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Climate change refers to a statistically defined change in the average and/or variability of the climate system, this includes the atmosphere, the water cycle, the land surface, ice and the living components of Earth. The definition does not usually require the causes of change to be attributed, for example to human activity, but there are exceptions.
Residents of informal settlements suffer from extreme weather due to their precarious living environment. Now, findings show that extreme weather event thresholds do not fully capture the negative impacts experienced by women in Nairobi, Kenya.
Aerosol–cloud interactions are the largest uncertainty in radiative forcing. We combined machine learning and long-term satellite observations to quantify aerosol fingerprints on tropical marine clouds, using degassing volcanic events in Hawaii as natural experiences, and found that cloud cover increased relatively by 50% in humid and stable atmosphere, leading to strong cooling radiative forcing.
Global projections of the economic impacts of climate change have usually focused on rising average temperatures. Now, two studies depict more complex and gloomier scenarios by incorporating variability in temperature and precipitation.
Projections of Arctic warming have large uncertainties. Here the authors consider ocean heat transport and its contribution to Arctic warming; high-resolution model results show increased Bering Strait transport compared with lower-resolution results, with implications for projected warming rates.
Scientists’ identities, values, and sense of duty, strongly influence their perspectives and engagement in climate and environmental activism, as well as their views on the role of technology in addressing environmental challenges, according to the findings from a multinational survey.
Different ways to calculate carbon footprints and the implications of choosing one option over another are visualised in an open-access web application that uses a global input-output database to produce Sankey diagrams of carbon flows for 49 world regions between 1995 and 2019.
As carbon capture and sequestration enter the mainstream, governments and developers grapple with the long-term liability for sequestered carbon. A multi-tiered framework with public–private sharing of risk can help promote the safe and timely deployment of this vital decarbonization technology.
Climate campaigners and politicians rightly concentrate on the benefits of clean energy — but without more support for those who are adversely affected, the backlash will only grow.