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The world has changed this year under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns around the world have reduced energy demand, resulting in emissions declines, but what could the post-COVID-19 world look like — a return to normal, or will this start a transition?
An Oxford atmospheric physicist and experimenter on early NASA weather satellites who revolutionized the field through leadership of the Appleton Laboratory, the Meteorological Office and the Science Board of the IPCC.
The carbon footprint of oil refining differs depending on crude oil quality and refinery configuration. Analysis of global oil refining in 2015 shows refining carbon intensity at crude, refinery and country levels and highlights potential for emissions reductions.
Traditional coastal protection methods that rely on built, hard structures like seawalls may not be effective to keep pace with a changing climate. Nature-based coastal defences based on habitat restoration can be an adaptive coastal protection alternative.
Warming is predicted to weaken the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Simulated temperature stabilization at Paris Agreement targets shows recovery to a level independent of the target, with continued North Atlantic warming and North Atlantic sea-level rise lower than the global mean.
Synergistically addressing local and global environmental damages rather than optimizing a specific aspect of the policy conundrum helps to effectively foster climate action in road transport while maintaining public acceptance and socially fair outcomes.
Ocean acidification is changing the productivity and composition of phytoplankton communities at the base of the aquatic food web. Now a study shows that acidification impairs the swimming ability of flagellated microalgae, suggesting that their capacity to survive is threatened in a high CO2 world.
International efforts to expand access to safely managed sanitation provide an opportunity to introduce new models for sanitation infrastructure with lower environmental impacts than existing systems. Now, measurements in Haiti show that composting of human waste reduces GHG emissions compared to existing methods.
Algal movement through the water column occurs to maximize photosynthesis and avoid predation. Increased CO2 concentrations are shown, from laboratory and field experiments, to reduce motility in algal species in fresh, brackish and marine systems.
Evapotranspiration links productivity with water cycling between land and atmosphere. A model including plant hydraulics better describes the response of evapotranspiration to stress from vapour pressure deficit and soil moisture under rising temperatures than approaches common in Earth system models.
Human waste in slums is often collected untreated in pit latrines, which emit GHGs and have negative impacts on human health. If adopted in slums globally, off-site composting could reduce methane emissions from the sanitation sector by 13–44% while improving public health.