Building a More Effective Global Climate Regime Bottom-Up

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Stewart ◽  
Michael Oppenheimer ◽  
Bryce Rudyk
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Bottom Up

Building a More Effective Global Climate Regime Through a Bottom-Up Approach

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Stewart ◽  
Michael Oppenheimer ◽  
Bryce Rudyk
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Bottom Up

scholarly journals Estimating CO2 Emissions from Large Scale Coal-Fired Power Plants Using OCO-2 Observations and Emission Inventories

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 811
Author(s):  
Yaqin Hu ◽  
Yusheng Shi
Keyword(s):  
Power Plant ◽  
Co2 Emissions ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Gaussian Model ◽  
Point Sources ◽  
Emission Inventories ◽  
Bottom Up

The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) has increased rapidly worldwide, aggravating the global greenhouse effect, and coal-fired power plants are one of the biggest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions in China. However, efficient methods that can quantify CO2 emissions from individual coal-fired power plants with high accuracy are needed. In this study, we estimated the CO2 emissions of large-scale coal-fired power plants using Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite data based on remote sensing inversions and bottom-up methods. First, we mapped the distribution of coal-fired power plants, displaying the total installed capacity, and identified two appropriate targets, the Waigaoqiao and Qinbei power plants in Shanghai and Henan, respectively. Then, an improved Gaussian plume model method was applied for CO2 emission estimations, with input parameters including the geographic coordinates of point sources, wind vectors from the atmospheric reanalysis of the global climate, and OCO-2 observations. The application of the Gaussian model was improved by using wind data with higher temporal and spatial resolutions, employing the physically based unit conversion method, and interpolating OCO-2 observations into different resolutions. Consequently, CO2 emissions were estimated to be 23.06 ± 2.82 (95% CI) Mt/yr using the Gaussian model and 16.28 Mt/yr using the bottom-up method for the Waigaoqiao Power Plant, and 14.58 ± 3.37 (95% CI) and 14.08 Mt/yr for the Qinbei Power Plant, respectively. These estimates were compared with three standard databases for validation: the Carbon Monitoring for Action database, the China coal-fired Power Plant Emissions Database, and the Carbon Brief database. The comparison found that previous emission inventories spanning different time frames might have overestimated the CO2 emissions of one of two Chinese power plants on the two days that the measurements were made. Our study contributes to quantifying CO2 emissions from point sources and helps in advancing satellite-based monitoring techniques of emission sources in the future; this helps in reducing errors due to human intervention in bottom-up statistical methods.

Constraining Neoproterozoic subtropical low-level clouds to assess the plausibility of near-Snowball Earth states

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Braun ◽  
Aiko Voigt ◽  
Johannes Hörner ◽  
Joaquim G. Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Mixed Phase ◽  
Snowball Earth ◽  
Stable Range ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Mixed Phase Clouds

<p>Stable waterbelt climate states with close to global ice cover challenge the classical Snowball Earth hypothesis because they provide a robust explanation for the survival of advanced marine species during the Neoproterozoic glaciations (1000 – 541 Million years ago). Whether Earth’s climate stabilizes in a waterbelt state or rushes towards a Snowball state is determined by the magnitude of the ice-albedo feedback in the subtropics, where dark, bare sea ice instead of snow-covered sea ice prevails. For a given bare sea-ice albedo, the subtropical ice-albedo feedback and thus the stable range of the waterbelt climate regime is sensitive to the albedo over ice-free ocean, which is largely determined by shortwave cloud-radiative effects (CRE). In the present-day climate, CRE are known to dominate the spread of climate sensitivity across global climate models. We here study the impact of uncertainty associated with CRE on the existence of geologically relevant waterbelt climate regimes using two global climate models and an idealized energy balance model. We find that the stable range of the waterbelt climate regime is very sensitive to the abundance of subtropical low-level mixed-phase clouds. If subtropical cloud cover is low, climate sensitivity becomes so high as to inhibit stable waterbelt states.</p><p>The treatment of mixed-phase clouds is highly uncertain in global climate models. Therefore we aim to constrain the uncertainty associated with their CRE by means of a hierarchy of global and regional simulations that span horizontal grid resolutions from 160 km to 300m, and in particular include large eddy simulations of subtropical mixed-phase clouds located over a low-latitude ice edge. In the cold waterbelt climate subtropical CRE arise from convective events caused by strong meridional temperature gradients and stratocumulus decks located in areas of large-scale descending motion. We identify the latter to dominate subtropical CRE and therefore focus our large eddy simulations on subtropical stratocumulus clouds. By conducting simulations with two extreme scenarios for the abundance of atmospheric mineral dust, which serves as ice-nucleating particles and therefore can control mixed-phase cloud physics, we aim to estimate the possible spread of CRE associated with subtropical mixed-phase clouds. From this estimate we may assess whether Neoproterozoic low-level cloud abundance may have been high enough to sustain a stable waterbelt climate regime.</p>

EU Climate and Energy Policy: A Hesitant Supranational Turn?

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jørgen Wettestad ◽  
Per Ove Eikeland ◽  
Måns Nilsson
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
Energy Policy ◽  
Vertical Integration ◽  
Energy Security ◽  
Emissions Trading ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Energy Market ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Regional Energy ◽  
Climate And Energy Policy

This article examines the recent changes of three central EU climate and energy policies: the revised Emissions Trading Directive (ETS); the Renewables Directive (RES); and internal energy market (IEM) policy. An increasing transference of competence to EU level institutions, and hence “vertical integration,” has taken place, most clearly in the case of the ETS. The main reasons for the differing increase in vertical integration are, first, that more member states were dissatisfied with the pre-existing system in the case of the ETS than in the two other cases. Second, the European Commission and Parliament were comparatively more united in pushing for changes in the case of the ETS. And, third, although RES and IEM policies were influenced by regional energy security concerns, they were less structurally linked to and influenced by the global climate regime than the ETS.

scholarly journals Climate Dialog, Climate Action: Can Democracy Do the Job?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Young Phillips ◽  
LaVonne Reimer ◽  
Rebecca Turner
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Ipcc Report ◽  
Climate Action

The latest IPCC report forcefully states that immediate, decisive, and large-scale actions are needed to avert climate catastrophe. This essay presumes that democratic governments are best and most desirably positioned to take these actions. Yet in the countries most pivotal to global climate, significant voting blocs are uninterested in environmental issues. The essay urges adding bottom-up dialog between environmental and anti-environmental voters, to current and future top-down technocratic “solutions.” To make this combination result in a unified pro-environment electorate, we must understand: religious objections to environmentalism; the capital-vs.-knowledge strife that slows polluting corporations’ green transitions; and the psychological mechanisms that can make inter-group dialog fruitful.

scholarly journals Assessment of the Effectiveness of Global Climate Policies Using Coupled Bottom-Up and Top-Down Models

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryse Labriet ◽  
Laurent Drouet ◽  
Marc Vielle ◽  
Richard Loulou ◽  
Amit Kanudia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Climate Policies

The Climate Change Regime Complex

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 476-498
Author(s):  
Gorana Draguljić
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Forum Shopping ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Regime Complex ◽  
The Status ◽  
Path Dependent ◽  
Governance Arrangements

Abstract In an era defined by forum shopping, institutional proliferation, and regime complexity, why do global governance arrangements remain relatively stable? This article combines the insights of regime complexity scholarship with historical institutionalism to address this question. It argues that the establishment of international regimes creates winners and losers. States dissatisfied with these arrangements push for institutional change. Regimes nonetheless tend to develop in a path-dependent manner because institutions are resistant to change and the winners under the status quo seek to protect it. Thus, existing governance arrangements exert a centripetal pull, even when states engage in forum shopping and institutional proliferation to generate regime complexity. An examination of path-dependent institutional development in the global climate regime supports the argument.

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