National Climate Indicators System Report

The National Climate Assessment (NCA), a component of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), is designed to produce periodic scientific assessments of the vulnerability of important sectors in the U.S. to climate change and variability, and to report on response strategies for responding to and coping with change. An important feature of the NCA is to develop climate-relevant information for use by a wide variety of stakeholders in the public and private sectors and in the scientific community. The development of a national system of indicators is an essential feature of such information, and provides a foundation for assessing change on an ongoing basis

Global inventory of nitrogen oxide emissions constrained by space-based observations of NO2 columns

sions (37.7 Tg N yr #1 ) agrees closely with the GEIAbased a priori (36.4) and with the EDGAR 3.0 bottom-up inventory (36.6), but there are significant regional differences. A posteriori NO x emissions are higher by 50 -- 100% in the Po Valley, Tehran, and Riyadh urban areas, and by 25 -- 35% in Japan and South Africa. Biomass burning emissions from India, central Africa, and Brazil are lower by up to 50%; soil NO x emissions are appreciably higher in the western United States, the Sahel, and southern Europe

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) : Finding the win–wins for energy, negative emissions and ecosystem services—size matters

Funding information Natural Environment Research Council, Grant/Award Number: NE/M019764/1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported by the NERC-funded UK Energy Research Centre, by the NERC project Addressing the Valuation of Energy and Nature Together (ADVENT, NE/M019764/1) and by The University of California, Davis with CD the recipient of a NERC PhD studentship (1790094). It also contributed to the NERC FAB-GGR project (NE/M019691/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Changes in the Seasonality of Precipitation over the Contiguous USA

Consequences of possible changes in annual total precipitation are dictated, in part, by the timing of precipitation events and changes therein. Herein, we investigated historical changes in precipitation seasonality over the US using observed station precipitation records to compute a standard seasonality index (SI) and the day of year on which certain percentiles of the annual total precipitation were achieved (percentile day of year). The mean SI from the majority of stations exhibited no difference in 1971–2000 relative to 30-year periods earlier in the century. However, analysis of the day of year on which certain percentiles of annual total precipitation were achieved indicated spatially coherent patterns of change. In some regions, the mean day of the year on which the 50th percentile of annual precipitation was achieved differed by 20–30 days between 1971–2000 and both 1911–1940 and 1941–1970. Output from the 10-Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCM) simulations of 1971–2000, 2046–2065, and 2081–2100 was used to determine whether AOGCMs are capable of representing the seasonal distribution of precipitation and to examine possible future changes. Many of the AOGCMs qualitatively captured spatial patterns of seasonality during 1971–2000, but there was considerable divergence between AOGCMs in terms of future changes. In both the west and southeast, 7 of 10 AOGCMs indicated later attainment of the 50th percentile accumulation in 2047–2065, implying a possible reversal of the twentieth-century tendency toward relative increases in precipitation receipt during winter and early spring over the southeast. However, this is also a region characterized by considerable interannual variability in the percentile day of year during the historical period

Forest regeneration on European sheep pasture is an economically viable climate change mitigation strategy

Livestock production uses 37% of land globally and is responsible for 15% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Yet livestock farmers across Europe receive billions of dollars in annual subsidies to support their livelihoods. This study evaluates whether diverting European subsidies into the restoration of trees on abandoned farmland represents a cost-effective negative-emissions strategy for mitigating climate change. Focusing on sheep farming in the United Kingdom, and on natural regeneration and planted native forests, we show that, without subsidies, sheep farming is not profitable when farmers are paid for their labour. Despite the much lower productivity of upland farms, upland and lowland farms are financially comparable per hectare. Conversion to 'carbon forests' is possible via natural regeneration when close to existing trees, which are seed sources. This strategy is financially viable without subsidies, meeting the net present value of poorly performing sheep farming at a competitive $4/tCO2eq. If tree planting is required to establish forests, then ~$55/tCO2eq is needed to break-even, making it uneconomical under current carbon market prices without financial aid to cover establishment costs. However, this break-even price is lower than the theoretical social value of carbon ($68/tCO2eq), which represents the economic cost of CO2 emissions to society. The viability of land-use conversion without subsidies therefore depends on low farm performance, strong likelihood of natural regeneration, and high carbon-market price, plus overcoming potential trade-offs between the cultural and social values placed on pastoral livestock systems and climate change mitigation. The morality of subsidising farming practices that cause high greenhouse gas emissions in Europe, whilst spending billions annually on protecting forest carbon in less developed nations to slow climate change is questionable

Ecosystem services of collectively managed urban gardens : exploring factors affecting synergies and trade-offs at the site level

Collective management of urban green space is being acknowledged and promoted. The need to understand productivity and potential trade-offs between co-occurring ecosystem services arising from collectively managed pockets of green space is pivotal to the design and promotion of both productive urban areas and effective stakeholder participation in their management. Quantitative assessments of ecosystem service production were obtained from detailed site surveys at ten examples of collectively managed urban gardens in Greater Manchester, UK. Correlation analyses demonstrated high levels of synergy between ecological (biodiversity) and social (learning and well-being) benefits related to such spaces. Trade-offs were highly mediated by site size and design, resulting in a tension between increasing site area and the co-management of ecosystem services. By highlighting synergies, trade-offs and the significance of site area, the results offer insight into the spatially sensitive nature of ecosystem services arising from multi-functional collectively managed urban gardens

Organising in the Anthropocene: An Ontological Outline for Ecocentric Theorising

As a response to anthropogenic ecological problems, a group of organisation scholars have acknowledged the importance of ecocentric theorising that takes materiality and non-human objects seriously. The purpose of this article is to examine the philosophical basis of cocentric organisation studies and develop an ontological outline for ecocentric theorising in the Anthropocene. The paper identifies the central premises of ecocentric organisations from the previous literature, and complements the theory with a set of ontological qualities common to all objects. The study draws on recent advances in object-oriented and ecological philosophies to present three essential qualities of objects, namely autonomy, uniqueness, and intrinsicality. The paper discusses how these qualities are critical in reclaiming the lost credibility and practical relevance of ecocentrism in both organisational theory and the sustainability sciences in general. To organise human activities in a sustainable manner in the new geological era, a new ontology is needed that not only includes materiality and non-humans in the analysis, but also leads to an ecologically and ethically broader understanding of ecospheric beings and their relationships