Dislodged But Not Dead: Survivorship of a High Intertidal Snail Following Wave Dislodgement

Waves breaking on rocky shorelines impart large forces on intertidal organisms, sometimes dislodging individuals. Dislodged individuals may be deposited in habitats that have a greater risk of predation or that prevent return to preferred regions on the shore. Thus, dislodgement is often assumed to be lethal. We experimentally dislodged Littorina keenae snails from high in the intertidal zone to test the likelihood of survival. Under a variety of wave conditions, we measured return rates to the high shore of 54–90%, so in this species, dislodgement is not equal to death. Snails showed a strong preference for returning to the approximate tidal height from which they were dislodged, but we found no evidence of widespread homing behaviour back to the original site of dislodgement

Heat exposure and resilience planning in Atlanta, Georgia

The City of Atlanta, Georgia, is a fast-growing urban area with substantial economic and racial inequalities, subject to the impacts of climate change and intensifying heat extremes. Here, we analyze the magnitude, distribution, and predictors of heat exposure across the City of Atlanta, within the boundaries of Fulton County. Additionally, we evaluate the extent to which identified heat exposure is addressed in Atlanta climate resilience governance. First, land surface temperature (LST) was mapped to identify the spatial patterns of heat exposure and potential socioeconomic and biophysical predictors of heat exposure were assessed. Second, government and city planning documents and policies were analyzed to assess whether the identified heat exposure risks are addressed in Atlanta climate resilience planning. The average LST of Atlanta’s 305 block groups ranges from 23.7 °C (low heat exposure) in vegetated areas to 31.5 °C (high heat exposure) in developed areas across 13 summer days used to evaluate the spatial patterns of heat exposure (June-August, 2013-2019). In contrast to nationwide patterns, census block groups with larger historically marginalized populations (predominantly Black, less education, lower income) outside of Atlanta’s urban core display weaker relationships with LST (slopes ≈ 0) and are among the cooler regions of the city. Climate governance analysis revealed that although there are few strategies for heat resilience in Atlanta (n=12), the majority are focused on the city’s warmest region, the urban core, characterized by the city’s largest extent of impervious surface. These strategies prioritize protecting and expanding the city’s urban tree canopy, which has kept most of Atlanta’s marginalized communities under lower levels of outdoor heat exposure. Such a tree canopy can serve as an example of heat resilience for many cities across the United States and the globe

Geospatial analysis of BECCS deployment potential in the U.S.

Negative emissions from bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) has been identified as a potentially important carbon mitigation technology. To date, much of the technical work and discussion on BECCS have focused on land use change and bioenergy potential, while the CCS components – including capacity, injectivity, and location of potential storage sites – have been overlooked. A geospatial analysis of biomass production and storage sites in the U.S. is conducted to discuss BECCS deployment in the U.S. across a range of biomass production scenarios. U.S. Department of Energy provides national annual biomass production data from 2015 to 2040. Extrapolating the production trends across different yield scenarios to 2100 shows average annual CO2 production from agricultural residue and energy crop of 720-1,220 Mt CO2 yr-1 and cumulative production of 27-47 Gt CO2. Considering that the estimated storage capacity in the U.S. is ~3,000 Gt CO2, absolute storage capacity is not likely to be a constraint on BECCS. However, collocation of high-density biomass (\u3e25 MW per 100×100 km2) and high injection rate storage sites (\u3e5 Mt CO2 yr-1) in 2040 yields biomass CO2 injection potential of 140-360 Mt CO2 yr-1. This represents 9-39% of the total biomass feedstock in the U.S. To achieve a biomass CO2 injection potential greater than 360 Mt CO2 yr-1, transportation networks of either biomass or CO2 will be needed. The geospatial analysis conducted in this study highlights the importance of previously overlooked CCS components in global BECCS assessments and provides a framework for future studies. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Emissions redistribution and environmental justice implications of California’s clean vehicle rebate project

Vehicle electrification is expected to reduce, in aggregate, emissions of greenhouse gases and criteria air pollutants. However, increased electricity generation to support new electric vehicles introduces possible redistribution of point-source emissions from mobile vehicles to electric generating units such that emissions may decrease in some locations and increase in others, with implications for equity. The potential for vehicle electrification to thereby shift the spatial distribution of air-pollution burdens has been previously noted, but analyses have yet to evaluate specific implemented climate policies. Here, we develop a model to analyze the implications of California’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project (CVRP) for emissions of greenhouse gases and criteria air pollutants, both in aggregate and in their distribution. Analyzing rebates for 2010–2021, we find that the CVRP reduced aggregate statewide emissions of CO2, NOX, and SO2 and increased aggregate statewide emissions of primary PM2.5. Furthermore, changes in air pollution are not distributed equally: our results indicate that, as a result of the CVRP, net primary PM2.5, NOX, and SO2 emissions reductions disproportionately occur in Least Disadvantaged Communities, as compared to Disadvantaged Communities, with community disadvantage defined according to CalEnviroScreen 4.0 per California legislation. If the current spatial distribution of electric vehicle rebates remains unchanged, we project that these inequities will continue through the state’s legislative goal of 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on California roadways by 2025, even with increased cleanliness of the electricity sources for new vehicles. Increased uptake of electric vehicles in communities facing the highest air pollution exposure, along with accelerated clean-energy generation, could ameliorate associated environmental inequities

Understanding, characterizing, and communicating responses to ocean acidification : challenges and uncertainties

Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 28, no. 2 (2015): 30-39, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2015.29.Over the past decade, ocean acidification (OA) has emerged as a major concern in ocean science. The field of OA is based on certainties—uptake of carbon dioxide into the global ocean alters its carbon chemistry, and many marine organisms, especially calcifiers, are sensitive to this change. However, the field must accommodate uncertainties about the seriousness of these impacts as it synthesizes and draws conclusions from multiple disciplines. There is pressure from stakeholders to expeditiously inform society about the extent to which OA will impact marine ecosystems and the people who depend on them. Ultimately, decisions about actions related to OA require evaluating risks about the likelihood and magnitude of these impacts. As the scientific literature accumulates, some of the uncertainty related to single-species sensitivity to OA is diminishing. Difficulties remain in scaling laboratory results to species and ecosystem responses in nature, though modeling exercises provide useful insight. As recognition of OA grows, scientists’ ability to communicate the certainties and uncertainties of our knowledge on OA is crucial for interaction with decision makers. In this regard, there are a number of valuable practices that can be drawn from other fields, especially the global climate change community. A generally accepted set of best practices that scientists follow in their discussions of uncertainty would be helpful for the community engaged in ocean acidification.NOAA Ocean Acidification Program and National Marine Fisheries Service (DSB, MP), NSF-supported Center for Climate and Energy Decision Making (SCD), and NASA Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program (SS)

A framework for complex climate change risk assessment

The approach encourages divergent thinking, which traverses sectoral and regional boundaries and recognizes links between physical and socio-economic drivers of risk. In this paper recent work describing complex climate change risk is synthesized. It includes concepts of compound, connected, and cascading interactions. It reflects on the consequences of risk assessment and response. It then establishes a framework for risk assessment that encompasses increasing levels of complexity. The framework is demonstrated through diverse case studies to illustrate how risk assessments can better consider and categorize complexity. For convenience and tractability, analysts tend to break risk assessments into silos, often taking a component-oriented view.UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Offic

Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation: Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

This Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) has been jointly coordinated by Working Groups I (WGI) and II (WGII) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report focuses on the relationship between climate change and extreme weather and climate events, the impacts of such events, and the strategies to manage the associated risks. The IPCC was jointly established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in particular to assess in a comprehensive, objective, and transparent manner all the relevant scientific, technical, and socioeconomic information to contribute in understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, the potential impacts, and the adaptation and mitigation options. Beginning in 1990, the IPCC has produced a series of Assessment Reports, Special Reports, Technical Papers, methodologies, and other key documents which have since become the standard references for policymakers and scientists.This Special Report, in particular, contributes to frame the challenge of dealing with extreme weather and climate events as an issue in decisionmaking under uncertainty, analyzing response in the context of risk management. The report consists of nine chapters, covering risk management; observed and projected changes in extreme weather and climate events; exposure and vulnerability to as well as losses resulting from such events; adaptation options from the local to the international scale; the role of sustainable development in modulating risks; and insights from specific case studies

The IPCC AR5 guidance note on consistent treatment of uncertainties: A common approach across the working groups

Evaluation and communication of the relative degree of certainty in assessment findings are key cross-cutting issues for the three Working Groups of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A goal for the Fifth Assessment Report, which is currently under development, is the application of a common framework with associated calibrated uncertainty language that can be used to characterize findings of the assessment process. A guidance note for authors of the Fifth Assessment Report has been developed that describes this common approach and language, building upon the guidance employed in past Assessment Reports. Here, we introduce the main features of this guidance note, with a focus on how it has been designed for use by author teams. We also provide perspectives on considerations and challenges relevant to the application of this guidance in the contribution of each Working Group to the Fifth Assessment Report. Despite the wide spectrum of disciplines encompassed by the three Working Groups, we expect that the framework of the new uncertainties guidance will enable consistent communication of the degree of certainty in their policy-relevant assessment findings

The evolving landscape of sea-level rise science from 1990 to 2021

As sea-level rise (SLR) accelerates due to climate change, its multidisciplinary field of science has similarly expanded, from 41 articles published in 1990 to 1475 articles published in 2021, and nearly 15,000 articles published in the Web of Science over this 32-year period. Here, big-data bibliometric techniques are adopted to systematically analyse this large literature set. Four main research clusters (themes) emerge: (I) geological dimensions and sea-level indicators, (II) impacts, risks, and adaptation, (III) physical components of sea-level change, and (IV) coastal ecosystems and habitats, with 16 associated sub-themes. This analysis provides insights into the evolution of research agendas, the challenges and opportunities for future assessments (e.g. next IPCC reports), and growing focus on adaptation. For example, the relative importance of sub-themes evolves consistently with a relative decline in pure science analysis towards solution-focused topics associated with SLR risks such as high-end rises, declining ecosystem services, flood hazards, and coastal erosion/squeeze