An Integrated Assessment of changes in the thermohaline circulation

This paper discusses the risks of a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation (THC) for the climate system, for ecosystems in and around the North Atlantic as well as for fisheries and agriculture by way of an Integrated Assessment. The climate model simulations are based on greenhouse gas scenarios for the 21st century and beyond. A shutdown of the THC, complete by 2150, is triggered if increased freshwater input from inland ice melt or enhanced runoff is assumed. The shutdown retards the greenhouse gas-induced atmospheric warming trend in the Northern Hemisphere, but does not lead to a persistent net cooling. Due to the simulated THC shutdown the sea level at the North Atlantic shores rises by up to 80 cm by 2150, in addition to the global sea level rise. This could potentially be a serious impact that requires expensive coastal protection measures. A reduction of marine net primary productivity is associated with the impacts of warming rather than a THC shutdown. Regional shifts in the currents in the Nordic Seas could strongly deteriorate survival chances for cod larvae and juveniles. This could lead to cod fisheries becoming unprofitable by the end of the 21st century. While regional socioeconomic impacts might be large, damages would be probably small in relation to the respective gross national products. Terrestrial ecosystem productivity is affected much more by the fertilization from the increasing CO₂ concentration than by a THC shutdown. In addition, the level of warming in the 22nd to 24th century favours crop production in northern Europe a lot, no matter whether the THC shuts down or not. CO₂ emissions corridors aimed at limiting the risk of a THC breakdown to 10% or less are narrow, requiring departure from business-as-usual in the next few decades. The uncertainty about THC risks is still high. This is seen in model analyses as well as in the experts’ views that were elicited. The overview of results presented here is the outcome of the Integrated Assessment project INTEGRATION.     

The Quadrennial Ozone Symposium 2016

<正>1.Overview The 2016 Quadrennial Ozone Symposium(QOS-2016)was held on 4–9 September 2016 in Edinburgh,UK.The Symposium was organized by the International Ozone Commission(IO3C),the NERC Centre for EcologyHydrology and the University of Edinburgh,and was co-sponsored by the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics,the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric     

Turbulent flux observations and modelling over a shallow lake and a wet grassland in the Nam Co basin,Tibetan Plateau

The Tibetan Plateau plays an important role in the global water cycle and is strongly influenced by climate change. While energy and matter fluxes have been more intensely studied over land surfaces, a large proportion of lakes have either been neglected or parameterised with simple bulk approaches. Therefore, turbulent fluxes were measured over wet grassland and a shallow lake with a single eddy-covariance complex at the shoreline in the Nam Co basin in summer 2009. Footprint analysis was used to split observations according to the underlying surface, and two sophisticated surface models were utilised to derive gap-free time series. Results were then compared with observations and simulations from a nearby eddy-covariance station over dry grassland, yielding pronounced differences. Observations and footprint integrated simulations compared well, even for situations with flux contributions including grassland and lake. The accessibility problem for EC measurements on lakes can be overcome by combining standard meteorological measurements at the shoreline with model simulations, only requiring representative estimates of lake surface temperature.     

Real-time multi-model decadal climate predictions

We present the first climate prediction of the coming decade made with multiple models, initialized with prior observations. This prediction accrues from an international activity to exchange decadal predictions in near real-time, in order to assess differences and similarities, provide a consensus view to prevent over-confidence in forecasts from any single model, and establish current collective capability. We stress that the forecast is experimental, since the skill of the multi-model system is as yet unknown. Nevertheless, the forecast systems used here are based on models that have undergone rigorous evaluation and individually have been evaluated for forecast skill. Moreover, it is important to publish forecasts to enable open evaluation, and to provide a focus on climate change in the coming decade. Initialized forecasts of the year 2011 agree well with observations, with a pattern correlation of 0.62 compared to 0.31 for uninitialized projections. In particular, the forecast correctly predicted La Niña in the Pacific, and warm conditions in the north Atlantic and USA. A similar pattern is predicted for 2012 but with a weaker La Niña. Indices of Atlantic multi-decadal variability and Pacific decadal variability show no signal beyond climatology after 2015, while temperature in the Niño3 region is predicted to warm slightly by about 0.5 °C over the coming decade. However, uncertainties are large for individual years and initialization has little impact beyond the first 4 years in most regions. Relative to uninitialized forecasts, initialized forecasts are significantly warmer in the north Atlantic sub-polar gyre and cooler in the north Pacific throughout the decade. They are also significantly cooler in the global average and over most land and ocean regions out to several years ahead. However, in the absence of volcanic eruptions, global temperature is predicted to continue to rise, with each year from 2013 onwards having a 50 % chance of exceeding the current observed record. Verification of these forecasts will provide an important opportunity to test the performance of models and our understanding and knowledge of the drivers of climate change.     

The challenge to detect and attribute effects of climate change on human and natural systems

Future scenarios of the energy system under greenhouse gas emission constraints depict dramatic growth in a range of energy technologies. Technological growth dynamics observed historically provide a useful comparator for these future trajectories. We find that historical time series data reveal a consistent relationship between how much a technology’s cumulative installed capacity grows, and how long this growth takes. This relationship between extent (how much) and duration (for how long) is consistent across both energy supply and end-use technologies, and both established and emerging technologies. We then develop and test an approach for using this historical relationship to assess technological trajectories in future scenarios. Our approach for “learning from the past” contributes to the assessment and verification of integrated assessment and energy-economic models used to generate quantitative scenarios. Using data on power generation technologies from two such models, we also find a consistent extent - duration relationship across both technologies and scenarios. This relationship describes future low carbon technological growth in the power sector which appears to be conservative relative to what has been evidenced historically. Specifically, future extents of capacity growth are comparatively low given the lengthy time duration of that growth. We treat this finding with caution due to the low number of data points. Yet it remains counter-intuitive given the extremely rapid growth rates of certain low carbon technologies under stringent emission constraints. We explore possible reasons for the apparent scenario conservatism, and find parametric or structural conservatism in the underlying models to be one possible explanation.     

Microbial Degradation of Tar Oil Compounds under Different Redox Conditions

The microbial transformation of typical tar oil compounds such as acridine, benzo(b)thiophene, dibenzofuran, indane, and indene under different redox conditions was investigated in microcosm studies. Under aerobic conditions the inherent contamination in polluted soil as well as the added N‐, S‐, O‐ heterocyclic and homocyclic compounds were transformed predominantly apart from thiophene. 1‐Indanone was detected by RP‐HPLC‐DAD and GC‐MS as an intermediate metabolite from indane and indene. Under nitrate and sulfate reducing conditions indane, benzo(b)thiophene, and dibenzofuran were transformed in assays with the polluted soil samples from well B 65 and B 66 within 426 days, whereas they were persistent in assays with the highly polluted soil B 67. All heterocyclic and homocyclic compounds added to the non‐contaminated soil from well B 85 were not degraded under nitrate and sulfate reducing conditions, too. The results indicate that for the decision, wether natural attenuation can be implemented in the remediation of contaminated site, in addition to BTEX and PAHs especially the fate of further tar oil compounds in anoxic aquifers has to be considered.