Global Climate Cycles

Level M (Master of Science) module: powerpoint lectures and a number of practicals

Climate Change and Transregional Convergence: Carbon Markets in North Amer ica

National policies in North America have not been drafted properly to address the problem of climate change, following the impasse of international negotiations. Facing this scenario, new alternatives emerge with the leadership and participation of new actors. Local governments in North America, especially of British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, have been developing strategies to face climate change and emissions reduction in parallel to the national efforts and the global governance strategies. These local governments have developed a transregional approach that has resulted in the creation of regional institutions such as the Western Climate Initiative, the Regional Greenhouse GasInitiative and the Midwestern GreenhouseGas Reduction Accord.Their main goal is to establish regional carbon markets to mitigate and adapt to climate change impacts in a cost-effective way. In spite of these efforts, these initiatives have faced the overlapping problem among them and with national and globalstrategies. The goal of this research is to explore how these carbon markets have developed convergence policies. Convergence among these markets is expressed in their offset system and in secondary markets.

The rough guide to climate change. 'Guía del cambio climático'.

Edición actualizada que recoge el informe de 2007 del Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el cambio climático y la evolución de los acuerdos de Kyoto. Incluye las últimas investigaciónes científicas y los últimos debates políticos para ofrecer un panorama completo sobre el tema más importante que encara nuestro planeta a nivel medioambiental: el calentamiento global y sus consecuencias sobre la Tierra. La guía menciona los planes de los gobiernos y de los científicos, a nivel mundial, para abordar el problema; incluye, también, información sobre estilos de vida y proporciona consejos que cada uno de nosotros puede poner en practicar para ayudar a frenarlo.

Climate change.

Este título forma parte de la serie Planeta bajo presión. Combina la geografía física y la geografía humana para dar respuesta a preguntas difíciles y explica cómo los problemas globales afectan a la vida del lector. El clima está cambiando. El calentamiento global está teniendo un gran impacto, en la fusión del hielo de los polos, subida del nivel del mar, sequías e inundaciones. Todo esto afectará la vida en la Tierra. En esta obra para niños se pone de manifiesto las cuestiones implicadas y examina qué medidas se pueden tomar para reducir las consecuencias del cambio climático. Dirigido a lectores de edades a partir de 12 años. Incluye referencias bibliográficas, glosario e índice.

Debating climate change.

La percepción y comprensión pública del cambio climático y las actitudes hacia las medidas de mitigación pueden tener un impacto significativo en el desarrollo de programas políticos y acciones individuales destinadas a hacer frente al cambio climático. A partir de una encuesta a una muestra representativa de la población , el presente trabajo analiza distintos aspectos de la percepción pública del cambio climático, tales como el grado de preocupación, el conocimiento, las actitudes ante la utilización de distintas energías o las creencias ante las posibles soluciones y estrategias de adaptación al cambio climático global.

Governing Climate Change.

El problema del cambio climático ha llegado a formar parte prioritaria de las agendas políticas. Se trata de un Cambio Global que está interconectado a otras cuestiones globales y debe ser abordado con las herramientas que permitan observar su carácter complejo. Las transformaciones en curso están causadas fundamentalmente por la acción humana, por lo que deben ser afrontadas por la sociedad convirtiendo los desafíos del cambio climático en desafíos sociales. La confirmación de que existen otras maneras de entender la relación entre naturaleza y sociedad puede ayudar a solucionar el problema de forma integral e interdisciplinar.

Climate change in the 21st century.

La preocupación por el cambio climático y por cómo afecta a nuestras comunidades, ecosistemas y vidas, ha aumentado mucho durante los últimos años del siglo XX y principios del siglo XXI. Este libro analiza la situación tanto desde aspectos científicos como sociales y nos facilita una descripción de los problemas y de lo que se puede hacer para contrarrestarlos local y globalmente. Los autores explican diferentes formas de estudiar el cambio climático con métodos interdisciplinarios para medir y preveer sus efectos futuros y adaptar nuestra sociedad, y analizan las conexiones entre el cambio climático y la salud de diferentes ecosistemas, el crecimiento económico y social, y el discurso global sobre el desarrollo sostenible.

Factors influencing zooplankton size structure at contrasting temperatures in coastal shallow lakes: Implications for effects of climate change

We assessed the importance of temperature, salinity, and predation for the size structure of zooplankton and provided insight into the future ecological structure and function of shallow lakes in a warmer climate. Artificial plants were introduced in eight comparable coastal shallow brackish lakes located at two contrasting temperatures: cold-temperate and Mediterranean climate region. Zooplankton, fish, and macroinvertebrates were sampled within the plants and at open-water habitats. The fish communities of these brackish lakes were characterized by small-sized individuals, highly associated with submerged plants. Overall, higher densities of small planktivorous fish were recorded in the Mediterranean compared to the cold-temperate region, likely reflecting temperature-related differences as have been observed in freshwater lakes. Our results suggest that fish predation is the major control of zooplankton size structure in brackish lakes, since fish density was related to a decrease in mean body size and density of zooplankton and this was reflected in a unimodal shaped biomass-size spectrum with dominance of small sizes and low size diversity. Salinity might play a more indirect role by shaping zooplankton communities toward more salt-tolerant species. In a global-warming perspective, these results suggest that changes in the trophic structure of shallow lakes in temperate regions might be expected as a result of the warmer temperatures and the potentially associated increases in salinity. The decrease in the density of largebodied zooplankton might reduce the grazing on phytoplankton and thus the chances of maintaining the clear water state in these ecosystems

Doha/COP 18: gateway to a new climate change agreement. CEPS Commentary, 13 December 2012

Drawing on his recent experience in the climate negotiations in Doha as an advisor and negotiator on a wide variety of issues, Andrei Marcu offers his assessment of the progress achieved in the two weeks of intensive talks. In spite of modest results, he describes the talks as an important and necessary step in the revolution, first ignited at the Montreal negotiations in 2005, that rejected the top-down Kyoto Protocol model in favour of a bottom-up climate change regime. In his view, the decisions taken in Doha enable the start of a new negotiating process aimed at delivering a new global climate agreement.

A new feedback on climate change from the hydrological cycle

An intensification of the hydrological cycle is a likely consequence of global warming. But changes in the hydrological cycle could affect sea-surface temperature by modifying diffusive ocean heat transports. We investigate this mechanism by studying a coupled general circulation model sensitivity experiment in which the hydrological cycle is artificially amplified. We find that the amplified hydrological cycle depresses sea-surface temperature by enhancing ocean heat uptake in low latitudes. We estimate that a 10% increase in the hydrological cycle will contribute a basin-scale sea-surface temperature decrease of around 0.1°C away from high latitudes, with larger decreases locally. We conclude that an intensified hydrological cycle is likely to contribute a weak negative feedback to anthropogenic climate change.

Land/sea warming ratio in response to climate change: IPCC AR4 model results and comparison with observations

Climate model simulations consistently show that in response to greenhouse gas forcing surface temperatures over land increase more rapidly than over sea. The enhanced warming over land is not simply a transient effect, since it is also present in equilibrium conditions. We examine 20 models from the IPCC AR4 database. The global land/sea warming ratio varies in the range 1.36–1.84, independent of global mean temperature change. In the presence of increasing radiative forcing, the warming ratio for a single model is fairly constant in time, implying that the land/sea temperature difference increases with time. The warming ratio varies with latitude, with a minimum in equatorial latitudes, and maxima in the subtropics. A simple explanation for these findings is provided, and comparisons are made with observations. For the low-latitude (40°S–40°N) mean, the models suggest a warming ratio of 1.51 ± 0.13, while recent observations suggest a ratio of 1.54 ± 0.09.

How well do we understand and evaluate climate change feedback processes?

Processes in the climate system that can either amplify or dampen the climate response to an external perturbation are referred to as climate feedbacks. Climate sensitivity estimates depend critically on radiative feedbacks associated with water vapor, lapse rate, clouds, snow, and sea ice, and global estimates of these feedbacks differ among general circulation models. By reviewing recent observational, numerical, and theoretical studies, this paper shows that there has been progress since the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in (i) the understanding of the physical mechanisms involved in these feedbacks, (ii) the interpretation of intermodel differences in global estimates of these feedbacks, and (iii) the development of methodologies of evaluation of these feedbacks (or of some components) using observations. This suggests that continuing developments in climate feedback research will progressively help make it possible to constrain the GCMs’ range of climate feedbacks and climate sensitivity through an ensemble of diagnostics based on physical understanding and observations.

Rapid climate change: an overview for economists

The possibility of future rapid climatic changes is a pressing concern amongst climate scientists. For example, an abrupt collapse of the ocean's Thermohaline Circulation (THC) would rapidly cool the northern hemisphere and reduce the net global primary productivity of vegetation, according to computer models. It is unclear how to incorporate such low-probability, high-impact events into the development of economics policies. This paper reviews the salient aspects of rapid climate change relevant to economists and policy makers. The main scientific certainties and uncertainties are clearly delineated, with the aim of guiding economics goals and ensuring that they retain fidelity to their scientific underpinnings.