The influence of negative emission technologies and technology policies on the optimal climate mitigation portfolio

Combining policies to remove carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere with policies to reduce emissions could decrease CO₂ concentrations faster than possible via natural processes. We model the optimal selection of a dynamic portfolio of abatement, research and development (R&D), and negative emission policies under an exogenous CO₂ constraint and with stochastic technological change. We find that near-term abatement is not sensitive to the availability of R&D policies, but the anticipated availability of negative emission strategies can reduce the near-term abatement optimally undertaken to meet 2°C temperature limits. Further, planning to deploy negative emission technologies shifts optimal R&D funding from ??carbon-free?? technologies into ??emission intensity?? technologies. Making negative emission strategies available enables an 80% reduction in the cost of keeping year 2100 CO₂ concentrations near their current level. However, negative emission strategies are less important if the possibility of tipping points rules out using late-century net negative emissions to temporarily overshoot the CO₂ constraint earlier in the century.     

Rural household demographics, livelihoods and the environment

This paper reviews and synthesizes findings from scholarly work on linkages among rural household demographics, livelihoods and the environment. Using the livelihood approach as an organizing framework, we examine evidence on the multiple pathways linking environmental variables and the following demographic variables: fertility, migration, morbidity and mortality, and lifecycles. Although the review draws on studies from the entire developing world, we find the majority of microlevel studies have been conducted in either marginal (mountainous or arid) or frontier environments, especially Amazonia. Though the linkages are mediated by many complex and often context-specific factors, there is strong evidence that dependence on natural resources intensifies when households lose human and social capital through adult morbidity and mortality, and qualified evidence for the influence of environmental factors on household decision-making regarding fertility and migration. Two decades of research on lifecycles and land cover change at the farm level have yielded a number of insights about how households make use of different land-use and natural resource management strategies at different stages. A thread running throughout the review is the importance of managing risk through livelihood diversification, ensuring future income security, and culture-specific norms regarding appropriate and desirable activities and demographic responses. Recommendations for future research are provided.     

On forecasting abnormal climatic events in the tropical Atlantic Ocean

Modelling and observational evidence indicate that interannual variabilities of dynamic height and sea surface temperature (SST) in the eastern part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean (Gulf of Guinea) are largely induced by preceding fluctuations in wind stress, mainly in the western equatorial basin. A wind-driven linear ocean model is used here to test the possibility of forecasting the abnormal dynamic heights. A control run of the model, forced by 1964–1993 wind stress monthly means, is first conducted. Yearly test runs (1964-1994) are subsequently performed from January to August by forcing the model with observed winds from January to May, and then by forcing with the May wind assumed to persist from June to August. During the last three decades the largest deviations of dynamic height simulated by the control run in the Gulf of Guinea in boreal summer would have been correctly forecast from wind data related only to conditions in May of each year. However, for weak climatic anomalies, the model may forecast overestimated values. For the most part (about 20 times during the last 30 years), the sign of the observed SST anomaly in the centre of the Gulf of Guinea during the boreal summer is identical to the sign of simulated anomalies of dynamic height deduced from both control and test runs. Along the eastern equatorial waveguide, the sea level forecasting skill slowly decreases from the first 2 weeks of June until the second 2 weeks of August, but remains high on both sides of the equator throughout boreal summer, as is expected from the adjustment in a linear ocean model. It is established that throughout the year in the Gulf of Guinea the accuracy of the 1-month forecast dynamic height anomaly provided by the simple linear method is greater than that of the 1-month forecast assuming persistence.     

BIFoR FACE: Water–soil–vegetation–atmosphere data from a temperate deciduous forest catchment,including under elevated CO2

The ecosystem services provided by forests modulate runoff generation processes, nutrient cycling and water and energy exchange between soils, vegetation and atmosphere. Increasing atmospheric CO₂ affects many linked aspects of forest and catchment function in ways we do not adequately understand. Global levels of atmospheric CO₂ will be around 40% higher in 2050 than current levels, yet estimates of how water and solute fluxes in forested catchments will respond to increased CO₂ are highly uncertain. The Free Air CO₂ Enrichment (FACE) facility of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR) is the only FACE in mature deciduous forest. The site specializes in fundamental studies of the response of whole ecosystem patches of mature, deciduous, temperate woodland to elevated CO₂ (eCO₂). Here, we describe a dataset of hydrological parameters – seven weather parameters at each of three heights and four locations, shallow soil moisture and temperature, stream hydrology and CO₂ enrichment – retrieved at high frequency from the BIFoR FACE catchment.     

Mesocosm experiments identifying hotspots of groundwater upwelling in a water column by fibre optic distributed temperature sensing

Lacustrine groundwater discharge (LGD) can substantially impact ecosystem characteristics and functions. Fibre optic distributed temperature sensing (FO‐DTS) has been successfully used to locate groundwater discharge into lakes and rivers at the sediment–water interface, but locating groundwater discharge would be easier if it could be detected from the more accessible water surface. So far, it is not clear if how and under which conditions the LGD signal propagates through the water column to the water surface–atmosphere interface, and what perturbations and signal losses occur along this pathway. In the present study, LGD was simulated in a mesocosm experiment. Under winter conditions, water with temperatures of 14 to 16 °C was discharged at the bottom of a 10 × 2.8‐m mesocosm. Water within this mesocosm ranged from 4.0 to 7.4 °C. Four layers (20, 40, 60, and 80 cm above the sediment) of the 82 cm deep mesocosm were equipped with FO‐DTS for tracing thermal patterns in the mesocosm. Aims are (a) to test whether the positive buoyancy of relatively warm groundwater imported by LGD into shallow water bodies allows detection of LGD at the lake's water surface–atmosphere interface by FO‐DTS, (b) to analyse the propagation of the temperature signal from the sediment‐water interface through the water column, and (c) to learn more about detectability of the signal under different discharge rates and weather conditions. The experiments supported the benchmarking of scale dependencies and robustness of FO‐DTS applications for measuring upwelling into aquatic environments and revealed that weather conditions can have important impacts on the detection of upwelling at water surface–atmosphere interfaces at larger scales.     

Modeling the Permeability Loss of Metallic Iron Water Filtration Systems

Over the past 30 years the literature has burgeoned with in situ approaches for groundwater remediation. Of the methods currently available, the use of metallic iron (Fe⁰) in permeable reactive barrier (PRB) systems is one of the most commonly applied. Despite such interest, an increasing amount of experimental and field observations have reported inconsistent Fe⁰ barrier operation compared to contemporary theory. In the current work, a critical review of the physical chemistry of aqueous Fe⁰ corrosion in porous media is presented. Subsequent implications for the design of Fe⁰ filtration systems are modeled. The results suggest that: (i) for the pH range of natural waters (>4.5), the high volumetric expansion of Fe⁰ during oxidation and precipitation dictates that Fe⁰ should be mixed with a non‐expansive material; (ii) naturally occurring solute precipitates have a negligible impact on permeability loss compared to Fe⁰ expansive corrosion; and (iii) the proliferation of H₂ metabolizing bacteria may contribute to alleviate permeability loss. As a consequence, it is suggested that more emphasis must be placed on future work with regard to considering the Fe⁰ PRB system as a physical (size‐exclusion) water filter device.     

Preliminary Interlaboratory Trial for ISO/DIS 12010: Determination of Short Chain Polychlorinated Alkanes (SCCP) in Water

A first preliminary interlaboratory trial was planned to prepare ISO/DIS 12010: Water quality – determination of short chain polychlorinated alkanes (SCCP) in water – method using GC/MS and electron capture negative ionisation (ECNI). The task was to determine the sum of short chain polychlorinated n‐alkanes with carbon chain lengths of C₁₀–C₁₃ and a chlorine content between 49 and 67% in water by GC‐ECNI‐MS and quantification by multiple linear regression described in ISO/DIS 12010 as the compulsory method. Distributed samples were obtained from a real water extract spiked with a target concentration of 0.4 µg/mL sum of SCCP, i.e. the environmental quality target level according to the Water Framework Directive. The interlaboratory trial included the calibration, a column chromatographic clean up, a concentration step and an integration of chromatographic unresolved humps as well as the quantification with multiple linear regression. Reproducibility standard deviations between 21.5 and 22.9% were achieved by 17 participating laboratories from four countries. The method outlined no significant difference of the results between the standard solution and a real water matrix extract. On the basis of this succeeded preliminary interlaboratory trial the final interlaboratory trial for validation of ISO 12010 was prepared in autumn 2010.     

Global change and the biogeochemistry of the North Sea: the possible role of phytoplankton and phytoplankton grazing

Phytoplankton plays a dominant role in shelf biogeochemistry by producing the major part of organic matter. Part of the organic matter will reach the sediment where diagenetic processes like denitrification, apatite formation or burial will remove nutrients from the biogeochemical cycle. In this article current knowledge on the decadal plankton variability in the North Sea is summarized and possible implications of these changes for the biogeochemistry of the North Sea are discussed. Most of the observed interdecadal dynamics seem to be linked to large-scale oceanographic and atmospheric processes. Prominent changes in the North Sea ecosystem have taken place around 1979 and 1988. In general, the phytoplankton color (CPRS indicator of phytoplankton biomass) reached minimum values during the end of the 1970s and has increased especially since the mid 1980s. Changes with a similar timing have been identified in many time series from the North Sea through the entire ecosystem and are sometimes referred to as regime shifts. It is suggested that the impact of global change on the local biogeochemistry is largely driven by the phyto- and zooplankton dynamics during spring and early summer. At that time the extent of zooplankton–phytoplankton interaction either allows that a large part of the new production is settling to the sediment, or that a significant part of the new production including the fixed nutrients is kept within the pelagic system. The origin of the extent of the phytoplankton–zooplankton interaction in spring is probably set in the previous autumn and winter. In coastal areas, both large-scale atmospheric and oceanographic changes as well as anthropogenic factors influence the long-term dynamics. Due to eutrophication, local primary production nowadays still is up to five times higher than during pre-industrial conditions, despite a decreasing trend. Recently, introduced species have strengthened the filter feeder component of coastal ecosystems. Especially in shallow coastal seas like the Wadden Sea, this will enhance particle retention, shift organic matter degradation to the benthic compartment and enhance nutrient removal from the biogeochemical cycle by denitrification or apatite formation.