scholarly journals Ocean acidification and rising temperatures may increase biofilm primary productivity but decrease grazer consumption

2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1627) ◽  
pp. 20120438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bayden D. Russell ◽  
Sean D. Connell ◽  
Helen S. Findlay ◽  
Karen Tait ◽  
Stephen Widdicombe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Primary Productivity ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Metabolic Theory ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Ecosystem Responses ◽  
Artificial Environment ◽  
The Uk

Climate change may cause ecosystems to become trophically restructured as a result of primary producers and consumers responding differently to increasing CO 2 and temperature. This study used an integrative approach using a controlled microcosm experiment to investigate the combined effects of CO 2 and temperature on key components of the intertidal system in the UK, biofilms and their consumers ( Littorina littorea ). In addition, to identify whether pre-exposure to experimental conditions can alter experimental outcomes we explicitly tested for differential effects on L. littorea pre-exposed to experimental conditions for two weeks and five months. In contrast to predictions based on metabolic theory, the combination of elevated temperature and CO 2 over a five-week period caused a decrease in the amount of primary productivity consumed by grazers, while the abundance of biofilms increased. However, long-term pre-exposure to experimental conditions (five months) altered this effect, with grazing rates in these animals being greater than in animals exposed only for two weeks. We suggest that the structure of future ecosystems may not be predictable using short-term laboratory experiments alone owing to potentially confounding effects of exposure time and effects of being held in an artificial environment over prolonged time periods. A combination of laboratory (physiology responses) and large, long-term experiments (ecosystem responses) may therefore be necessary to adequately predict the complex and interactive effects of climate change as organisms may acclimate to conditions over the longer term.

18. Climate Change Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 599-639
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Fisher ◽  
Bettina Lange ◽  
Eloise Scotford
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Trading Scheme ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the fast-moving area of law relating to climate change. This includes a considerable body of public international law, from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to the legally innovative Paris Agreement 2015. The chapter also considers legal developments at the EU and UK levels, which both contain a rich body of climate law and policy. The EU and the UK are both seen as ‘world leaders’ in climate law and policy. In EU law, this is due to the EU greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme and the EU’s leadership in advocating ambitious greenhouse gas mitigation targets and in implementing these targets flexibly across the EU Member States through a range of regulatory mechanisms. The UK introduced path-breaking climate legislation in the Climate Change Act 2008, which provided an inspiring model of climate governance, legally entrenching long-term planning for both mitigation and adaptation. The chapter concludes with an exploration of climate litigation, a new and growing field of inquiry.

scholarly journals Energy efficiency, resilience to future climates and long-term sustainability: the role of the built environment

2010 ◽  
Vol 368 (1914) ◽  
pp. 1083-1089 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Energy Security ◽  
Sustainable Consumption ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
The Uk

Just under half of all energy consumption in the UK today takes place indoors, and over a quarter within our homes. The challenges associated with energy security, climate change and sustainable consumption will be overcome or lost in our existing buildings. A background analysis, and the scale of the engineering challenge for the next three to four decades, is described in this paper.

scholarly journals Effects of long-term warming and enhanced nitrogen and sulfur deposition on microbial communities in a boreal peatland

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magalí Martí ◽  
Alexander Eiler ◽  
Moritz Buck ◽  
Stefan Bertilsson ◽  
Waleed Abu Al-Soud ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Synergistic Effects ◽  
Vascular Plant ◽  
Nitrogen Addition ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Gene Repertoire ◽  
Ecosystem Responses ◽  
Shotgun Metagenomics ◽  
The Individual

AbstractWith ongoing environmental change, it is important to understand ecosystem responses to multiple perturbations over long time scales at in situ conditions. Here, we investigated the individual and combined effects of 18 years of warming and enhanced nitrogen and sulfate deposition on peat microbial communities in a nutrient-poor boreal mire. The three perturbations individually affected prokaryotic community composition, where nitrogen addition had the most pronounced effect, and its combination with the other perturbations led to additive effects. The functional potential of the community, characterized by shotgun metagenomics, was strongly affected by the interactive effects in the combined treatments. The responses in composition were also partly reflected in the functional gene repertoire and in altered carbon turnover, i.e. an increase of methane production rates as a result of nitrogen addition and a decrease with warming. Long-term nitrogen addition and warming-induced changes caused a shift from Sphagnum-dominated plant communities to vascular plant dominance, which likely transact with many of the observed microbial responses. We conclude that simultaneous perturbations do not always lead to synergistic effects, but can also counteract and even neutralize one another, and thus must be studied in combination when attempting to predict future characteristics and services of peatland ecosystems.

scholarly journals Public health air pollution impacts of pathway options to meet the 2050 UK Climate Change Act target: a modelling study

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 1-124
Author(s):  
Martin L Williams ◽  
Sean Beevers ◽  
Nutthida Kitwiroon ◽  
David Dajnak ◽  
Heather Walton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Air Pollution ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Road Transport ◽  
Air Pollutant ◽  
Life Years ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

BackgroundThe UK’sClimate Change Act 2008(CCA; Great Britain.Climate Change Act 2008. Chapter 27. London: The Stationery Office; 2008) requires a reduction of 80% in carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions by 2050 on a 1990 base. This project quantified the impact of air pollution on health from four scenarios involving particulate matter of ≤ 2.5 µm (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3). Two scenarios met the CCA target: one with limited nuclear power build (nuclear replacement option; NRPO) and one with no policy constraint on nuclear (low greenhouse gas). Another scenario envisaged no further climate actions beyond those already agreed (‘baseline’) and the fourth kept 2011 concentrations constant to 2050 (‘2011’).MethodsThe UK Integrated MARKAL–EFOM System (UKTM) energy system model was used to develop the scenarios and produce projections of fuel use; these were used to produce air pollutant emission inventories for Great Britain (GB) for each scenario. The inventories were then used to run the Community Multiscale Air Quality model ‘air pollution model’ to generate air pollutant concentration maps across GB, which then, combined with relationships between concentrations and health outcomes, were used to calculate the impact on health from the air pollution emitted in each scenario. This is a significant improvement on previous health impact studies of climate policies, which have relied on emissions changes. Inequalities in exposure in different socioeconomic groups were also calculated, as was the economic impact of the pollution emissions.ResultsConcentrations of NO2declined significantly because of a high degree of electrification of the GB road transport fleet, although the NRPO scenario shows large increases in oxides of nitrogen emissions from combined heat and power (CHP) sources. Concentrations of PM2.5show a modest decrease by 2050, which would have been larger if it had not been for a significant increase in biomass (wood burning) use in the two CCA scenarios peaking in 2035. The metric quantifying long-term exposure to O3is projected to decrease, while the important short-term O3exposure metric increases. Large projected increases in future GB vehicle kilometres lead to increased non-exhaust PM2.5and particulate matter of ≤ 10 µm emissions. The two scenarios which achieve the CCA target resulted in more life-years lost from long-term exposures to PM2.5than in the baseline scenario. This is an opportunity lost and arises largely from the increase in biomass use, which is projected to peak in 2035. Reduced long-term exposures to NO2lead to many more life-years saved in the ‘CCA-compliant’ scenarios, but the association used may overestimate the effects of NO2itself. The more deprived populations are estimated currently to be exposed to higher concentrations than those less deprived, the contrast being largest for NO2. Despite reductions in concentrations in 2050, the most socioeconomically deprived are still exposed to higher concentrations than the less deprived.LimitationsModelling of the atmosphere is always uncertain; we have shown the model to be acceptable through comparison with observations. The necessary complexity of the modelling system has meant that only a small number of scenarios were run.ConclusionsWe have established a system which can be used to explore a wider range of climate policy scenarios, including more European and global scenarios as well as local measures. Future work could explore wood burning in more detail, in terms of the sectors in which it might be burned and the spatial distribution of this across the UK. Further analyses of options for CHP could also be explored. Non-exhaust emissions from road transport are an important source of particles and emission factors are uncertain. Further research on this area coupled with our modelling would be a valuable area of research.FundingThe National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research programme.

scholarly journals Evidence of a recent decline in UK emissions of hydrofluorocarbons determined by the InTEM inverse model and atmospheric measurements

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (16) ◽  
pp. 12739-12755
Author(s):  
Alistair J. Manning ◽  
Alison L. Redington ◽  
Daniel Say ◽  
Simon O'Doherty ◽  
Dickon Young ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Inverse Modelling ◽  
Atmospheric Measurements ◽  
Annual Increase ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Inventories ◽  
Hfc 134A ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Global Growth

Abstract. National greenhouse gas inventories (GHGIs) are submitted annually to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They are estimated in compliance with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodological guidance using activity data, emission factors and facility-level measurements. For some sources, the outputs from these calculations are very uncertain. Inverse modelling techniques that use high-quality, long-term measurements of atmospheric gases have been developed to provide independent verification of national GHGIs. This is considered good practice by the IPCC as it helps national inventory compilers to verify reported emissions and to reduce emission uncertainty. Emission estimates from the InTEM (Inversion Technique for Emission Modelling) model are presented for the UK for the hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) reported to the UNFCCC (HFC-125, HFC-134a, HFC-143a, HFC-152a, HFC-23, HFC-32, HFC-227ea, HFC-245fa, HFC-43-10mee and HFC-365mfc). These HFCs have high global warming potentials (GWPs), and the global background mole fractions of all but two are increasing, thus highlighting their relevance to the climate and a need for increasing the accuracy of emission estimation for regulatory purposes. This study presents evidence that the long-term annual increase in growth of HFC-134a has stopped and is now decreasing. For HFC-32 there is an early indication, its rapid global growth period has ended, and there is evidence that the annual increase in global growth for HFC-125 has slowed from 2018. The inverse modelling results indicate that the UK implementation of European Union regulation of HFC emissions has been successful in initiating a decline in UK emissions from 2018. Comparison of the total InTEM UK HFC emissions in 2020 with the average from 2009–2012 shows a drop of 35 %, indicating progress toward the target of a 79 % decrease in sales by 2030. The total InTEM HFC emission estimates (2008–2018) are on average 73 (62–83) % of, or 4.3 (2.7–5.9) Tg CO2-eq yr−1 lower than, the total HFC emission estimates from the UK GHGI. There are also significant discrepancies between the two estimates for the individual HFCs.

International carbon transition debates to intensify

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Coal Production ◽  
International Labour Organisation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Carbon Neutrality ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

Subject Carbon transitions. Significance The EU in May failed to reach an agreement on how to achieve a long-term strategy on reducing carbon emissions. One of the issues underlying the persistent differences among member states was the question of how to achieve a ‘just transition’. This is becoming an increasingly significant element of national and international debates on tackling climate change. Impacts The International Labour Organisation believes a transition limiting heat rises to 2 degrees by 2030 would create 24 million jobs globally. Global coal production may stabilise as reductions in developed economies are offset by increases in Asia. The UK Treasury estimates that achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 will cost 1 trillion pounds (1.26 trillion dollars).

Infrastructure

2021 ◽  
pp. 255-284
Author(s):  
Alex Brummer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Interest Rate ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Suspension Bridge ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Rate Environment ◽  
The Uk

This chapter looks at the priority projects, the climate change agenda, and the low interest rate environment that constitute a big step forward for UK. It illustrates the UK as a country where Conservative and Labour parties after a decade of austerity agree that the UK needs to invest for the future. It also discusses the priorities of digital transformation and a lower carbon Britain outside the EU that look even more desirable after the Covid-19 experience. The chapter highlights Britain as the master of capital investment in the Victorian era as much of the infrastructure for creating the railways, the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Bazalgette sewage system in London was designed and built in that period. It points out how long-term investment for the greater public good is not something that the UK has excelled at in more modern times.

scholarly journals Pathway dependence of ecosystem responses in China to 1.5 °C global warming

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 2353-2366
Author(s):  
Xu Yue ◽  
Hong Liao ◽  
Huijun Wang ◽  
Tianyi Zhang ◽  
Nadine Unger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Primary Productivity ◽  
Air Pollutants ◽  
Carbon Budget ◽  
Carbon Sink ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Vegetation Model ◽  
Co2 Fertilization ◽  
Ecosystem Responses ◽  
Target Set

Abstract. China is currently the world's largest emitter of both CO2 and short-lived air pollutants. Ecosystems in China help mitigate a part of the country's carbon emissions, but they are subject to perturbations in CO2, climate, and air pollution. Here, we use a dynamic vegetation model and data from three model inter-comparison projects to examine ecosystem responses in China under different emission pathways towards the 1.5 ∘C warming target set by the Paris Agreement. At 1.5 ∘C warming, gross primary productivity (GPP) increases by 15.5±5.4 % in a stabilized pathway and 11.9±4.4 % in a transient pathway. CO2 fertilization is the dominant driver of GPP enhancement and climate change is the main source of uncertainties. However, differences in ozone and aerosols explain the GPP differences between pathways at 1.5 ∘C warming. Although the land carbon sink is weakened by 17.4±19.6 % in the stabilized pathway, the ecosystems mitigate 10.6±1.4 % of national emissions in the stabilized pathway, more efficient than the fraction of 6.3±0.8 % in the transient pathway. To achieve the 1.5 ∘C warming target, our analysis suggests a higher allowable carbon budget for China under a stabilized pathway with reduced emissions in both CO2 and air pollutants.

scholarly journals Multi-Temporal Variabilities of Evapotranspiration Rates and Their Associations with Climate Change and Vegetation Greening in the Gan River Basin, China

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 2568 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng Bai ◽  
Bing Shen ◽  
Xiaoyu Song ◽  
Shuhong Mo ◽  
Lingmei Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Long Term Evolution ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Term Evolution

Understanding the spatial-temporal dynamics of evapotranspiration in relation to climate change and human activities is crucial for the sustainability of water resources and ecosystem security, especially in regions strongly influenced by human impact. In this study, a process-based evapotranspiration (ET) model in conjunction with the Global Land Surface Satellite (GLASS) LAI dataset was used to characterize the spatial-temporal pattern of evapotranspiration from 1982 to 2016 over the Gan River basin (GRB), the largest sub-basin of the Poyang Lake catchment, China. The results showed that the actual annual ET (ETa) weakly increased with an annual trend of 0.88 mm year−2 from 1982 to 2016 over the GRB, along with a slight decline in annual potential ET (ETp). On an ecosystem scale; however, only the evergreen broadleaved forest and cropland presented a positive ETa trend, while the rest of the ecosystems demonstrated negative trends of ETa. Both correlation analysis and sensitivity analysis revealed a close relationship between ETa inter-annual variability and energy availability. Attribution analysis illustrated that contributions of climate change and vegetation greening on the ETa trend were −0.48 mm year−2 and 1.36 mm year−2, respectively. Climate change had a negative impact on the ETa trend over the GRB. However, the negative effects have been offset by the positive effects of vegetation greening, which mainly resulted from the large-scale revegetation in forestland and agricultural practices in cropland. It is concluded that large-scale afforestation and agricultural management were the main drivers of the long-term evolution of water consumption over the GRB. This study can improve our understanding of the interactive effects of climate change and human activities on the long-term evolution of water cycles.

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