While controls over the Earth's climate system have undergone rigorous hypothesis-testing since the 1800s, questions over the scientific consensus of the role of human activities in modern climate change continue to arise in public settings. We update previous efforts to quantify the scientific consensus on climate change by searching the recent literature for papers sceptical of anthropogenic-caused global warming. From a dataset of 88125 climate-related papers published since 2012, when this question was last addressed comprehensively, we examine a randomized subset of 3000 such publications. We also use a second sample-weighted approach that was specifically biased with keywords to help identify any sceptical peer-reviewed papers in the whole dataset. We identify four sceptical papers out of the sub-set of 3000, as evidenced by abstracts that were rated as implicitly or explicitly sceptical of human-caused global warming. In our sample utilizing pre-identified sceptical keywords we found 28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly sceptical. We conclude with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature.
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Environmental Research Letters covers all of environmental science, providing a coherent and integrated approach including research articles, perspectives and review articles.
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Mark Lynas et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 114005
Seth Wynes and Kimberly A Nicholas 2017 Environ. Res. Lett. 12 074024
Current anthropogenic climate change is the result of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere, which records the aggregation of billions of individual decisions. Here we consider a broad range of individual lifestyle choices and calculate their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries, based on 148 scenarios from 39 sources. We recommend four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and substantially reduce annual personal emissions: having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year), living car-free (2.4 tCO2e saved per year), avoiding airplane travel (1.6 tCO2e saved per roundtrip transatlantic flight) and eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO2e saved per year). These actions have much greater potential to reduce emissions than commonly promoted strategies like comprehensive recycling (four times less effective than a plant-based diet) or changing household lightbulbs (eight times less). Though adolescents poised to establish lifelong patterns are an important target group for promoting high-impact actions, we find that ten high school science textbooks from Canada largely fail to mention these actions (they account for 4% of their recommended actions), instead focusing on incremental changes with much smaller potential emissions reductions. Government resources on climate change from the EU, USA, Canada, and Australia also focus recommendations on lower-impact actions. We conclude that there are opportunities to improve existing educational and communication structures to promote the most effective emission-reduction strategies and close this mitigation gap.
John Cook et al 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024
We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.
John Cook et al 2016 Environ. Res. Lett. 11 048002
The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%–100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al (Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024) based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. A survey of authors of those papers (N = 2412 papers) also supported a 97% consensus. Tol (2016 Environ. Res. Lett. 11 048001) comes to a different conclusion using results from surveys of non-experts such as economic geologists and a self-selected group of those who reject the consensus. We demonstrate that this outcome is not unexpected because the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science. At one point, Tol also reduces the apparent consensus by assuming that abstracts that do not explicitly state the cause of global warming ('no position') represent non-endorsement, an approach that if applied elsewhere would reject consensus on well-established theories such as plate tectonics. We examine the available studies and conclude that the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies.
Jessica F Green 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 043004
Carbon pricing has been hailed as an essential component of any sensible climate policy. Internalize the externalities, the logic goes, and polluters will change their behavior. The theory is elegant, but has carbon pricing worked in practice? Despite a voluminous literature on the topic, there are surprisingly few works that conduct an ex-post analysis, examining how carbon pricing has actually performed. This paper provides a meta-review of ex-post quantitative evaluations of carbon pricing policies around the world since 1990. Four findings stand out. First, though carbon pricing has dominated many political discussions of climate change, only 37 studies assess the actual effects of the policy on emissions reductions, and the vast majority of these are focused on Europe. Second, the majority of studies suggest that the aggregate reductions from carbon pricing on emissions are limited—generally between 0% and 2% per year. However, there is considerable variation across sectors. Third, in general, carbon taxes perform better than emissions trading schemes (ETSs). Finally, studies of the EU-ETS, the oldest ETS, indicate limited average annual reductions—ranging from 0% to 1.5% per annum. For comparison, the IPCC states that emissions must fall by 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 in order to limit warming to 1.5 °C—the goal set by the Paris Agreement (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2018). Overall, the evidence indicates that carbon pricing has a limited impact on emissions.
William F Lamb et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 073005
Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be traced to five economic sectors: energy, industry, buildings, transport and AFOLU (agriculture, forestry and other land uses). In this topical review, we synthesise the literature to explain recent trends in global and regional emissions in each of these sectors. To contextualise our review, we present estimates of GHG emissions trends by sector from 1990 to 2018, describing the major sources of emissions growth, stability and decline across ten global regions. Overall, the literature and data emphasise that progress towards reducing GHG emissions has been limited. The prominent global pattern is a continuation of underlying drivers with few signs of emerging limits to demand, nor of a deep shift towards the delivery of low and zero carbon services across sectors. We observe a moderate decarbonisation of energy systems in Europe and North America, driven by fuel switching and the increasing penetration of renewables. By contrast, in rapidly industrialising regions, fossil-based energy systems have continuously expanded, only very recently slowing down in their growth. Strong demand for materials, floor area, energy services and travel have driven emissions growth in the industry, buildings and transport sectors, particularly in Eastern Asia, Southern Asia and South-East Asia. An expansion of agriculture into carbon-dense tropical forest areas has driven recent increases in AFOLU emissions in Latin America, South-East Asia and Africa. Identifying, understanding, and tackling the most persistent and climate-damaging trends across sectors is a fundamental concern for research and policy as humanity treads deeper into the Anthropocene.
Helmut Haberl et al 2020 Environ. Res. Lett. 15 065003
Strategies toward ambitious climate targets usually rely on the concept of 'decoupling'; that is, they aim at promoting economic growth while reducing the use of natural resources and GHG emissions. GDP growth coinciding with absolute reductions in emissions or resource use is denoted as 'absolute decoupling', as opposed to 'relative decoupling', where resource use or emissions increase less so than does GDP. Based on the bibliometric mapping in part I (Wiedenhofer et al, 2020 Environ. Res. Lett. 15 063002), we synthesize the evidence emerging from the selected 835 peer-reviewed articles. We evaluate empirical studies of decoupling related to final/useful energy, exergy, use of material resources, as well as CO2 and total GHG emissions. We find that relative decoupling is frequent for material use as well as GHG and CO2 emissions but not for useful exergy, a quality-based measure of energy use. Primary energy can be decoupled from GDP largely to the extent to which the conversion of primary energy to useful exergy is improved. Examples of absolute long-term decoupling are rare, but recently some industrialized countries have decoupled GDP from both production- and, weaklier, consumption-based CO2 emissions. We analyze policies or strategies in the decoupling literature by classifying them into three groups: (1) Green growth, if sufficient reductions of resource use or emissions were deemed possible without altering the growth trajectory. (2) Degrowth, if reductions of resource use or emissions were given priority over GDP growth. (3) Others, e.g. if the role of energy for GDP growth was analyzed without reference to climate change mitigation. We conclude that large rapid absolute reductions of resource use and GHG emissions cannot be achieved through observed decoupling rates, hence decoupling needs to be complemented by sufficiency-oriented strategies and strict enforcement of absolute reduction targets. More research is needed on interdependencies between wellbeing, resources and emissions.
Pieter Gagnon et al 2018 Environ. Res. Lett. 13 024027
We provide a detailed estimate of the technical potential of rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation throughout the contiguous United States. This national estimate is based on an analysis of select US cities that combines light detection and ranging (lidar) data with a validated analytical method for determining rooftop PV suitability employing geographic information systems. We use statistical models to extend this analysis to estimate the quantity and characteristics of roofs in areas not covered by lidar data. Finally, we model PV generation for all rooftops to yield technical potential estimates. At the national level, 8.13 billion m2 of suitable roof area could host 1118 GW of PV capacity, generating 1432 TWh of electricity per year. This would equate to 38.6% of the electricity that was sold in the contiguous United States in 2013. This estimate is substantially higher than a previous estimate made by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The difference can be attributed to increases in PV module power density, improved estimation of building suitability, higher estimates of total number of buildings, and improvements in PV performance simulation tools that previously tended to underestimate productivity. Also notable, the nationwide percentage of buildings suitable for at least some PV deployment is high—82% for buildings smaller than 5000 ft2 and over 99% for buildings larger than that. In most states, rooftop PV could enable small, mostly residential buildings to offset the majority of average household electricity consumption. Even in some states with a relatively poor solar resource, such as those in the Northeast, the residential sector has the potential to offset around 100% of its total electricity consumption with rooftop PV.
Christine Shearer et al 2016 Environ. Res. Lett. 11 084011
Nearly 17% of people in an international survey said they believed the existence of a secret large-scale atmospheric program (SLAP) to be true or partly true. SLAP is commonly referred to as 'chemtrails' or 'covert geoengineering', and has led to a number of websites purported to show evidence of widespread chemical spraying linked to negative impacts on human health and the environment. To address these claims, we surveyed two groups of experts—atmospheric chemists with expertize in condensation trails and geochemists working on atmospheric deposition of dust and pollution—to scientifically evaluate for the first time the claims of SLAP theorists. Results show that 76 of the 77 scientists (98.7%) that took part in this study said they had not encountered evidence of a SLAP, and that the data cited as evidence could be explained through other factors, including well-understood physics and chemistry associated with aircraft contrails and atmospheric aerosols. Our goal is not to sway those already convinced that there is a secret, large-scale spraying program—who often reject counter-evidence as further proof of their theories—but rather to establish a source of objective science that can inform public discourse.
Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes 2017 Environ. Res. Lett. 12 084019
This paper assesses whether ExxonMobil Corporation has in the past misled the general public about climate change. We present an empirical document-by-document textual content analysis and comparison of 187 climate change communications from ExxonMobil, including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed publications, internal company documents, and paid, editorial-style advertisements ('advertorials') in The New York Times. We examine whether these communications sent consistent messages about the state of climate science and its implications—specifically, we compare their positions on climate change as real, human-caused, serious, and solvable. In all four cases, we find that as documents become more publicly accessible, they increasingly communicate doubt. This discrepancy is most pronounced between advertorials and all other documents. For example, accounting for expressions of reasonable doubt, 83% of peer-reviewed papers and 80% of internal documents acknowledge that climate change is real and human-caused, yet only 12% of advertorials do so, with 81% instead expressing doubt. We conclude that ExxonMobil contributed to advancing climate science—by way of its scientists' academic publications—but promoted doubt about it in advertorials. Given this discrepancy, we conclude that ExxonMobil misled the public. Our content analysis also examines ExxonMobil's discussion of the risks of stranded fossil fuel assets. We find the topic discussed and sometimes quantified in 24 documents of various types, but absent from advertorials. Finally, based on the available documents, we outline ExxonMobil's strategic approach to climate change research and communication, which helps to contextualize our findings.
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Nicoletta Brazzola et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 054037
Direct air capture (DAC) is increasingly recognized as a necessary puzzle piece to achieve the Paris climate targets. However, the current high cost and energy intensity of DAC act as a barrier. Short-term strategies for initial deployment, technology improvement, and cost reduction are needed to enable large-scale deployment. We assess and compare two near-term pathways leading to the same installed DAC capacity and thus yielding the same cost reductions: its combination with CO2 storage as direct air carbon capture and storage, or its deployment for CO2 utilization as direct air carbon capture and utilization e.g. for synthetic fuels, chemicals, and materials; we characterize these as Direct and Spillover pathways. Drawing on the Multi-level Perspective on Technological Transition as a heuristic, we examine both technical and immaterial factors needed to scale up DAC under the two pathways, in order to assess the pathways' relative advantages and to identify possible short-term bottlenecks. We find neither pathway to be clearly better: the Direct pathway offers technical advantages but faces regulatory barriers that need to be resolved before deployment, while the Spillover pathway offers market and governance advantages but faces challenges related to hydrogen production and increasing resource needs as it scales up. There may be reasons for policymakers to therefore pursue both approaches in a dynamic manner. This could involve prioritizing the Spillover pathway in the short term due to possibly fewer short-term regulatory barriers and its ability to produce net-zero emission products for existing and accessible markets. Once short-term governance obstacles have been addressed, however, the Direct pathway may allow for more efficient scaling of DAC capacity and cost reductions, especially if by then the needed infrastructure and institutions are in place.
Peiyang Ren et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 054036
Crop harvested carbon (HC) is one of the most important components of the carbon cycle in cropland ecosystems, with a significant impact on the carbon budget of croplands. China is one of the most important crop producers, however, it is still unknown on the spatial and temporal variations of HC. This study collected statistical data on crop production at the province and county levels in China for all ten crop types from 1981 to 2020 and analyzed the magnitude and long-term trend of harvested crop carbon. Our results found a substantial increase of HC in cropland from 0.185 Gt C yr−1 in 1981 to 0.423 Gt C yr−1 in 2020 at a rate of 0.006 Gt C yr−1. The results also highlighted that the average annual carbon sink removal from crop harvesting in China from 1981 to 2020 was 0.32 Gt C yr−1, which was comparable to the net carbon sink of the entire terrestrial ecosystems in China. This study further generated a gridded dataset of HC from 2001 to 2019 in China by using jointly the statistical crop production and distribution maps of cropland. In addition, a model-data comparison was carried out using the dataset and results from seven state-of-the-art terrestrial ecosystem models, revealing substantial disparities in HC simulations in China compared to the dataset generated in the study. This study emphasized the increased importance of HC for estimating cropland carbon budget, and the produced dataset is expected to contribute to carbon budget estimation for cropland ecosystems and the entire China.
Myrthe Leijnse et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 054035
Global freshwater resources are vital to humanity and Earth's ecosystems, yet about one third of the global population is affected by water scarcity for at least one month per year. In these areas, the overuse of freshwater resources can lead to the threat of depletion, marking them as the global 'water scarcity hotspots'. This study combines outputs from a global hydrological model (PCR-GLOBWB 2) with an extensive literature search to provide a comprehensive intercomparison of the key drivers, pressures, states, impacts and responses (DPSIR) that shape the water gap between water demand and availability at the most important water scarcity hotspots worldwide. Hydroclimatic change, population growth, and water use for the industrial, municipal and agricultural sectors are the most important driving and pressuring forces on the water gap, affecting both water quality and quantity. These drivers and pressures have been showing increasing trends at all hotspots, which is concerning for the future development of the water gap. Additionally, we identify and characterize seven clusters of hotspots based on shared DPSIR patterns, revealing their common mechanisms. Our work highlights the diversity of water scarcity related issues at hotspots, especially the variety of impacts involved and governmental responses in place. The results of our DPSIR analysis provide valuable insights for building causal networks representing water gap dynamics at the hotspots. They form a foundation for conceptual models that illuminate human-water interactions, trade-offs, and synergies at the hotspots, while guiding policymakers in addressing the multifaceted challenge of closing the water gap.
Jianzhou Luo et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 054034
Variations of the North American summer monsoon (NASM) and North Atlantic tropical cyclone (NATC) activities strongly influence climate anomalies in North America, with serious potential risk to life and property. Despite the scientific importance of this topic, the possible linkage between the NASM and the NATC genesis frequency remains unexplored. Here, we aim to examine the relationship between interannual variations of the NASM intensity and the NATC genesis frequency based on observations and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models. Our results show a strong association between the NASM intensity and the NATC genesis frequency during the extended boreal summer, with a good synchronization between their interannual variations. In years with stronger (weaker) NASM intensity, the NATC genesis frequency tends to be higher (lower). The observed NASM–NATC synchronization may be explained by two pathways: tropical-ocean-driven pathway and monsoon-heating-driven pathway. In the tropical-ocean-driven pathway, the tropical Pacific and Atlantic interbasin sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies play a critical role in bridging the NASM and NATC, by modulating the cross-Central American wind. Simulations of the tropical Pacific–Atlantic interbasin SST anomalies are critical for CMIP6 models to capture the observed linkage between the NASM and the vertical wind shear over the NATC main development region (MDR). In the monsoon-heating-driven pathway, the heating source due to the rainfall anomalies associated with the NASM can trigger atmospheric circulation anomalies through the Gill-type response, thereby affecting the NATC by changing the vertical wind shear over the MDR. This study demonstrates a connection between interannual variations of the NASM and the NATC genesis frequency, results of which can be used to advance our understanding of the monsoon–TC relationship and increase research focus on the interannual NASM–NATC synchronization in climate prediction.
Han Huang and Yi Huang 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 054032
Earth radiates thermal radiation to balance the solar radiation it receives. Central to understanding climate change is how the radiation energy budget adjusts both globally and locally to external and internal forcing. In the past 18 years, satellite observations reveal a distinct positive trend of the Earth thermal radiation in the Arctic, which acts to radiate excess heating accumulating in the climate system to the space during global warming, i.e. a radiator fin region in a warming climate. Compared with other regions such as the tropics, the prominent trend in the Arctic results from a stronger surface and atmospheric warming and a less offsetting greenhouse effect of water vapor. Spectral decompositions further show the increase of thermal emission in the Arctic mainly originates from the far-infrared and mid-infrared window region and affirms the unbalanced radiative responses to temperature and humidity changes in these two spectral regions account for the unique thermal radiation trend in the Arctic.
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Xinyuan Wei et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 053001
Inland waters receive large quantities of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from soils and act as conduits for the lateral transport of this terrestrially derived carbon, ultimately storing, mineralizing, or delivering it to oceans. The lateral DOC flux plays a crucial role in the global carbon cycle, and numerous models have been developed to estimate the DOC export from different landscapes. We reviewed 34 published models and compared their characteristics to identify challenges in model applications and opportunities for future model development. We classified these models into three types: indicator-driven, hydrology-forced, and process-based DOC export simulation models. They differ mainly in their environmental inputs, simulation approaches for soil DOC production, leaching from soils to inland waters, and transit through inland waters. It is essential to consider landscape characteristics, climate conditions, available data, and research questions when selecting the most appropriate model. Given the substantial assumptions associated with these models, sufficient measurements are required to benchmark estimates. Accurate accounting of terrestrially derived DOC export to oceans requires incorporating the DOC produced in aquatic ecosystems and deposited with rainwater; otherwise, global export estimates may be overestimated by 40.7%. Additionally, improving the representation of mineralization and burial processes in inland waters allows for more accurate accounting of carbon sequestration through land ecosystems. When all the inland water processes are ignored or assuming DOC leaching is equivalent to DOC export, the loss of soil carbon through this lateral flux could be underestimated by 43.9%.
Tamara L Sheldon and Rubal Dua 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 043004
Ride-hailing has expanded substantially around the globe over the last decade and is likely to be an integral part of future transportation systems. We perform a systematic review of the literature on energy and environmental impacts of ride-hailing. In general, empirical papers find that ride-hailing has increased congestion, vehicle miles traveled, and emissions. However, theoretical papers overwhelmingly point to the potential for energy and emissions reductions in a future with increased electrification and pooling. Future research addressing the gap between observed and predicted impacts is warranted.
Aurélie Méjean et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 043003
While it is widely assumed that poor countries will suffer more from climate change, and that climate change will exacerbate inequalities within countries, systematic and large-scale evidence on this issue has been limited. In this systematic literature review, we examine and synthesize the evidence from the literature. Drawing from 127 individual papers, we find robust evidence that climate change impacts indeed increase economic inequality and disproportionately affect the poor, both globally and within countries on all continents. This result is valid across a wide range of physical impacts, types of economic inequality, economic sectors, and assessment methods. Furthermore, we highlight the channels through which climate change increases economic inequality. While the diversity of different approaches and metrics in the existing literature base precludes extracting a universal quantitative relation between climate change and economic inequality for use in future modelling, our systematic analysis provides an important stepping stone in that direction.
Jens Strauss et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 043002
Permafrost regions, characterised by extensive belowground excess ice, are highly vulnerable to rapid thaw, particularly in areas such as the Yedoma domain. This region is known to freeze-lock a globally significant stock of soil nitrogen (N). However, the fate of this N upon permafrost thaw remains largely unknown. In this study, we assess the impact of climate warming on the size and dynamics of the soil N pool in (sub-)Arctic ecosystems, drawing upon recently published data and literature. Our findings suggest that climate warming and increased thaw depths will result in an expansion of the reactive soil N pool due to the larger volume of (seasonally) thawed soil. Dissolved organic N emerges as the predominant N form for rapid cycling within (sub-)Arctic ecosystems. The fate of newly thawed N from permafrost is primarily influenced by plant uptake, microbial immobilisation, changes in decomposition rates due to improved N availability, as well as lateral flow. The Yedoma domain contains substantial N pools, and the partial but increasing thaw of this previously frozen N has the potential to amplify climate feedbacks through additional nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. Our ballpark estimate indicates that the Yedoma domain may contribute approximately 6% of the global annual rate of N2O emissions from soils under natural vegetation. However, the released soil N could also mitigate climate feedbacks by promoting enhanced vegetation carbon uptake. The likelihood and rate of N2O production are highest in permafrost thaw sites with intermediate moisture content and disturbed vegetation, but accurately predicting future landscape and hydrology changes in the Yedoma domain remains challenging. Nevertheless, it is evident that the permafrost-climate feedback will be significantly influenced by the quantity and mobilisation state of this unconsidered N pool.
Julia Tandetzki et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 043001
Over the last 30 years, more than 150 different drivers of forest area development have been investigated in peer-reviewed statistical analysis of the environmental Kuznets curve for deforestation (EKCd) and the forest transition hypothesis (FTH). However, there is no synthesis which of these drivers significantly contribute to changes in forest land expansion, like deforestation and forest recovery. To fill this gap, we conducted a systematic review of the scientific literature dealing with statistical analysis of drivers of forest area development under the concepts of EKCd and FTH. We referred to peer-reviewed articles, preselected by the evidence and gap map of Tandetzki et al 2022 Environ. Res. Lett.17 123005. From these selected articles we identified 85 relevant studies and extracted the applied model specifications. We found differences among studies in variable specifications of the dependent variable (expressions of forest area development) and the choice of independent variables (drivers) as well as in the choice of geographical scope and the concept used (EKCd and FTH). For further analysis, we extracted all drivers used to explain forest area development in the different studies and assigned them to 12 thematic categories (e.g. income factors or institutional factors). Our results show that the main underlying drivers of deforestation are related to income, demographics, trade, and institutional factors. The forest transition phenomenon is mainly described by drivers directly influencing forest area (e.g. expansion of agricultural land) and demographic trends. The heterogeneity and universality of the concepts of EKCd and FTH is not clearly evident even when separating different study groups. By isolating and discussing individual drivers of forest area development, our findings support future research dedicated to the analysis and projection of global forest area dynamics.
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Colombo et al
Access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy remains a critical goal under the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, especially in remote areas of developing countries. Based on traditional engineering approaches, many energy solution planning tools have been developed for identifying the optimal solution in these areas to assess the competition across different technological options. Nevertheless, these approaches based on an economic optimum, do not necessarily grant long-term sustainability of the solution in specific local context, since they are not able to capture any of the social implication within the Energy-Development nexus. Moreover, also in the light of the 2030 Agenda, scientific and grey literature on energy access highlights how energy solutions planning methodologies developed in the last decades need to be complemented by a more comprehensive view, in order to integrate evidence from various disciplines, especially engineering and social sciences. Based on the above consideration, this paper introduces a novel framework under the name of Comprehensive Energy Solution Planning (CESP), where three engineering phases are complemented by other three social sciences-based phases, each one characterized by specific tools, to offer an informed decision framework for the local planner. CESP encompasses a set of techno-economic and socio-technical actions aiming at preventing potential failure as evidenced by a a counterfactual analysis used to identify the reasons behind past project failures. The CESP framework, presenting a sequential and iterative structure which underlines the cyclic perspective of an holistic decision process where : social sciences feed the engineering analysis, and vice versa The CESP, emerges as a practical and applicable framework for supporting energy planning in critical areas.
Xu et al
In the realm of weather forecasting, the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents a transformative approach. However, AI weather forecasting method still faces challenges in accurately predicting meso- and smaller-scale processes and failing to directly capture extreme precipitation due to regression algorithm's nature, coarse resolution, and limitations in key variables like precipitation. Therefore, we propose a state-of-the-art technology which integrates the strengths of the Pangu-Weather AI weather forecasting with the traditional regional weather model, focusing specifically on enhancing the prediction of extreme precipitation events, as mainly exemplified by an unprecedented precipitation in North China from 29 July to 1 August 2023, and an additional extraordinary precipitation event as a supplementary validation to further ensure the accuracy of this technology. The results show that the AI-driven approach exhibits superior performance in capturing the spatial and temporal dynamics of extreme precipitation events. Remarkably, with a threshold of 400 mm, the AI-driven model secures a Threat Score (TS) of 0.1 for forecast lead time reaching up to 8.5 days. This performance notably surpasses the performance of traditional GFS-Driven models, which achieve a similar TS only within a limited 3-day forecast lead time. This considerable enhancement in forecast accuracy, especially over extended lead times illustrates the AI-driven model's potential to advance in long-term forecasts of extreme precipitation, previously considered challenging, emphasizing the potential of AI in augmenting and refining traditional weather prediction.
Efstathiou et al
As the transportation sector continues to decarbonize through electrification, there is growing interest in quantifying potential tradeoffs in air pollution and health impacts due to potential excess emissions from the power sector. This study investigates air pollution and health impacts of policy-driven changes in the transportation sector and the associated power generation demand in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic United States. Five illustrative scenarios were designed to capture the effects of different policies under the first mandatory market-based program to reduce greenhouse gases in the US power sector (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – RGGI) and the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). Considering future power generation with new renewable energy investments to meet demands from decarbonized transportation, the scenarios were framed using: 1. 2030 reference cases for both sectors and a hybrid TCI portfolio, 2. Departure from the reference cases defined by Pennsylvania included or not in RGGI, and 3. Power grid emissions estimated under Clean Energy Standard (CES) policy and hybrid TCI portfolio. While the cross-sectoral policy effect on domain-wide concentrations is modest (max ΔPM2.5~0.06μg/m3, ΔNO2~0.3ppbv, ΔO3~0.15ppbv), substantial increases in Ohio and WestVirginia were attributed to Pennsylvania joining RGGI. With CES enacted and Pennsylvania in RGGI, significant reductions are seen in average concentrations (max ΔPM2.5~1.2 μg/m3, ΔNO2~1.1ppbv, ΔO3~1.7ppbv) except for Louisiana and Mississippi with corresponding disbenefits. When focusing exclusively on emissions reductions from transportation, the hybrid TCI portfolio had health benefits of 530 avoided adult deaths, and 46,000 avoided asthma exacerbations. With a "business as usual" power grid, these benefits remain comparable and are mainly driven by NO2, followed by PM2.5 and O3. However, if Pennsylvania joins RGGI, total health benefits and spatial distribution change substantially, with a large portion of adverse health impacts moving from TCI states to Ohio and West Virginia. The overall monetized impact of a CES scenario can substantially exceed the estimated average range of 66-69 Billion US$, depending on the interaction with transportation decarbonization strategies and other drivers of exposure.
Wang et al
Climate warming has pronounced impacts on high-elevation regions, including arid Central Asia, and has multiple impacts on the environment. Forests in these mountainous areas provide essential services by regulating regional climate, sequestering carbon, and supporting soil and water conservation. However, trends in forest productivity and their response to climate change remain unclear. To address this knowledge gap, we collected tree cores from five sample plots in the western Tianshan region. We used tree-ring widths to reconstruct Net Primary Productivity (NPP) and investigated the sensitivity of forest NPP to climate change by analysing weather station data and employing LASSO regression to identify climatic factors influencing forest growth. Our results demonstrate that the reconstructed forest NPP effectively captured significant carbon shifts and revealed a non-significant increase in forest productivity associated with climate warming and higher precipitation between 1970 and 2020 at low and middle elevations in the Tianshan mountains. Humidity is the primary limiting factor affecting forest growth in this region. Conversely, the relationship between temperature and forest growth is not consistent as precipitation increases. Our findings suggest that continued warming will exacerbate water stress in forests.
Ayugi et al
Validation of observed gridded precipitation datasets sourced from satellites or reanalysis over Africa remains a challenge due to the dearth of in-situ products that can act as a true estimate. To address this gap, this study compares the performance of different precipitation products (gauge, reanalysis, and satellite-based) sourced from the Frequent Rainfall Observations on GridS (FROGS) database over Africa. Satellite products are classified as corrected (incorporating gauge observations into their algorithms) or uncorrected, which implies that temporal variations depend entirely on the satellite. The main aim is to identify regions where precipitation (PRE) products depict minimal uncertainties, supporting the use of the datasets in understanding rainfall variability in the specific regions. This is achieved by applying the triple collocation approach, which takes advantage of three collocated datasets of same variable and derive the mean square error without requiring knowledge of the truth. The results show that simulations of light precipitation (1 - 5 mm/day) were prevalent in most regions of Africa during the study duration (2001 - 2016). Estimating the spatial distribution of daily precipitation greater than 90th percentiles suggests that extreme precipitation is mainly detected over the central Africa (CAF) region and coastal regions of west Africa (WAF), where the majority of uncorrected satellite products show consistent performance. The corrected satellite product CMORPH_V1_RAW shows higher estimates of 90th percentile precipitation among the corrected satellite products. The ability of precipitation products to detect rainy or non-rainy days shows that corrected satellite products depict notable agreement for probability of detection (POD) and false alarm ratio (FAR) over most regions of Africa. Overall, better performance is demonstrated by the IMERG products (uncorrected), ARCv2, CHIRPSv2 and PERSIANN_CDRv1r1 (corrected), and GPCC, CPC_v1.0, and REGEN_ALL (gauge) during the study period. The optimal maps that show the classification of products in regions where they depict reliable performance can be recommended for various usages by different stakeholders.