January 2018

30.01.2018

# Media

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Science Daily: How to reduce heat extremes by 2-3 degrees Celsius

"How changing crops, moving to no till agriculture and lightening infrastructure can reduce extreme temperatures."

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30.01.2018

# New Publications

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Seneviratne, Sonia I.; et al. (2018): Land radiative management as contributor to regional-scale climate adaptation and mitigation

Seneviratne, Sonia I.; Phipps, Steven J.; Pitman, Andrew J.; Hirsch, Annette L.; Davin, Edouard L.; Donat, Markus G. et al. (2018): Land radiative management as contributor to regional-scale climate adaptation and mitigation. In Nature Geosci 529, p. 477. DOI: 10.1038/s41561-017-0057-5.

"A reduction of global mean temperature through global-scale management of solar radiation could lead to strong regional disparities and affect rainfall patterns. On the other hand, active management of land radiative effects on a regional scale represents an alternative option of climate engineering that has been little discussed. Regional land radiative management could help to counteract warming, in particular hot extremes in densely populated and important agricultural regions. Regional land radiative management also raises some ethical issues, and its efficacy would be limited in time and space, depending on crop growing periods and constraints on agricultural management."

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30.01.2018

# Media

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The TSEconomist: Ethics of Geoengineering Terraforma

"The technologies presented here are actually envisioned by some scientists as a way to fight global warming. These projects are assembled into a much larger field now called geoengineering. The main idea is that humanity will not be able to decrease emissions enough and that very large-scale ways of fighting global warming are all or part of the solution."

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30.01.2018

# New Publications

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Strefler, Jessica; et al. (2018): Potential and costs of carbon dioxide removal by enhanced weathering of rocks

Strefler, Jessica; Amann, Thorben; Bauer, Nicolas; Kriegler, Elmar; Hartmann, Jens (2018): Potential and costs of carbon dioxide removal by enhanced weathering of rocks. In Environ. Res. Lett. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aaa9c4.

"The chemical weathering of rocks currently absorbs about 1.1 Gt CO2 a-1 being mainly stored as bicarbonate in the ocean. An enhancement of this slow natural process could remove substantial amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, aiming to offset some unavoidable anthropogenic emissions in order to comply with the Paris Agreement, while at same time it may decrease ocean acidification. We provide the first comprehensive assessment of economic costs, energy requirements, technical parameterization, and global and regional carbon removal potential. The crucial parameters defining this potential are the grain size and the weathering rates."

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30.01.2018

# Media

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Heinrich Böll Stiftung: Governing the Big Bad Fix? What to do about geoengineering

"Geoengineering – large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s natural systems – is increasingly being presented as a strategy to counteract, dilute or delay climate change. Which international legal norms and agreements would contradict the different measures?"

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30.01.2018

# Media

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Daily Caller: Technology Advances Civilization. Bureaucrats Do Not

"By focusing our resources on basic research, we can find solutions that meet our needs. America is home to some of the best scientists and greatest scientific facilities in the world. Supporting our scientists with adequate resources for technology innovation will unlock ideas and concepts that can be employed by private industry. Broad, burdensome, ineffective government regulations are not, and never will be, the solution."

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30.01.2018

# Media

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Inquirer: Mayon, geoengineering and climate change

"Given the high risks associated with geoengineering, decarbonizing energy systems—the principal contributors to human-induced climate change—through a rapid transition to a 100-percent-renewable-energy future, alongside changes in our consumption behaviors, remains our best shot for mitigating the impacts of climate change."

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29.01.2018

# Calls & events

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Newsletter of Week 05 of 2018

The newsletter of calendar week 05 in 2018 is now available here.


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29.01.2018

# Media

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Daily Mail: Controversial plan to create a chemical SUNSHADE to halt global warming may be 'economically, socially and institutionally infeasible,' leaked UN draft report says

"UN has reviewed the idea of creating a 'sunshade' using sun-dimming chemicals. Leaked draft report says it faces too many obstacles, likely making it infeasible. Many of the problems involved  testing and working out rules for a technology"

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29.01.2018

# Media

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CBC Radio: Geoengineering could hold back climate warming - but what if the dam bursts?

"The problem with geoengineering is that there are many ways it could go wrong. Dr. Alan Robock is a distinguished professor in the department of environmental sciences at Rutgers University and has thought a lot about what could possibly go awry if geoengineering becomes a reality. Geoengineering would mean rapid climactic shifts that will affect different areas of the world differently."

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