and the glazing type have significant impacts. For instance, the dynamic shading device can reduce annual heating and cooling energy end-use for an office space located in Boulder, CO, compared to no shading case by 19% for a window-to-wall ratio (WWR) of 15% and by 31% for a WWR of 30%.

Naturally grown mycelium-composite as sustainable building insulation materials

A novel naturally grown mycelium-composite insulation brick was bio-produced by cultivating a biocompatible and fast-growing fungus, Pleurotus ostreatus, in the rye berries feedstocks. The resultant mycelium composites consisted of a core of colonized substrate, encased by a layer of water-repellent fungal skin. The microstructure of mycelium composites shows that fungal fibers grow from feedstocks and bonded adjacent feedstocks. The impact of density and moisture on the mechanical properties of mycelium composites were studied, finding that composites with increased density presented an improvement of flexural strength under both low and middle levels of Relative Humidity (RH). However, under high level of RH, composites have a lower flexural strength but a greater deformation. The mechanical strength of mycelium composites, however, meets the existing transportation and construction requirements. Based on the measured thermal properties of mycelium composites, EnergyPlus analyses were conducted to evaluate their performance in buildings’ operational energy in comparison with conventional natural insulation materials, i.e., lightweight expanded clay aggregate (LECA) and expanded vermiculite (EV). Compared with LECA and EV, the use of mycelium-composite for building insulation reduced the indoor temperature fluctuations. Compared with LECA and EV, mycelium-composite insulation reduced the total annual heating and cooling energies as well as the total annual CO2 emissions for buildings located in US Climate Zone 2–8, with the only exception being in Zone 1 or the very hot climate zone. Therefore, naturally grown mycelium-composite, as demonstrated in this study, is promising to provide sustainable building insulation materials.

Towards a climate-resilient America? Tracing climate-resilient nationhoods in US climate politics

ABSTRACT Exploring connections between climate resilience and national identity under the Obama and Trump presidencies, this paper argues that discourses of climate-resilient American nationhood constitute an intersection of neoliberalism, populism and immunopolitics. Under Obama, a climate-resilient America is an adaptive subject that embraces climate-insecure futures; under Trump, the anti-climate resilient national subject is a ‘frankenstein neoliberal’ [Brown, W. (2018). Neoliberalism’s Frankenstein: Authoritarian freedom in twenty-first century “democracies”. Critical Times, 1(1), 60–79. https://doi.org/10.1215/26410478-1.1.60] identity grounded in white supremacism. For both of these subjects, albeit in radically different ways, climate-resilient nationhood acts as an immunopolitical drive for self-preservation: a resilient American subject adapts to climate insecurities at the expense of those demarcated as non-adaptive and non-resilient.

An old climate war

<abstract> <p>During the 1990s a 'war' was fought over climate change between the author and some (not all) of his senior colleagues at the World Energy Council. There were two strands to his work: serious energy analysis and consideration of possible futures; and potential climate change. In the latter role he came up against stringent and often ill-informed criticism of his work and actions. Ill-informed because the critics did not appear to be aware of the serious and widely supported (within the WEC) published works of the WEC; and were frequently incorrect in what they claimed the author had said or written, or wrongly attributed to him actions by others outside the WEC. The record of relevant WEC publications, and the attacks made by those seeking to deny climate change or obfuscate debate on the related issues from the American Petroleum Institute, Global Climate Coalition, and US Climate Council, are related here. Everything here is based upon written records (unpublished as well as published) in the author's possession and his recollections.</p> </abstract>

Global Spillovers of US Climate Policy Risk: Evidence from EU Carbon Emissions Futures

Global Spillovers of US Climate Policy Risk: Evidence from EU Carbon Emissions Futures

COP26 AND HEALTH: SOME PROGRESS, BUT TOO SLOW AND NOT ENOUGH

COP26 AND HEALTH: SOME PROGRESS, BUT TOO SLOW AND NOT ENOUGH

Information-based uncertainty decomposition in dual-channel microwave remote sensing of soil moisture

Abstract. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Soil Moisture Active-Passive (SMAP) mission characterizes global spatiotemporal patterns in surface soil moisture using dual L-band microwave retrievals of horizontal (TBh) and vertical (TBv) polarized microwave brightness temperatures through a modeled mechanistic relationship between vegetation opacity, surface scattering albedo, and soil effective temperature (Teff). Although this model has been validated against in situ soil moisture, there is a lack of systematic characterization of where and why SMAP estimates deviate from the in situ observations. Here, we assess how the information content of in situ soil moisture observations from the US Climate Reference Network contrasts with (1) the information contained within raw SMAP observations (i.e., “informational random uncertainty”) derived from TBh, TBv, and Teff themselves and with (2) the information contained in SMAP's dual-channel algorithm (DCA) soil moisture estimates (i.e., “informational model uncertainty”) derived from the model's inherent structure and parameterizations. The results show that, on average, 80 % of the information in the in situ soil moisture is unexplained by SMAP DCA soil moisture estimates. Loss of information in the DCA modeling process contributes 35 % of the unexplained information, while the remainder is induced by a lack of additional explanatory power within TBh, TBv, and Teff. Overall, retrieval quality of SMAP DCA soil moisture, denoted as the Pearson correlation coefficient between SMAP DCA soil moisture and in situ soil moisture, is negatively correlated with the informational uncertainties, with slight differences across different land covers. The informational model uncertainty (Pearson correlation of −0.59) was found to be more influential than the informational random uncertainty (Pearson correlation of −0.34), suggesting that the poor performance of SMAP DCA at some locations is driven by model parameterization and/or structure and not underlying satellite measurements of TBh and TBv. A decomposition of mutual information between TBh, TBv, and DCA soil moisture shows that on average 58 % of information provided by TBh and TBv to DCA estimates is redundant. The amount of information redundantly and synergistically provided by TBh and TBv was found to be closely related (Pearson correlations of 0.79 and −0.82, respectively) to the retrieval quality of SMAP DCA. TBh and TBv tend to contribute large redundant information to DCA estimates under surfaces or conditions where DCA makes better retrievals. This study provides a baseline approach that can also be applied to evaluate other remote sensing models and understand informational loss as satellite retrievals are translated to end-user products.

(Un)Just transitions and Black dispossession: The disposability of Caribbean ‘refugees’ and the political economy of climate justice

Caribbean populations face increased displacement, dispossession and debt burdens due to shocks related to climate change. As the major neighbouring power that is the most significant historical contributor to global warming, the United States has persistently deflected from this responsibility. Instead, its climate plans are weaponized to target potential climate refugees who constitute a ‘national security threat’ and are faced with risks of premature death. These policies also aim to create green capitalist peripheries following racial capitalist logics. The paper contends that US climate interventions and policies increase the likelihood of Black dispossession within Caribbean societies. These policies commit to supporting so-called ‘left-behind’ white communities in need of a ‘just transition’, while Caribbean racialized subjects are not as equally deserving. To explain this, the paper examines major climate policies, in particular the recent Congressional Climate Action Plan of the US House of Representatives and President Biden’s climate proposals. It juxtaposes policy claims against political actions and racial capitalist historiography of the United States, especially its past treatment of climate refugees from the Caribbean. This analysis shows the persistent ways in which US climate policies advance organized abandonment and a neocolonial relationship predicated on an unjust system of racial capitalism.

The power and promise of improved climate data infrastructure

The announcement by the Biden Administration to reengage the Paris climate process and lower US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 50% by the end of this decade is an essential development in the global effort to avoid the worst impacts of climate change (1). However, promises to reduce US GHG emissions are not new and have thus far delivered little real and sustainable emissions reductions (2). The result? Climate change continues unabated, and we forgo the associated jobs and technological innovation that will fuel economic growth in climate friendly businesses. It must be different this time—pledges must lead to practical policy and quickly. To mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, we need accurate and transparent emissions data infrastructure that maps when emissions are happening and where they’re coming from. Image credit: Shutterstock/Tatiana Grozetskaya. To meet the US emission pledge, practical policies will need to reach broadly across the US economy and mobilize new technologies, behavioral change, and private capital. Regardless of policy specifics, actionable GHG reduction policies will fundamentally rest on critical climate data infrastructure that comprehensively and reliably quantifies and tracks GHG emissions in the United States from the local to the national scale. Ideally, all citizens should be able to see a daily map of detailed emissions across the US landscape, much like viewing daily weather. In other words, we need a “US Greenhouse Gas Information Service.” Such a service would provide local emission context to our daily lives and is essential to determine whether emission reduction claims are real, if they’re targeting the best opportunities from neighborhoods to the nation, and whether they’re establishing the trust necessary to mobilize and sustain reduction investment. Right now, however, US climate data collection and dissemination efforts are falling short. Measurement and tracking of GHG emissions reflect a collection of ad hoc mandates and … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: kevin.gurney{at}nau.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Assessment of agro-morphological, physiological and yield traits diversity among tropical rice.

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an essential staple food crop, but the per acre average rice yield is less than its substantial potential in many countries. Rice breeders and growers would benefit from a robust genotypes with better morpho-physiological and yield-related traits. Here, seventy-four new rice genotypes were phenotyped over two years for their gas exchange and yield potential-related traits under Mississippi rice-growing conditions. A wide range of variability was observed among genotypes for all measured traits. Detailed phenotyping of rice genotypes revealed two key relationships that function together to contribute to yield potential under the southern US climate. The first one, grain yield, grain number, and spikelet fertility, showed considerable correlation (r = 0.45 to 0.79, p < 0.001) to harvest index. Conversely, days to anthesis had a high and negative correlation with harvest index (r = −0.79, p < 0.001), which suggests that selection for short duration genotypes with efficient partitioning could improve the yields under southern US climatic conditions. Additive response index revealed a higher positive association with yield traits (R2 = 0.59) than physiological (R2 = 0.28) and morphological traits (R2 = 0.21). Compared with the commercial genotype Rex, 21.6% and 47.3% of the rice genotypes had a higher gas exchange and yield response scores. IR08A172, IR07K142 and IR07F287 were ranked as high performers in physiological and yield response indices. Our study highlights that selection for short-duration yield-related traits with efficient sink capacity traits is desirable for future breeding programs.

The development of climate institutions in the United States

ABSTRACT Climate change poses an existential threat to our planet – but does it require wholesale reorganization of our political institutions? As diverse contributions to this special issue describe, countries have restructured government agencies or developed new institutions to oversee climate reforms. Yet, few such transformations have occurred in the United States, one of the world’s most important cases. Instead, US climate institutions emerged when new mandates and policymaking routines were layered onto existing political institutions. This has had the cumulative effect of creating substantial US climate policymaking capacity in the absence of institutional innovation. When climate proponents have controlled the US presidency, they have mobilized this capacity to center climate change throughout the US executive branch. By contrast, opponents have quickly dismantled climate policy mandates and routines after gaining power. The result has been an unstable variety of climate governance in the United States.

Global evaluation of gridded satellite precipitation products from the NOAA Climate Data Record program

AbstractThree satellite gridded daily precipitation datasets: PERSIANN-CDR, GPCP, and CMORPH, that are part of the NOAA/Climate Data Record (CDR) program are evaluated in this work. The three satellite precipitation products (SPPs) are analyzed over their entire period of record, ranging from over 20-year to over 35-year. The products inter-comparisons are performed at various temporal (daily to annual) and for different spatial domains in order to provide a detailed assessment of each SPP strengths and weaknesses. This evaluation includes comparison with in-situ data sets from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN-Daily) and the US Climate Reference Network (USCRN). While the three SPPs exhibited comparable annual average precipitation, significant differences were found with respect to the occurrence and the distribution of daily rainfall events, particularly in the low and high rainfall rate ranges. Using USCRN stations over CONUS, results indicated that CMORPH performed consistently better than GPCP and PERSIANN-CDR for the usual metrics used for SPP evaluation (bias, correlation, accuracy, probability of detection, and false alarm ratio among others). All SPPs were found to underestimate extreme rainfall (i.e. above the 90th percentile) from about -20% for CMORPH to -50% for PERSIANN-CDR. Those differences in performance indicate that the use of each SPP has to be considered with respect to the application envisioned; from the long-term qualitative analysis of hydro-climatological properties to the quantification of daily extreme events for example. In that regard, the three satellite precipitation CDRs constitute a unique portfolio that can be used for various long-term climatological and hydrological applications.

Demoralizing: integrating J.D. Peters’ communication “chasm” with Niklas Luhmann’s (1989) ecological communication to analyze climate change mitigation inaction

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain the US society’s insignificant mitigation of climate change using Niklas Luhmann’s (1989) autopoietic social systems theory in ecological communication. Specifically, the author’s analysis falls within the context of Luhmann re-moralized while focusing on particular function systems’ binary codes and their repellence of substantive US climate change mitigation policy across systems.Design/methodology/approachThe author achieves this purpose by resituating Luhmann’s conception of evolution to forgo systems teleology and better contextualize the spatial-temporal scale of climate change; reinforcing complexity reduction and differentiation by integrating communication and media scholar John D. Peters’s (1999) “communication chasm” concept as one mechanism through which codes sustain over time; and applying these integrated concepts to prominent the US climate change mitigation attempts.FindingsThe author concludes that climate change mitigation efforts are the amalgamation of the systems’ moral communications. Mitigation efforts have relegated themselves to subsystems of the ten major systems given the polarizing nature of their predominant care/harm moral binary. Communication chasms persist because these moral communications cannot both adhere to the systems’ binary codes and communicate the climate crisis’s urgency. The more time that passes, the more codes force mitigation organizations, activist efforts and their moral communications to adapt and sacrifice their actions to align with the encircling systems’ code.Social implicationsIn addition to the conceptual contribution, the social implication is that by identifying how and why climate change mitigation efforts are subsumed by the larger systems and their codes, climate change activists and practitioners can better tool their tactics to change the codes at the heart of the systems if serious and substantive climate change mitigation is to prevail.Originality/valueTo the author’s knowledge, there has not been an integration of a historical communication concept into, and sociological application of, ecological communication in the context of climate change mitigation.

COVID-19: The impact in US high-rise office buildings energy efficiency

The COVID-19 pandemic, through stay-at-home orders, forced rapid changes to social human behavior and interrelations, targeting the work environments to protect workers and users. Rapidly, global organizations, US associations, and professionals stepped in to mitigate the virus's spread in buildings' living and work environments. The institutions proposed new HVAC settings without efficiency concerns, as improved flow rates and filtering for irradiation, humidity, and temperature. Current literature consensually predicted an increase in energy consumption due to new measures to control the SARS-CoV-2 spread. The research team assumed the effort of validating the prior published outcomes, applied to US standardized high-rise office buildings, as defined and set by the key entities in the field, by resorting to a methodology based on software energy analysis. The study compares a standard high-rise office building energy consumption, CO2 emissions and operations costs in nine US climate zones — from 0 to 8, south to north latitudes, respectively —, assessed in the most populated cities, between the previous and post COVID-19 scenarios. The outcomes clarify the gathered knowledge, explaining that climate zones above mixed-humid type tend to increase relative energy use intensity by 21.72%, but below that threshold the zones decrease relative energy use intensity by 11.92%.

New Technologies Can Cost Effectively Reduce Oil and Gas Methane Emissions, but Policies Will Require Careful Design to Establish Mitigation Equivalence.

Reducing methane emissions from oil and gas systems is a central component of US and international climate policy. Leak detection and repair (LDAR) programs using optical gas imaging (OGI)-based surveys are routinely used to mitigate fugitive emissions or leaks. Recently, new technologies and platforms such as planes, drones, and satellites promise more cost-effective mitigation than existing approaches. To be approved for use in LDAR programs, new technologies must demonstrate emissions mitigation equivalent to existing approaches. In this work, we use the FEAST modeling tool to (a) identify cost vs mitigation trade-offs that arise from using new technologies and (b) provide a framework for effective design of alternative LDAR programs. We identify several critical insights. First, LDAR programs can trade sensitivity for speed without sacrificing mitigation outcomes. Second, low sensitivity or high detection threshold technologies have an effective upper bound on achievable mitigation that is independent of the survey frequency. Third, the cost effectiveness of tiered LDAR programs using site-level detection technologies depends on their ability to distinguish leaks from routine venting. Finally, "technology equivalence" based on mitigation outcomes differs across basins and should be evaluated independently. The FEAST model will enable operators and regulators to systematically evaluate new technologies in next-generation LDAR programs.

Energy performance of integrated adaptive envelope systems for residential buildings

In this paper, the energy performance of an integrated adaptive envelope system (AES) is evaluated when applied to detached houses in four US climates. Three main technologies are part of the AES including cool roofs, movable PV-integrated shading devices (MPVISDs), and switchable insulation systems (SISs). For this study, the AES is operated to minimize annual heating and cooling energy uses. The analysis results clearly indicate that the integrated AES have high potential for cooling energy savings for residential buildings. Specifically, MPVISDs offer the highest contribution followed by attic and walls integrated SISs. Overall, the integrated AES allows on-site electricity generation and offers savings between 234 kWh/yr and 949 kWh/yr in cooling energy depending on the US climate. The deployment of AES alone allows US homes to almost reach net-zero energy designs especially in mild and hot climates.

Indoor Comfort Achieved Exclusively From Ambient Sources Across US Climates

Abstract This study tests the feasibility of a more climate-friendly approach to space conditioning. This new strategy (called Ambient House) employs thermal mass in conjunction with ambient sources of heat and cold to maintain indoor temperature within a comfortable range with no auxiliary energy. Buildings in 11 US climate zones were simulated as first-order systems with envelope losses, internal heat gains, solar gains, and heat rejection by natural ventilation. Building similitude parameters were adjusted to maintain indoor temperature within a range of 20–25 °C. Building performance is defined by two mathematical parameters. First, the asymptotic temperature difference, which is a ratio of solar and internal heat gains to envelope losses and ventilation cooling, also incorporates control functions for solar heating and ventilation cooling. Second, the building time constant is the ratio of thermal capacitance to envelope losses and ventilation cooling. Temperature response was compared with that of buildings with the same characteristics, except low thermal mass. Without auxiliary heating and cooling and without active controls, low mass buildings reached temperatures as low as −3 °C and over 70 °C. With controls, extreme temperatures were still −3 to 40 °C. The Ambient House comfort temperature range was achievable with thermal mass within or near that of conventional construction in all but the hot climates of Miami, New Orleans and Phoenix. In these locations, large thermal mass and high ventilation cooling were required. This study confirms that it is feasible to thermally condition spaces exclusively with ambient sources in all the US climate zones.

Earth Day Sets Stage for New US Climate Goals

As people across the globe celebrated Earth Day this year, climate change and global efforts for reducing carbon emissions took center stage as President Biden held a two‐day Global Leaders' Summit on Climate. Virtually hosting more than 40 world leaders and top executives from various industry sectors, the event aimed to reset the global stage for the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) this November in Glasgow and to demonstrate strong US commitment to decarbonization after four years of significant rollbacks on environmental regulations and inaction on climate change under the previous Administration.