Collection 1, Launch challenge

Collection 1, Launch challenge

A launch collection of accessible climate articles

Research articles

Open Access

Choose you own scientific experiment: Triggering debris flows and flash floods

Thea Turkington

Landslides and flash floods result in many fatalities around the globe. Understanding what triggers these events is therefore vital, although how to approach this problem is not straight forward. After background information for the experiment and some guidelines, two options are presented to learn more about the triggers of debris flows: (A) using rainfall or (B) the atmospheric conditions. You can then choose the option that appears more useful and interesting to you (you can always go back and read…

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Open Access

Surface lakes on Greenland will spread further inland as the climate warms

Amber A Leeson

Each summer, a rash of lakes forms from ponded meltwater on top of the Greenland ice sheet. These ‘supraglacial’ (on top of ice) lakes can drain through the ice sheet, delivering their contents to its base. The ice sheet slides on a thin film of water, and when extra water is added to this film (for example from a draining supraglacial lake) the sliding (‘flow’) happens a bit faster. At present, under-ice pipe-like features enable excess water to drain out…

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Open Access

Could climate engineering save the Greenland Ice Sheet?

Patrick J. Applegate and K. Keller

Engineering the climate through albedo modification (AM) could slow, but probably would not stop, melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Albedo modification is a technology that could reduce surface air temperatures through putting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere. AM has never been tested, but it might reduce surface air temperatures faster and more cheaply than reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Some scientists claim that AM would also prevent or reverse sea-level rise. But, are these claims true? The Greenland Ice…

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Open Access

Can somebody clear the air? How air quality and climate change are connected.

Erika von Schneidemesser

Air pollution and climate change are different phenomena, but are connected in a number of ways. The same sources emit both air pollutants and greenhouse gases, many air pollutants affect the Earth’s energy balance and thereby affect climate change, and a changing climate will affect air quality. Policy options to address either air quality or climate change cannot be formulated and applied in isolation, as most will often affect emissions of both greenhouse gases and air pollutants. This article outlines…

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Open Access

What do historical temperature records tell us about natural variability in global temperature?

Patrick T Brown

Global average surface air temperature can change when it is either ‘forced’ to change by factors such as increasing greenhouse gasses, or it can change on its own through ‘unforced’ natural cycles like El-Niño/La-Niña. In this paper we estimated the magnitude of unforced temperature variability using historical datasets rather than the more commonly used computer climate models. We used data recorded by thermometers back to the year 1880 as well as data from “nature’s thermometers” – things like tree rings,…

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Open Access

The impact of climate change on Australian Aboriginal hunter-gatherers and their response over the last 35,000 years.

Alan N Williams

In a recent article, I (and my colleagues) present models of population change for key regions across Australia over the last 35,000 years. We use these models to test an archaeological method (the use of numbers of radiocarbon dates as an indicator of human behaviour), explore the relationship of Aboriginal people and climate change, and to provide a status update for Australian archaeological research. We find that the archaeological technique is reliable, albeit with well-documented caveats that the user needs…

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Open Access

Are humans to blame for the heat experienced in Geneva in the summer of 2015?

Oliver Angelil

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, humans have been changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere by burning fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas. These gases are known to scientists as “greenhouse-gases”. Greenhouse-gases are vital to sustain life on Earth, but rapidly increasing concentrations of them can have catastrophic consequences. The word ‘catastrophic’ is perfectly fitting here, because, as will be demonstrated in this article, it is now believed our greenhouse-gas emissions play a large role in…

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Open Access

Global warming might be on hold, but it’s not cancelled

Iselin Medhaug

Instrumental measurements of surface temperatures are available back to around 1850. Based on these, we can estimate the annual mean global temperature. Global temperatures are clearly rising, mainly because of increasing amounts of greenhouse gases, like for example CO2 and methane, from use of coal, oil and gas and deforestation. Since 1998, a paradox seems to have appeared, where the global temperature has stopped rising even with a steady increase in release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This period…

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Open Access

A new way to quickly estimate climate change impacts on rivers and streams

Julie A. Vano and Meghan M. Dalton

We outline a new method that offers quick insights into how the amount of water in rivers and streams will be impacted by warmer temperatures and future precipitation change. This method yields comparable results to more conventional model-intense climate change impact studies and is faster and cheaper to implement, making it a practical alternative for those exploring future water supply changes in places with limited computational access. Using rivers and streams in the Pacific Northwest of North America as an…

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Open Access

El Niño dynamics and long lead climate forecasts

Joan Ballester, S. Bordoni, D. Petrova and X. Rodó

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a climatic phenomenon in the tropical Pacific arising from interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere on timescales ranging from months to years. ENSO generates the most prominent climate alterations known worldwide, even very far from where it forms. It affects weather extremes, landslides, wildfires or entire ecosystems, and it has major impacts on human health, agriculture and the global economy. Reliable forecasts of ENSO with long lead times would represent a major achievement in…

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Open Access

Limitations in our knowledge of the Sun’s variability and impact on stratospheric ozone

William Thomas Ball

Changes in the Sun over the 11-year solar cycle modify the amount of ozone in the atmosphere over the tropics above 20 km. It is thought that the temperature change resulting from the induced variations of ozone may lead to an impact on the surface climate. Knowing by how much the solar ultraviolet light changes over the cycle is key to understanding the size of that influence. We provide a new model dataset of solar irradiance variability and compare it…

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