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At least 181 records · Page 10

Measurement, reporting and Verification (MRV) of non-CO 2 greenhouse gases: International Best Practices and Suggestions for China

Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) is a systematic approach to tracking and documenting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and emission reductions. MRV can be used across all sectors and for all GHGs to track emissions patterns, evaluate programs, and promote transparency. As methane and other short-lived climate pollutants become critical to mitigating near-term climate change impacts, MRV systems become critical in improving emission inventories; facilitating the development of climate change policies and targets, and tracking and demonstrating progress towards sustainable development. This report focuses on current sectoral issues – including the emerging roles for satellites and remote sensing technologies - and international best practices in MRV policies and programs for non-carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) GHGs including methane, nitrous oxide (N 2 O), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in specific sectors. Based on international best practices and a review of China’s current MRV system, we offer suggestions for a possible path forward for developing and implementing a stronger non-CO 2 MRV system.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Climate-Water Impacts on Interconnection-Scale Electricity System Planning

A growing literature emphasizes the importance of integrating climate change impacts into electricity system planning. Rising average temperatures can increase and shift electricity demand while reducing generator and transmission efficiency. Changes to water availability and quality can reduce the output of thermally cooled generators and hydropower. Electric power grids across the US and globally are undergoing transformational changes that present new opportunities and challenges to reliability assurance. However, electric utilities and system operators have limited internal capabilities to incorporate these effects into planning practices. This work addresses gaps in utility and system planner practices by integrating climate-water-electricity expertise from universities and U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories with electricity system planners and stakeholders in the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC). Using a highly collaborative approach, global climate model data, high-resolution hydrology models, and long-term electric sector capacity expansion tools are employed to analyze a range of climate outcomes for future electricity scenarios aligned with recent WECC planning studies. Doing so allows WECC to expand its climate-agnostic planning assessments to consider how future temperature and precipitation patterns could influence generation and transmission planning. We explore how changes to climate-water conditions can affect power plant investment and operation, system economics, and environmental impacts, providing an expanded perspective on interconnection-wide decision making under climate uncertainty.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Quantifying uncertainty in aggregated climate change risk assessments

High-level assessments of climate change impacts aggregate multiple perils into a common framework. This requires incorporating multiple dimensions of uncertainty. Here we propose a methodology to transparently assess these uncertainties within the ‘Reasons for Concern’ framework, using extreme heat as a case study. We quantitatively discriminate multiple dimensions of uncertainty, including future vulnerability and exposure to changing climate hazards. High risks from extreme heat materialise after 1.5–2 °C and very high risks between 2–3.5 °C of warming. Risks emerge earlier if global assessments were based on national risk thresholds, underscoring the need for stringent mitigation to limit future extreme heat risks.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Long-term decarbonization impacts on residential energy security across income groups and US states

Abstract The impact of a transition to a net-zero economy on the residential energy sector across diverse income groups in the US remains uncertain. Here, we employ an integrated human-Earth system model, incorporating an expanded set of ten income groups in the residential energy sector, to examine the distributional impacts of long-term decarbonization scenarios on residential energy security at the state level through 2050. We use multiple metrics of energy security, including energy burden, energy satiation gap, and the distribution of energy service across income groups. Our findings show that the net-zero decarbonization scenarios affect residential energy security differently across income groups, with low-to-mid-income groups experiencing larger negative impacts on the dimensions studied here. Comparatively, climate change impact on residential energy security is minor through 2050 based on our model outcomes. Specifically, the net-zero decarbonization scenarios lead to increased energy burden across all income groups and states in 2050, where the lowest (highest) income group in each state shows an average of 0.6 (0.2) percentage point increase in energy burden, relative to the business-as-usual in 2050. The distribution of energy service consumption across income groups is also slightly more skewed under these scenarios. As incomes grow across all deciles in the future, residential energy security generally improves through 2050. Targeted interventions could mitigate the disproportionate impacts that some groups could incur under a transition to a net-zero economy.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Monitoring Drought Conditions in the Navajo Nation Using NASA Earth Observations

The Navajo Nation, a 65,700 sq km Native American territory located in the southwestern United States, has been increasingly impacted by severe drought events and changes in climate. These events are coupled with a lack of domestic water infrastructure and economic resources, leaving approximately one-third of the population without access to potable water in their homes. Current methods of monitoring drought are dependent on state-based monthly Standardized Precipitation Index value maps calculated by the Western Regional Climate Center. However, these maps do not provide the spatial resolution needed to illustrate differences in drought severity across the vast Nation. To better understand and monitor drought events and drought regime changes in the Navajo Nation, this project created a geodatabase of historical climate information specific to the area, and a decision support tool to calculate average Standardized Precipitation Index values for user-specified areas. The tool and geodatabase use Tropical Rainfall Monitoring Mission (TRMM) and Global Precipitation Monitor (GPM) observed precipitation data and Parameter-elevation Relationships on Independent Slopes Model modeled historical precipitation data, as well as NASA's modeled Land Data Assimilation Systems deep soil moisture, evaporation, and transpiration data products. The geodatabase and decision support tool will allow resource managers in the Navajo Nation to utilize current and future NASA Earth observation data for increased decision-making capacity regarding future climate change impact on water resources.

Ly, Vickie↗

Air-conditioning adoption and electricity demand highlight climate change mitigation–adaptation tradeoffs

Abstract We elucidate mid-century climate change impacts on electricity demand accounting for endogenous adoption of residential air-conditioning (AC) in affluent, cooler countries in Europe, and in poorer, hotter states in India. By 2050, in a high-warming scenario (SSP585) AC prevalence grows twofold in Europe and fourfold in India, reaching around 40% in both regions. We document a mitigation-adaptation tradeoff: AC expansion reduces daily heat exposures by 150 million and 3.8 billion person degree-days (PDDs), but increases annual electricity demand by 34 TWh and 168 TWh in Europe and India, respectively (corresponding to 2% and 15% of today’s consumption). The increase in adoption and use of AC would result in an additional 130 MMTCO2, of which 120 MMTCO2 in India alone, if the additional electricity generated were produced with today’s power mix. The tradeoff varies geographically and across income groups: a one PDD reduction in heat exposure in Europe versus India necessitates five times more electricity (0.53 kWh vs 0.1 kWh) and two times more emissions (0.16 kgCO $$_2$$ 2 vs 0.09 kgCO $$_2$$ 2 ), on average. The decomposition of demand drivers offers important insights on how such tradeoff can be moderated through policies promoting technology-based and behavioral-based adaptation strategies.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Snow Cover and Precipitation Impacts on Dry Season Streamflow in the Lower Mekong Basin

Climate change impacts on dry season streamflow in the Mekong River are relatively understudied, despite the fact that water availability during this time is critically important for agricultural and ecological systems. Analyses of two gauging stations (Vientiane and Kratie) in the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB) show significant positive correlations between dry season (March through May, MAM) discharge and upper basin snow cover and local precipitation. Using snow cover, precipitation, and upstream discharge as predictors, we develop skillful regression models for MAM streamflow at Vientiane and Kratie, and force these models with output from a suite of general circulation model (GCM) experiments for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The GCM simulations predict divergent trends in snow cover (decreasing) and precipitation (increasing) over the twenty-first century, driving overall negligible long-term trends in dry season streamflow. Our study demonstrates how future changes in dry season streamflow in the LMB will depend on changes in snow cover and precipitation, factors that will need to be considered when assessing the full basin response to other climatic and non-climatic drivers.

Cook, Benjamin I.↗

Regional and Model-Specific Response Types in A Global Gridded Crop Model Ensemble

Crop models are often employed to project crop yields under changing conditions such as global warming and associated management change for adaptation. Multi-model ensembles are promoted to enhance the robustness of projections, but questions remain on what causes often large differences between projections of individual models. Global Gridded Crop Models (GGCMs) are especially exposed to this question when applied for assessing climate change impacts, adaptation, environmental impacts of agricultural production, because their results are used in downstream analyses, such as in integrated assessment or economic modeling for projecting future land-use change. Even though global gridded crop models are often based on detailed field-scale models or have implemented similar modeling principles in other ecosystem models, global-scale models are subject to substantial uncertainties from both model structure and parametrization as well as from calibration and input data quality. AgMIP’s Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison (GGCMI) has thus set out to intercompare GGCMs in order to evaluate model performance, describe model uncertainties, identify inconsistencies within the ensemble and underlying reasons, and to ultimately improve models and modeling capacities. In phase 2 of the GGCMI activities, 12 modeling groups followed a modeling protocol that asked for up to 1404 31-year global simulations at 0.5 arc-degree spatial resolution to assess models’ sensitivities to changes in carbon dioxide (C; 4 different levels) temperature (T; 7 different offset levels), water supply (W; 9 levels), and nitrogen (N; 3 levels), the so-called CTWN experiment (Franke et al. 2020; http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-2315-2020). We here present analyses of model response types using impact response surfaces along the C, T, W, and N dimensions, respectively and collectively. Doing so, we can understand differences in simulated responses per driver rather than aggregated changes in yields. We find that models’ sensitivities to the individual driver dimensions are substantially different and often more different across models than across regions. A cluster analysis finds regional and model-specific patterns. There is some agreement across models with respect to the spatial patterns of response types but strong differences in the distribution of response type clusters across models suggests that models need to undergo further scrutiny. We suggest establishing standards in model process evaluation not only against historical dynamics but also against dedicated experiments across the CTWN dimensions.

crop models↗

Linking Indigenous Knowledge and Observed Climate Change Studies

We present indigenous knowledge narratives and explore their connections to documented temperature and other climate changes and observed climate change impact studies. We then propose a framework for enhancing integration of these indigenous narratives of observed climate change with global assessments. Our aim is to contribute to the thoughtful and respectful integration of indigenous knowledge with scientific data and analysis, so that this rich body of knowledge can inform science, and so that indigenous and traditional peoples can use the tools and methods of science for the benefit of their communities if they choose to do so. Enhancing ways of understanding such connections are critical as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment process gets underway.

Alexander, Chief Clarence↗

NASA Earth Observations Informing Renewable Energy Management and Policy Decision Making

The NASA Applied Sciences Program partners with domestic and international governmental organizations, universities, and private entities to improve their decisions and assessments. These improvements are enabled by using the knowledge generated from research resulting from spacecraft observations and model predictions conducted by NASA and providing these as inputs to the decision support and scenario assessment tools used by partner organizations. The Program is divided into eight societal benefit areas, aligned in general with the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) themes. The Climate Application of the Applied Sciences Program has as one of its focuses, efforts to provide for improved decisions and assessments in the areas of renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency, and climate change impacts. The goals of the Applied Sciences Program are aligned with national initiatives such as the U.S. Climate Change Science and Technology Programs and with those of international organizations including the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS). Activities within the Program are funded principally through proposals submitted in response to annual solicitations and reviewed by peers.

Eckman, Richard S.↗

Diverging Importance of Drought Stress for Maize and Winter Wheat in Europe

Understanding the drivers of yield levels under climate change is required to support adaptation planning and respond to changing production risks. This study uses an ensemble of crop models applied on a spatial grid to quantify the contributions of various climatic drivers to past yield variability in grain maize and winter wheat of European cropping systems (1984-2009) and drivers of climate change impacts to 2050. Results reveal that for the current genotypes and mix of irrigated and rainfed production, climate change would lead to yield losses for grain maize and gains for winter wheat. Across Europe, on average heat stress does not increase for either crop in rainfed systems, while drought stress intensifies for maize only. In low-yielding years, drought stress persists as the main driver of losses for both crops, with elevated CO2 offering no yield benefit in these years.

Europe↗

Mapping Oyster Reef Habitats in Mobile Bay

Oyster reefs around the world are declining rapidly, and although they haven t received as much attention as coral reefs, they are just as important to their local ecosystems and economies. Oyster reefs provide habitats for many species of fish, invertebrates, and crustaceans, as well as the next generations of oysters. Oysters are also harvested from many of these reefs and are an important segment of many local economies, including that of Mobile Bay, where oysters rank in the top five commercial marine species both by landed weight and by dollar value. Although the remaining Mobile Bay oyster reefs are some of the least degraded in the world, projected climate change could have dramatic effects on the health of these important ecosystems. The viability of oyster reefs depends on water depth and temperature, appropriate pH and salinity levels, and the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water. Projected increases in sea level, changes in precipitation and runoff patterns, and changes in pH resulting from increases in the amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans could all affect the viability of oyster reefs in the future. Human activities such as dredging and unsustainable harvesting practices are also adversely impacting the oyster reefs. Fortunately, several projects are already under way to help rebuild or support existing or previously existing oyster reefs. The success of these projects will depend on the local effects of climate change on the current and potential habitats and man s ability to recognize and halt unsustainable harvesting practices. As the extent and health of the reefs changes, it will have impacts on the Mobile Bay ecosystem and economy, changing the resources available to the people who live there and to the rest of the country, since Mobile Bay is an important national source of seafood. This project identified potential climate change impacts on the oyster reefs of Mobile Bay, including the possible addition of newly viable habitats in the southeastern regions of the Bay.

Bolte, Danielle↗

Puerto Rico Historical Climate Analysis: A closer look at complex tropical terrain

Small tropical islands like Puerto Rico are especially vulnerable to climate change impacts, yet are often underrepresented in most datasets because the spatial resolution is too coarse to sufficiently cover their complex terrain. This study was done to better understand how the climate has changed in the various regions of Puerto Rico, which will support a transition to renewable energy and aid in projecting future climate impacts on the residents and land they live on. This study used multiple datasets including Daymet, a daily surface weather and climatological summary; European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis version 5 (ERA5); and station observations. The climate variables examined here include minimum and maximum near-surface air temperature, daily precipitation, incident shortwave radiation, and large-scale upper atmosphere conditions. The time periods cover the years 1950–2019. Results in both Daymet and station observations show long-term warming trends throughout every season. In particular, the minimum winter temperatures increased the most compared with maximum and mean air temperature. Northeast Puerto Rico, where the majority of the island’s population is located, experienced the largest warming. Summertime precipitation has decreased over time, and spring and fall precipitation has increased. The largest increase in fall is because there has been more available precipitable water, lower sea-level pressure, and favorable cyclonic circulations from the trade winds over the past seven decades. Overall, wet days are getting wetter, while dry days are getting drier. While there are good solar energy potential, we see a long-term decreasing trend in shortwave radiation over time in all seasons across entire island, possibly due to the increase of cloud cover.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Tracking snowmelt during hydrological surface processes using a distributed hydrological model in a mesoscale basin on the Tibetan Plateau

We report that mountain snowpack is an important water resource for the high altitude and latitude regions where the terrain is complex. However, the snowmelt pathway and its actual contribution to streamflow and soil moisture are rarely reported and remain unclear in such regions. To fill in this knowledge gap, we incorporate a snowmelt pathway tracking algorithm to a high-resolution physics-based distributed-hydrology-soil-vegetation model (DHSVM), to track snowmelt movement and quantify snowmelt contributions in the surface hydrologic processes. A simple reservoir operation scheme is also incorporated in the model. The modified model is applied to a dammed meso-scale watershed in the northeast Tibetan Plateau, China to study the snow and reservoir effects. The results show that annual snow contribution to soil moisture (SC-SM) and snow contribution to streamflow (SC-S) significantly decrease over 1965-2019. At a monthly scale, SC-SM has the largest amplitude at the top soil layer and its peak in the deeper layer lags behind the upper layer, and mean monthly SC-S at all stations show bimodal distributions corresponding to snowfall season. Reservoir regulation has subtle impacts (≤2.0%) on SC-S. If the current climate change rate continues, monthly and annual streamflow at the outlet will decrease primarily due to snowpack reduction. To mitigate climate change impacts, better water resource management is needed in this watershed.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Modelling Freshwater Resources at the Global Scale: Challenges and Prospects

Quantification of spatially and temporally resolved water flows and water storage variations for all land areas of the globe is required to assess water resources, water scarcity and flood hazards, and to understand the Earth system. This quantification is done with the help of global hydrological models (GHMs). What are the challenges and prospects in the development and application of GHMs? Seven important challenges are presented. (1) Data scarcity makes quantification of human water use difficult even though significant progress has been achieved in the last decade. (2) Uncertainty of meteorological input data strongly affects model outputs. (3) The reaction of vegetation to changing climate and CO2 concentrations is uncertain and not taken into account in most GHMs that serve to estimate climate change impacts. (4) Reasons for discrepant responses of GHMs to changing climate have yet to be identified. (5) More accurate estimates of monthly time series of water availability and use are needed to provide good indicators of water scarcity. (6) Integration of gradient-based groundwater modelling into GHMs is necessary for a better simulation of groundwater-surface water interactions and capillary rise. (7) Detection and attribution of human interference with freshwater systems by using GHMs are constrained by data of insufficient quality but also GHM uncertainty itself. Regarding prospects for progress, we propose to decrease the uncertainty of GHM output by making better use of in situ and remotely sensed observations of output variables such as river discharge or total water storage variations by multi-criteria validation, calibration or data assimilation. Finally, we present an initiative that works towards the vision of hyper resolution global hydrological modelling where GHM outputs would be provided at a 1-km resolution with reasonable accuracy.

Global hydrological model↗

An Assessment of Irrigated Agriculture and Drought-related Hazard Risks for the Aral Sea Region

This was part of a larger UNDP/Uzbekistan project on the Aral Sea Region, which is a prominent ecological disaster caused by water diversion and unsustainable land use management. Columbia University CCSR and the Climate Impacts Group are working with the UNDP to explore climate change impacts on irrigated agriculture in the region, particularly with regards to yield changes and drought risk for wheat and cotton systems in the Amu Darya River Basin. My talk described our project plan and described the types of data that we would need from project partners in the country in order to connect our global satellites and models to local conditions.

Irrigated agriculture↗

Food And Agriculture Supply Chain Model

This model is part of an LDRD effort to investigate the connection of food and agriculture supply chain and the critical infrastructure. The model was built for a small number of farmers, shippers, processing companies and retailers as proof of concept to illustrate supply chain impacts. In this model, the emphasis is on understanding the climate change impacts on the food supply chain. The model uses agent-based modeling method in combination with machine learning. It also connects logistic simulation with economic principles such as price change caused by supply and demand, and consumer substitution effect based on price comparisons of two substitutable commodities.

Nguyen, Thuy↗

Getting allometry right at the Oak Ridge free‐air CO 2 enrichment experiment: Old problems and new opportunities for global change experiments

Societal Impact Statement Free‐air CO 2 enrichment (FACE) experiments provide essential data on forest responses to increasing atmospheric CO 2 for evaluations of climate change impacts on humanity. Understanding and reducing the uncertainty in the experimental results is critical to ensure scientific and public confidence in the models and policy initiatives that derive therefrom. One source of uncertainty is the estimation of tree biomass using mathematical relationships between biomass and easily obtained and non‐destructive measurements (allometry). We evaluated the robustness of the allometric relationships established at the beginning of a FACE experiment and discuss the challenges and opportunities for the new generation of FACE experiments. Summary Long‐term field experiments to elucidate forest responses to rising atmospheric CO 2 concentration require allometric equations to estimate tree biomass from non‐destructive measurements of tree size. We analyzed whether the allometric equations established at the beginning of a free‐air CO 2 enrichment (FACE) experiment in a Liquidambar styraciflua plantation were still valid at the end of the 12 year experiment. Aboveground woody biomass was initially predicted by an equation that included bole diameter, taper, and height, assuming that including taper and height as predictors would accommodate changes in tree structure that might occur over time and in response to elevated CO 2 . At the conclusion of the FACE experiment, we harvested 23 trees, measured dimensions and dry mass of boles and branches, and extracted and measured the woody root mass of 10 trees. Although 10 of the harvested trees were larger than the trees used to establish the allometric relationship, measured aboveground woody biomass was well predicted by the original allometry. The initial linear equation between bole basal area and woody root biomass underestimated final root biomass by 28%, but root biomass was just 21% of total wood mass, and errors in aboveground and belowground estimates were offsetting. The allometry established at the beginning of the experiment provided valid predictions of tree biomass throughout the experiment. New allometric approaches using terrestrial laser scanning should reduce an important source of uncertainty in decade‐long forest experiments and in assessments of centuries‐long forest biomass accretion used in evaluating carbon offsets and climate mitigation.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗