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Project: GCOS Earth Heat Inventory - A study under the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory (EHI), and presents an updated international assessment of ocean warming estimates, and new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period from 1960 to present. Summary: The file “GCOS_EHI_1960-2020_Earth_Heat_Inventory_Ocean_Heat_Content_data.nc” contains a consistent long-term Earth system heat inventory over the period 1960-2020. Human-induced atmospheric composition changes cause a radiative imbalance at the top-of-atmosphere which is driving global warming. Understanding the heat gain of the Earth system from this accumulated heat – and particularly how much and where the heat is distributed in the Earth system - is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming oceans, atmosphere and land, rising temperatures and sea level, and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This dataset is based on a study under the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory published in von Schuckmann et al. (2020), and presents an updated international assessment of ocean warming estimates, and new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period 1960-2020. The dataset also contains estimates for global ocean heat content over 1960-2020 for different depth layers, i.e., 0-300m, 0-700m, 700-2000m, 0-2000m, 2000-bottom, which are described in von Schuckmann et al. (2022). This version includes an update of heat storage of global ocean heat content, where one additional product (Li et al., 2022) had been included to the initial estimate. The Earth heat inventory had been updated accordingly, considering also the update for continental heat content (Cuesta-Valero et al., 2023).

Dynamics of societal material stocks such as buildings and infrastructures and their spatial patterns drive surging resource use and emissions. Building up and maintaining stocks requires large amounts of resources; currently stock-building materials amount to almost 60% of all materials used by humanity. Buildings, infrastructures and machinery shape social practices of production and consumption, thereby creating path dependencies for future resource use. They constitute the physical basis of the spatial organization of most socio-economic activities, for example as mobility networks, urbanization and settlement patterns and various other infrastructures. This dataset features a detailed map of material stocks for the whole of Germany on a 10m grid based on high resolution Earth Observation data (Sentinel-1 + Sentinel-2), crowd-sourced geodata (OSM) and material intensity factors. Temporal extent The map is representative for ca. 2018. Data format Per federal state, the data come in tiles of 30x30km (see shapefile). The projection is EPSG:3035. The images are compressed GeoTiff files (*.tif). There is a mosaic in GDAL Virtual format (*.vrt), which can readily be opened in most Geographic Information Systems. The dataset features area and mass for different street types area and mass for different rail types area and mass for other infrastructure area, volume and mass for different building types Masses are reported as total values, and per material category. Units area in m² height in m volume in m³ mass in t for infrastructure and buildings Further information For further information, please see the publication or contact Helmut Haberl (helmut.haberl@boku.ac.at). A web-visualization of this dataset is available here. Visit our website to learn more about our project MAT_STOCKS - Understanding the Role of Material Stock Patterns for the Transformation to a Sustainable Society. Publication Haberl, H., Wiedenhofer, D., Schug, F., Frantz, D., Virág, D., Plutzar, C., Gruhler, K., Lederer, J., Schiller, G. , Fishman, T., Lanau, M., Gattringer, A., Kemper, T., Liu, G., Tanikawa, H., van der Linden, S., Hostert, P. (accepted): High-resolution maps of material stocks in buildings and infrastructures in Austria and Germany. Environmental Science & Technology Funding This research was primarly funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (MAT_STOCKS, grant agreement No 741950). ML and GL acknowledge funding by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (CityWeight, 6111-00555B), ML thanks the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC; project Multi-Scale, Circular Economic Potential of Non-Residential Building Scale, EP/S029273/1), JL acknowledges funding by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF), project ESR17-067, TF acknowledges the Israel Science Foundation grant no. 2706/19.

Twenty-minute neighbourhoods highlight the importance of well-connected and mixed-used neighbourhoods and communities with proximate access to employment, essential services, public transport, and open spaces. Shorter distances together with re-prioritised public spaces encourage more active transport choices, resulting in public health benefits and reduced environmental pollution. Higher liveability brought about by mixed-use developments enables people to have equitable access to local facilities, amenities, and employment opportunities, promoting vibrancy, social cohesion, and intergenerational connections. The attributes of 20-minute neighbourhoods also combine to create places, that are acknowledged as friendly for all ages, address changing needs across the life course, and provide better support for the ageing population. Furthermore, there are indications that 20-minute neighbourhoods may be more resilient against many of the negative impacts of stringent public health protocols such as those implemented in periods of lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this article, we evaluate and compare planning policies and practices aimed at establishing 20-minute neighbourhoods in Melbourne (Australia) and Scotland (the UK). Using case studies, we discuss similarities and differences involved in using place-based approaches of 20-minute neighbourhoods to address 21st-century challenges in key areas of health and wellbeing, equity, environmental sustainability, and community resilience.

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) have immense potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels, and for smart grid applications. Although a great deal of research is focused on technological limitations that affect PEV battery performance targets, a major and arguably equal concern is the constraint imposed by the finite availability of elements or resources used in the manufacture of PEV batteries. Availability of resources, such as lithium, for batteries is critical to the future of PEVs and is, therefore, a topic that needs attention. This study addresses the issues related to lithium availability and sustainability, particularly supply and demand related to PEVs and the impact on future PEV growth. In this paper, a detailed review of the research on lithium availability for PEV batteries is presented, key challenges are pinpointed and future impacts on PEV technology are outlined.

How can urban policies and planning approaches help in achieving a safer mobility and carbon reduction in the transport sector? The attention of planners and policy makers towards the promotion of sustainability and reduction of environmental impacts has grown in recent years. This paper investigates the role that Urban Planning plays in the long term towards a safer and climate friendlier mobility, highlighting the need for integrated approaches gathering spatial planning and mobility management. After a review of several urban policies and planning strategies, initiatives, and approaches, mainly based on the urban scale, the paper presents an urban regeneration case study leading to an increase of pedestrian accessibility at the neighborhood level. This can be seen as a support tool to foster sustainable, safe, and climate friendly mobility in cities. The results of the performed analysis show a dependency of accessibility from two different factors: the distribution of services and the capillarity of the soft mobility network, which can contribute to creating a more walkable space.

This paper presents an integrated vehicle model to simulate simultaneously the driver, powertrains, chassis, body, road condition, vehicle dynamics and the Active Suspension (AS) system with/without an energy harvesting module. The developed model is used to investigate the ride comfort and influences of energy harvesting AS system on the total energy consumption of battery Electric Vehicles (EVs) relative to EVs with a passive suspension system. Preliminary simulation results show that compared to EVs with a passive suspension system, the ones with AS system improve ride comfort, up to 31% reduction of the vehicle body acceleration RMS value, with an expense of higher energy consumption. This expense can be reduced to about 2.8% when using an energy harvesting AS system. Simulation results also demonstrate that the available energy for recuperation during the AS system operation is significant in relation to the regenerative braking energy of the propulsion system, up to approx. 70% on bumpy road surfaces.

As it is widely accepted, cycling tends to produce health benefits and reduce air pollution. Policymakers encourage people to use bikes by improving cycling facilities as well as developing bicycle-sharing systems (BSS). It is increasingly interesting to investigate how environmental factors influence the cycling behavior of users of bicycle-sharing systems, as users of bicycle-sharing systems tend to be different from regular cyclists. Although earlier studies have examined effects of safety and convenience on the cycling behavior of regular riders, they rarely explored effects of safety and convenience on the cycling behavior of BSS riders. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to investigate how road safety, convenience, and public safety affect the cycling behavior of BSS riders by controlling for other environmental factors. Specifically, in this study, we investigated the impacts of environmental characteristics, including population density, employment density, land use mix, accessibility to point-of-interests (schools, shops, parks and gyms), road infrastructure, public transit accessibility, road safety, convenience, and public safety on the usage of BSS. Additionally, for a more accurate measure of public transit accessibility, road safety, convenience, and public safety, we used spatiotemporally varying measurements instead of spatially varying measurements, which have been widely used in earlier studies. We conducted an empirical investigation in Chicago with cycling data from a BSS called Divvy. In this study, we particularly attempted to answer the following questions: (1) how traffic accidents and congestion influence the usage of BSS; (2) how violent crime influences the usage of BSS; and (3) how public transit accessibility influences the usage of BSS. Moreover, we tried to offer implications for policies aiming to increase the usage of BSS or for the site selection of new docking stations. Empirical results demonstrate that density of bicycle lanes, public transit accessibility, and public safety influence the usage of BSS, which provides answers for our research questions. Empirical results also suggest policy implications that improving bicycle facilities and reducing the rate of violent crime rates tend to increase the usage of BSS. Moreover, some environmental factors could be considered in selecting a site for a new docking station.