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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Skeptical Science New Research for Week #31, 2020

Posted on 5 August 2020 by Doug Bostrom

100 Articles

Physical science of global warming & effects

Analyzing the Arctic Feedback Mechanism between Sea Ice and Low-Level Clouds Using 34 Years of Satellite Observations

Observations of global warming & effects

Sea?Level Rise Driving Increasingly Predictable Coastal Inundation in Sydney, Australia (open access)

The recent state and variability of the carbonate system of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and adjacent basins in the context of ocean acidification (open access)

Remote Tropical Western Indian Ocean Forcing on Changes in June Precipitation in South China and the Indochina Peninsula (open access)

Instrumentation and observational methods of climate & global warming

The tipping points and early-warning indicators for Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica (open access)

Validation of reanalysis Southern Ocean atmosphere trends using sea ice data (open access)

Differences in tropical high clouds among reanalyses: origins and radiative impacts (open access)

Evaluation of a New Carbon Dioxide System for Autonomous Surface Vehicles (open access)

CLASSnmat: A global night marine air temperature data set, 1880–2019 (open access)

Modeling & simulation of global warming & global warming effects

Analysis of CMIP6 atmospheric moisture fluxes and the implications for projections of future change in mean and heavy rainfall

Global Pattern Formation of Net Ocean Surface Heat Flux Response to Greenhouse Warming

RCP8.5 tracks cumulative CO2 emissions (open access)

Twenty-first century-end climate scenario of Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya, India, using ensemble climate models

A regional hindcast model simulating ecosystem dynamics, inorganic carbon chemistry, and ocean acidification in the Gulf of Alaska (open access)

On the contribution of internal climate variability to European future climate trends (open access)

Arctic and Antarctic sea ice mean state in the Community Earth System Model Version 2 and the influence of atmospheric chemistry

Global river water warming due to climate change and anthropogenic heat emission

Downscaling of climate extremes over South America – Part I: Model evaluation in the reference climate

Projected climate change in the Karkheh Basin, Iran, based on CORDEX models

Climate model advancement

The sources of uncertainty in the projection of global land monsoon precipitation

Large difference in aerosol radiative effects from BVOC-SOA treatment in three Earth system models (open access)

Contrasting transition complexity between El Niño and La Niña: Observations and CMIP5/6 models

High sensitivity of Arctic black carbon radiative effects to subgrid vertical velocity in aerosol activation

North Pacific Upper-Ocean Cold Temperature Biases in CMIP6 Simulations and the Role of Regional Vertical Mixing (open access)

Representation of Modes of Variability in Six U.S. Climate Models

Improving the ocean and atmosphere in a coupled ocean?atmosphere model by assimilating satellite sea surface temperature and subsurface profile data

Cryosphere & climate change

Anthropogenic warming forces extreme annual glacier mass loss

Climate change and Northern Hemisphere lake and river ice phenology (open access)

The contrasting response of outlet glaciers to interior and ocean forcing (open access)

Historical Northern Hemisphere snow cover trends and projected changes in the CMIP6 multi-model ensemble (open access)

Biology & global warming

Climate change and perishable food hoards of an avian predator: Is the freezer still working?

Changing spring snow cover dynamics and early season forage availability affect the behavior of a large carnivore

Decreasing phytoplankton size adversely affects ocean food chains

A century of fish growth in relation to climate change, population dynamics and exploitation

Impacts of climate-induced permafrost degradation on vegetation: A review

Phenological changes in herbaceous plants in China’s grasslands and their responses to climate change: a meta-analysis

Extinction risk assessment of a Patagonian ungulate using population dynamics models under climate change scenarios

Examining land surface phenology in the tropical moist forest eco-zone of South America

Climate change models predict decreases in the range of a microendemic freshwater fish in Honduras (open access)

Temperature and precipitation at migratory grounds influence demographic trends of an Arctic?breeding bird

Effects of multiple drivers of ocean global change on the physiology and functional gene expression of the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi

Spruce beetle outbreak was not driven by drought stress: Evidence from a tree?ring iso?demographic approach indicates temperatures were more important

Low phosphorus supply constrains plant responses to elevated CO2: A meta?analysis

Half a century of Scots pine forest ecosystem monitoring reveals long?term effects of atmospheric deposition and climate change

Epiphytes provide micro-scale refuge from ocean acidification

Foraging strategy mediates ectotherm predator–prey responses to climate warming

Drought shrinks terrestrial upland resilience to climate change

Predicted alteration of surface activity as a consequence of climate change

Warm temperatures increase population growth of a non?native defoliator and inhibit demographic responses by parasitoids

GHG sources & sinks, flux

Partitioning the $$\hbox {CO}_2$$ CO 2 Flux Mediated by Droplets Released from Breaking Waves

The impacts of fossil fuel emission uncertainties and accounting for 3-D chemical CO 2 production on inverse natural carbon flux estimates from satellite and in situ data

Identification of optimum temperatures for photosynthetic production in subtropical coastal ecosystems – implications for CO2 sequestration in a warming world

The sponge effect and carbon emission mitigation potentials of the global cement cycle (open access)

Global patterns and climatic controls of belowground net carbon fixation (open access)

Changing characteristics of atmospheric CH4 on the Tibetan Plateau, records from 1994 to 2017 at Mount Waliguan station (open access)

Representing methane emissions from wet tropical forest soils using microbial functional groups constrained by soil diffusivity (open access)

Temporary and net sinks of atmospheric CO2 due to chemical weathering in subtropical catchment with mixing carbonate and silicate lithology (open access)

Exploring Constraints on a Wetland Methane Emission Ensemble (WetCHARTs) using GOSAT Satellite Observations (open access)

Methane transport in plants (open access)

The Effect of Antarctic Sea Ice on Southern Ocean Carbon Outgassing: Capping versus Light Attenuation

Vegetation affects timing and location of wetland methane emissions

Influence of vertical heterogeneities in the canopy microenvironment on inter?annual variability of carbon uptake in temperate deciduous forests

Response to concerns and uncertainties relating to methane emissions synthesis for vegetated coastal ecosystems

CO2 removal science & engineering

Increased carbon capture by a silicate-treated forested watershed affected by acid deposition (open access)

Can biomass supply meet the demands of BECCS?

Geoengineering climate

A specialised delivery system for stratospheric sulphate aerosols: design and operation (open access)

Differing responses of the quasi-biennial oscillation to artificial SO2 injections in two global models (open access)

Black carbon & aerosols

Long-term (2008–2017) analysis of atmospheric composite aerosol and black carbon radiative forcing over a semi-arid region in southern India: Model results and ground measurement

Source attribution of Arctic black carbon and sulfate aerosols and associated Arctic surface warming during 1980–2018 (open access)

Weakening aerosol direct radiative effects mitigate climate penalty on Chinese air quality

Climate change communications & cognition

Climate Change Adaptation: Limited media narratives (open access)

Aquaculture farmers’ perceptions of climate-related risks in the Mekong Region

A Call to Arms for Climate Change? How Military Service Member Concern About Climate Change Can Inform Effective Climate Communication (open access)

No glory without sacrifice — drivers of climate (in)action in the general population

Paying attention to climate change: Positive images of climate change solutions capture attention

Agronomy & climate change

Evaluating Cropland N2O Emissions and Fertilizer Plant Greenhouse Gas Emissions with Airborne Observations

Preference heterogeneity, neighbourhood effects and basic services: logit kernel models for farmers’ climate adaptation in Ethiopia

Economics & finance of climate change impact adaptation, climate mitigation

Special to Research News*: Valuing the Global Mortality Consequences of Climate Change Accounting for Adaptation Costs and Benefits

Economic valuation of climate change–induced mortality: age dependent cold and heat mortality in the Netherlands (open access)

Climate finance justice: International perspectives on climate policy, social justice, and capital (open access)

Climate shocks and adaptation strategies in coastal Bangladesh: does microcredit have a part to play? (open access)

The political economy of coal in Poland: Drivers and barriers for a shift away from fossil fuels

What explains the emergence and diffusion of green bonds?

Towards zero carbon and zero poverty: integrating national climate change mitigation and sustainable development goals (open access)

Mobilising private climate finance for sustainable energy access and climate change mitigation in Sub-Saharan Africa (open access)

A dual-track transition to global carbon pricing (open access)

Humans dealing with our global warming

Factors behind CO2 emission reduction in Chinese heavy industries: Do environmental regulations matter?

Mapping the evidence of climate change adaptation policy instruments in Europe

Enhancing New York City's resilience to sea level rise and increased coastal flooding

Identification of local water resource vulnerability to rapid deglaciation in Alberta

Flood risks in sinking delta cities: time for a re?evaluation? (open access)

Contrasting development trajectories for coastal Bangladesh to the end of century (open access)

What Policies Address Both the Coronavirus Crisis and the Climate Crisis? (open access)

Adaptation planning in France: inputs from narratives of change in support of a community-led foresight process

En route to China's mid-century climate goal: comparison of emissions intensity versus absolute targets (open access)

Other

Future greening of the Earth may not be as large as previously predicted

A meta-analysis of the life cycle greenhouse gas balances of microalgae biodiesel

Informed opinion & nudges

A Precautionary Assessment of Systemic Projections and Promises From Sunlight Reflection and Carbon Removal Modeling

Past perspectives on the present era of abrupt Arctic climate change

Five Lessons from COVID-19 for Advancing Climate Change Mitigation (open access)

*Working paper, not peer-reviewed by formal journal editorial process but nonetheless reviewed by a lot of peers. 


Obtaining copies of papers

We know it's frustrating that many articles we cite here are not free to read. One-off paid access fees are generally astronomically priced, suitable for such as "On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light but not as a gamble on unknowns. With a median world income of $US 9,3733, for most of us $US 42 is significant money to wager against a small marginal cost. 

Economists of a scientific bent may someday help scientific publishers bring science to their business activities as reflected in rational à la carte article disclosure fees. Meanwhile there are several possible paths to equality of information access short of paying an objectively and crushingly large fee for the unveiling of a single article:

  • Unpaywall offers a browser extension for Chrome that automatically indicates when an article is freely accessible and provides immediate access without further trouble. Unpaywall is also unscammy, works well, is itself offered free to use. The organizers (a legitimate nonprofit) report about a 50% success rate
  • If you're interested in an article and it is not listed here as "open access," be sure to check the link anyway. Due to time constraints open access articles are identified by us via  imperfect machine analysis. Compared with Unpaywall statistics we successfully  identify roughly 2/3rds of open access articles. There's definitely gold left in the ground. 

Suggestions

Please let us know if you're aware of an article you think may be of interest for Skeptical Science research news, or if we've missed something that may be important. Send your input to Skeptical Science via our contact form.

Journals covered

A list of journals we cover may be found here. We welcome pointers to omissions, new journals etc.

Previous edition

The previous edition of Skeptical Science New Research may be found here.

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Comments

Comments 1 to 3:

  1. I hope this is the correct area to ask this, but I was reading this 2020 soil health conference and very informative about soil microbes etc. However when giving the closing 15mins, Dr Christine Jones explaines the major driver of climate change is the increase of water vapour from evaporation from depleted and cleared soils/land, moreso than our increasing co2. I always thought it was mainly the ppm of co2 causing gw? Is the Dr right in blaming our land use which is increasing the amount of water vapour and is then the primary ghg? Can someone review the last 15mins and advise, thanks..

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4uVKIGBk2s

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  2. prove we are smart @1,

    Congratulations.

    You have spotted a soil scientist who is in denial with regard to the causes of AGW. I suppose soil scientists are not a million miles from geologists who often are found on record misrepresenting AGW. At 1:11:20 in the video you link-to we hear:-

    "0.04% of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide. Do you really think that's changing global climate? [Murmurs heard from the audience including 'yes'] Really? There is absolutely no science behind that at all to show. Yes, it [CO2] is a GHG and so is N2O and so is CH4 and so is water vapour. Those molecues all have the potential for what we call radiative forcing. But when it's 0.04% of the atmosphere it contributes very very little to global climate."

    The slides had previously shown this slide:-

    Fred Singer - CO2 is a trace gas

    This graphic is the work of Fred Singer, a well-known aged denialist who died earlier this year. It originates from this denialist webpage and is saying that the human impact on the GH-effect is no more than 0.28% but gives zero references to support such a crazy assertion.

    The webpage tries to make the case for CO2 having increased from 288ppm pre-industrial to 368ppm (which dates the webpage to perhaps 20 years ago as today CO2 is at 410ppm) , an increase of (364-288=) 80ppm but with the bold assertion that only 12ppm of this increase is due to mankind. So from all this we should not be surprised by any denialist outrage.

    The pre-industrial GH-effect boosts average global temperature by something like 33ºC. About three-quarters of this is due to water vapour and clouds and 20% due to CO2. But without the CO2 and other long-lived GHGs, the levels of water in the atmosphere would soon crash (it would take a couple of decades) leaving a snowball (or more accurately 'iceball' earth.

    The speaker in the video does make a stab at a man-made cause of AGW. A graphic @1:11:20 in the video shows two paths to 'temperature warming' - CO2 emissions from soil degradation and H2O emissions from warmer soils. But the speaker insists it is the H2O that is the dominant warming agent:-

    1:03:13
    "And when we lose carbon, we lose moisture because that's what gives us our moisture holding capacity. All this moisture, extra moisture, is evaporating and going up into the atmosphere. And it's increasing the temperature, hugely.
    "This is, to my mind anyway, the chief cause of the climate instability that we have at the moment. Because what happens is if you heat something it evaporates, like you put a saucepan of water on the stove and heat it up, it evaporates.
    "So these soils get a lot hotter than these covered soils and we now have huge amounts of water vapour up in the atmosphere that weren't there a couple of hundred years ago. We have to look at the whole system..."

    It would be good if the "whole system" were considered as we would be saved having to listen to the likes of the dysfunctonal account of AGW in this video.

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    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Fixed image display issues.  The Geocraft pages are not secure.

  3. Great, thanks for link-I'd forgotten how short lived water vapour is in our atmosphere. Sceptical Science has been so helpful for explaining to me the very basics to a more intimate understanding of AGW. A clued up moderator keeps everyone honest-good news with your new partners..

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