Ten new insights in climate science 2023

Non-technical summary. We identify a set of essential recent advances in climate change research with high policy relevance, across natural and social sciences: (1) looming inevitability and implications of overshooting the 1.5°C warming limit, (2) urgent need for a rapid and managed fossil fuel phase-out, (3) challenges for scaling carbon dioxide removal, (4) uncertainties regarding the future contribution of natural carbon sinks, (5) intertwinedness of the crises of biodiversity loss and climate change, (6) compound events, (7) mountain glacier loss, (8) human immobility in the face of climate risks, (9) adaptation justice, and (10) just transitions in food systems. Technical summary. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports provides the scientific foundation for international climate negotiations and constitutes an unmatched resource for researchers. However, the assessment cycles take multiple years. As a contribution to cross- and interdisciplinary understanding of climate change across diverse research communities, we have streamlined an annual process to identify and synthesize significant research advances. We collected input from experts on various fields using an online questionnaire and prioritized a set of 10 key research insights with high policy relevance. This year, we focus on: (1) the looming overshoot of the 1.5°C warming limit, (2) the urgency of fossil fuel phase-out, (3) challenges to scale-up carbon dioxide removal, (4) uncertainties regarding future natural carbon sinks, (5) the need for joint governance of biodiversity loss and climate change, (6) advances in understanding compound events, (7) accelerated mountain glacier loss, (8) human immobility amidst climate risks, (9) adaptation justice, and (10) just transitions in food systems. We present a succinct account of these insights, reflect on their policy implications, and offer an integrated set of policy-relevant messages. This science synthesis and science communication effort is also the basis for a policy report contributing to elevate climate science every year in time for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Social media summary. We highlight recent and policy-relevant advances in climate change research – with input from more than 200 experts

A work-based learning approach to developing leadership for senior health and social care professionals: a case study from Middlesex University

This paper is of a complex and challenging collaboration. It aims to explore the challenges to both higher education (HE) and commissioners that stimulated different thinking and creative ways of delivering learning, assessing and the consequent impact on practice through a collaborative programme. The purpose of the collaboration was to design and deliver a postgraduate level programme focusing on the development of leadership practice in the health and social care sectors in London and on the development of a curriculum in leadership capabilities and knowledge leading to the award of a Masters in Work Based Learning Studies (Leadership). The two key players were the NHS as commissioners of the work and a London higher education institution (HEI), who worked in partnership to accredit the programme

Estuarine flocculation – a review of the key contributing factors

Most estuaries around the world are dominated by combinations cohesive sediments (generally referred to as mud) and mud:sand mixtures (Manning et al., 2010), the transport and fate of which plays a major role in most estuarine management and many marine engineering projects. Mud typically is composed of mineral grains that originate from both fluvial and marine sources, together with biological matter - both living and in various stages of decomposition (Deng, 2022). It is the combination of these features that makes estuarine mud sticky in nature (e.g. Chassagne et al., 2009; Parsons et al., 2016; Ye et al., 2021), and for this reason these sediment types are referred to generically as cohesive sediments (Whitehouse et al., 2000; Mehta, 2023). In contrast to purely non-cohesive sandy sediments, muddy sediments can flocculate into larger aggregates called flocs (Manning et al., 2017; Spencer et al., 2021, 2022), and this poses a serious complication to modellers of estuarine sediment dynamics. Consequently, understanding the mud processes has been a subject of intensive research effort (e.g. Dyer, 1986; Dronkers and Van Leussen, 1988; Healy et al., 2002) and there has been much progress been made in the past few decades in advancing our understanding of cohesive sediments in aquatic environments, especially estuarial regions. Dyer (1989) proposed key areas that would require research focus on cohesive sediments. It is the aim of this chapter to provide a state-of-the-art review of many of the key scientific advances in research assessing the processes and behaviour of muddy sediments, and the research progress made during the last 20–30-year period. This presentation provides an overview of the following topics: estuarine sediment composition, suspended sediments, flocculation dynamics, cohesion, particle iteraction, mixed sediments, hindered settling, and floc structure. The presentation includes succinct background science and theory on each component topic, together with respective highlights from key research contributions, and also drawing on relevant case studies and real-world examples

Underestimated mass loss from lake-terminating glaciers in the greater Himalaya

Long-term satellite-based observations have helped quantify glacier mass change and the response of the hydrosphere to glacier changes. However, subaqueous mass loss associated with lake-terminating glaciers is not accounted for in geodetic methods, leading to an underestimation of glacier mass loss. Here we use multi-temporal satellite data and an empirical area–volume relationship to estimate the volume change of glacial lakes across the greater Himalaya and quantify subaqueous mass loss due to the replacement of ice with lake water. We show that proglacial lakes have increased 47% by number, 33 ± 2% by area and 42 ± 14% by volume from 2000 to 2020. The expansion of glacial lakes has resulted in 2.7 ± 0.8 Gt of subaqueous mass loss between 2000 and 2020, such that the previous estimate of total mass loss of lake-terminating glaciers in the greater Himalaya is underestimated by 6.5 ± 2.1%. Regionally, the largest underestimation (10 ± 4%) occurred in the central Himalaya, where glacial lake growth has been the most rapid. Our estimates reduce uncertainties in total glacier mass loss, provide important data for glacio-hydrological models and therefore also support the water recources management in this sensitive mountain region