Stratospheric controlled perturbation experiment: a small-scale experiment to improve understanding of the risks of solar geoengineering

Although solar radiation management (SRM) through stratospheric aerosol methods has the potential to mitigate impacts of climate change, our current knowledge of stratospheric processes suggests that these methods may entail significant risks. In addition to the risks associated with current knowledge, the possibility of ‘unknown unknowns’ exists that could significantly alter the risk assessment relative to our current understanding. While laboratory experimentation can improve the current state of knowledge and atmospheric models can assess large-scale climate response, they cannot capture possible unknown chemistry or represent the full range of interactive atmospheric chemical physics. Small-scale, in situ experimentation under well-regulated circumstances can begin to remove some of these uncertainties. This experiment—provisionally titled the stratospheric controlled perturbation experiment—is under development and will only proceed with transparent and predominantly governmental funding and independent risk assessment. We describe the scientific and technical foundation for performing, under external oversight, small-scale experiments to quantify the risks posed by SRM to activation of halogen species and subsequent erosion of stratospheric ozone. The paper's scope includes selection of the measurement platform, relevant aspects of stratospheric meteorology, operational considerations and instrument design and engineering

Preparing for a Northwest Passage: A Workshop on the Role of New England in Navigating the New Arctic

Preparing for a Northwest Passage: A Workshop on the Role of New England in Navigating the New Arctic (March 25 - 27, 2018 -- The University of New Hampshire) paired two of NSF\u27s 10 Big Ideas: Navigating the New Arctic and Growing Convergence Research at NSF. During this event, participants assessed economic, environmental, and social impacts of Arctic change on New England and established convergence research initiatives to prepare for, adapt to, and respond to these effects. Shipping routes through an ice-free Northwest Passage in combination with modifications to ocean circulation and regional climate patterns linked to Arctic ice melt will affect trade, fisheries, tourism, coastal ecology, air and water quality, animal migration, and demographics not only in the Arctic but also in lower latitude coastal regions such as New England. With profound changes on the horizon, this is a critical opportunity for New England to prepare for uncertain yet inevitable economic and environmental impacts of Arctic change

Using marketing concepts to facilitate upstream public engagement with science : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Material removed from thesis due to copyright reasons: Wright, M. J., Teagle, D. A. H., & Feetham, P. M. (2014). A quantitative evaluation of the public response to climate engineering. Nature Climate Change, 4(2), 106-110. doi:10.1038/NCLIMATE2087This thesis investigates whether marketing theories and methodologies can be used to facilitate upstream public engagement with contentious scientific issues. Upstream engagement requires the early involvement of citizens in decisions about new science or technology from the conceptualisation stage onwards; before ingrained attitudes, social representations or frames in the media bias responses. Contemporary approaches to science communication lack consensus on the most appropriate approach to engage the public with new science and technology. The research addresses upstream communication in the context of climate engineering. Scientists and the International Panel for Climate Change are considering climate engineering as a potential solution to global warming, given that the present methods of mitigation and adaptation have so far failed to sufficiently reduce global temperatures to a level of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The communication of potential solutions to global warming is a vital part of a critical global issue that will impact the planet’s eco-systems, biodiversity and future generations. Marketing may be able to provide methodologies and techniques for evaluating and measuring public perceptions of climate engineering. As well as contributing to upstream science communication and public engagement, the research contributes to marketing theory in two ways. First, it extends the application of brand image research founded on the Associative Network Theory of Memory (ANTM) to science concepts, demonstrating the robustness of the theory. Second, it extends the information dual-processing theory to investigate the effects of intuitive and deliberative thinking on concept evaluations, and whether these views change with greater deliberation. In the qualitative phase, thirty exploratory semi-structured depth interviews, using two methods of attribute elicitation, provided 12 common attributes associated with climate engineering. The findings identified an overall negative public reaction to the four climate engineering technologies tested. The independent qualitative findings also revealed a strikingly clear result – Carbon Dioxide Removal technologies are perceived more positively than Solar Radiation Management technologies. The subsequent quantitative on-line surveys tested public perceptions of six climate engineering techniques in Australia (n =1,006) and New Zealand (n =1,022). The results of the on-line surveys supported the qualitative findings that associations with climate engineering techniques are predominately negative, and allowed further diagnostic insights into the sources of these evaluations for each of the individual techniques tested. The analysis established the data are robust and stable across the two countries and the methodologies are validated by the strikingly similar aggregate findings across the qualitative and quantitative stages. For the comparison of intuitive and deliberative thinking on memory associations with climate engineering the effects are measured by comparing within sample groups split by the length of time taken to complete the online survey. In Australia, the findings show that greater deliberative thinking is associated with more negative evaluations, indicating that intuitive and deliberative thinking do give different results in magnitude, if not in direction for these data. In New Zealand, greater deliberative thinking is not associated with more negative evaluations suggesting that the effect of deliberative thinking on the evaluation of climate engineering concepts is moderated by the country of study, or by the prior beliefs of the country’s population. A final stage of research used five focus groups in New Zealand to investigate whether deliberative arguments and interactions help participants make sense of unfamiliar, multifaceted or contentious issues, and whether different perspectives are influenced by age, gender or the ethnicity of participants. Overall, most participants were sceptical of climate engineering, although some between-group differences were apparent. Knowledge of climate engineering varied between groups, with younger participants unaware of climate engineering, and reluctant to consider research on the technologies. Conversely, in the retiree group all but one participant had heard of climate engineering and the most of the participants were receptive to the idea of proceeding with research on climate engineering technologies. This further demonstrates that the effects of deliberation may be context specific. The results confirm the practicality of extending concept testing and measurement of memory associations to upstream engagement for controversial scientific methods, showing convergent validity across countries and methods. The results demonstrate that mixed mode research using marketing techniques yields a range of insights that are not otherwise available in upstream public engagement. Finally, the research finds that more deliberative responses may affect the magnitude of concept evaluations, but the effect is contextual. This highlights the need for further research to provide better understanding of the effect of deliberation on evaluations

Decentralized fault-tolerant control of inland navigation networks: a challenge

Inland waterways are large-scale networks used principally for navigation. Even if the transport planning is an important issue, the water resource management is a crucial point. Indeed, navigation is not possible when there is too little or too much water inside the waterways. Hence, the water resource management of waterways has to be particularly efficient in a context of climate change and increase of water demand. This management has to be done by considering different time and space scales and still requires the development of new methodologies and tools in the topics of the Control and Informatics communities. This work addresses the problem of waterways management in terms of modeling, control, diagnosis and fault-tolerant control by focusing in the inland waterways of the north of France. A review of proposed tools and the ongoing research topics are provided in this paper.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Mining Novel Multivariate Relationships in Time Series Data Using Correlation Networks

In many domains, there is significant interest in capturing novel relationships between time series that represent activities recorded at different nodes of a highly complex system. In this paper, we introduce multipoles, a novel class of linear relationships between more than two time series. A multipole is a set of time series that have strong linear dependence among themselves, with the requirement that each time series makes a significant contribution to the linear dependence. We demonstrate that most interesting multipoles can be identified as cliques of negative correlations in a correlation network. Such cliques are typically rare in a real-world correlation network, which allows us to find almost all multipoles efficiently using a clique-enumeration approach. Using our proposed framework, we demonstrate the utility of multipoles in discovering new physical phenomena in two scientific domains: climate science and neuroscience. In particular, we discovered several multipole relationships that are reproducible in multiple other independent datasets and lead to novel domain insights.Comment: This is the accepted version of article submitted to IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering 201

Urban and river flooding: Comparison of flood risk management approaches in the UK and China and an assessment of future knowledge needs

Increased urbanisation, economic growth, and long-term climate variability have made both the UK and China more susceptible to urban and river flooding, putting people and property at increased risk. This paper presents a review of the current flooding challenges that are affecting the UK and China and the actions that each country is undertaking to tackle these problems. Particular emphases in this paper are laid on (1) learning from previous flooding events in the UK and China, and (2) which management methodologies are commonly used to reduce flood risk. The paper concludes with a strategic research plan suggested by the authors, together with proposed ways to overcome identified knowledge gaps in flood management. Recommendations briefly comprise the engagement of all stakeholders to ensure a proactive approach to land use planning, early warning systems, and water-sensitive urban design or redesign through more effective policy, multi-level flood models, and data driven models of water quantity and quality

Optimal greenhouse cultivation control: survey and perspectives

Abstract: A survey is presented of the literature on greenhouse climate control, positioning the various solutions and paradigms in the framework of optimal control. A separation of timescales allows the separation of the economic optimal control problem of greenhouse cultivation into an off-line problem at the tactical level, and an on-line problem at the operational level. This paradigm is used to classify the literature into three categories: focus on operational control, focus on the tactical level, and truly integrated control. Integrated optimal control warrants the best economical result, and provides a systematic way to design control systems for the innovative greenhouses of the future. Research issues and perspectives are listed as well