• Energy Research
• 12. Responsible consumption close
• 15. Life on land close
• 14. Life underwater close
• DE close
• IT close

Bioplastics are alternatives of conventional petroleum-based plastics. Bioplastics are polymers processed from renewable sources and are biodegradable. This study aims at conducting an environmental impact assessment of the bioprocessing of agricultural wastes into bioplastics compared to petro-plastics using an LCA approach. Bioplastics were produced from potato peels in laboratory. In a biochemical reaction under heating, starch was extracted from peels and glycerin, vinegar and water were added with a range of different ratios, which resulted in producing different samples of bio-based plastics. Nevertheless, the environmental impact of the bioplastics production process was evaluated and compared to petro-plastics. A life cycle analysis of bioplastics produced in laboratory and petro-plastics was conducted. The results are presented in the form of global warming potential, and other environmental impacts including acidification potential, eutrophication potential, freshwater ecotoxicity potential, human toxicity potential, and ozone layer depletion of producing bioplastics are compared to petro-plastics. The results show that the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, through the different experiments to produce bioplastics, range between 0.354 and 0.623 kg CO2 eq. per kg bioplastic compared to 2.37 kg CO2 eq. per kg polypropylene as a petro-plastic. The results also showed that there are no significant potential effects for the bioplastics produced from potato peels on different environmental impacts in comparison with poly-β-hydroxybutyric acid and polypropylene. Thus, the bioplastics produced from agricultural wastes can be manufactured in industrial scale to reduce the dependence on petroleum-based plastics. This in turn will mitigate GHG emissions and reduce the negative environmental impacts on climate change.

Abstract. An improved understanding of present-day climate variability and change relies on high-quality data sets from the past 2 millennia. Global efforts to model regional climate modes are in the process of being validated against, and integrated with, records of past vegetation change. For South America, however, the full potential of vegetation records for evaluating and improving climate models has hitherto not been sufficiently acknowledged due to an absence of information on the spatial and temporal coverage of study sites. This paper therefore serves as a guide to high-quality pollen records that capture environmental variability during the last 2 millennia. We identify 60 vegetation (pollen) records from across South America which satisfy geochronological requirements set out for climate modelling, and we discuss their sensitivity to the spatial signature of climate modes throughout the continent. Diverse patterns of vegetation response to climate change are observed, with more similar patterns of change in the lowlands and varying intensity and direction of responses in the highlands. Pollen records display local-scale responses to climate modes; thus, it is necessary to understand how vegetation–climate interactions might diverge under variable settings. We provide a qualitative translation from pollen metrics to climate variables. Additionally, pollen is an excellent indicator of human impact through time. We discuss evidence for human land use in pollen records and provide an overview considered useful for archaeological hypothesis testing and important in distinguishing natural from anthropogenically driven vegetation change. We stress the need for the palynological community to be more familiar with climate variability patterns to correctly attribute the potential causes of observed vegetation dynamics. This manuscript forms part of the wider LOng-Term multi-proxy climate REconstructions and Dynamics in South America – 2k initiative that provides the ideal framework for the integration of the various palaeoclimatic subdisciplines and palaeo-science, thereby jump-starting and fostering multidisciplinary research into environmental change on centennial and millennial timescales.

Nowadays, heating using wood, briquettes, or pellets is a curious replacement to fossil fuels such as coal, oil, or gas. Unfortunately, the combustion of biofuels, especially in low-power boilers with unstable operating conditions, releases a lot of gas pollutants (e.g., carbon monoxide (CO), nitric oxide (NO), and various organic compounds) that are usually generated due to the incomplete product combustion. The combustion of biofuel in grate boilers with top-down ignition is a new approach, popular in society (mainly used for coal fuels), which improves the combustion process and reduces the amount of pollutants emitted. This study evaluated the impact of ignition techniques on the emission level of gas pollutants during the combustion of wood logs, briquettes, and pellets of pine in grate-based charging boilers. The combination of top ignition mode with pinewood logs allowed us to achieve a reduction of 6% in CO and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission into the atmosphere. However, the combination of top-down ignition mode with pellets and briquettes produced, in fully operational conditions, 1- to 18-fold higher levels of CO and SO2 respectively, than bottom-up ignition, after an initial period of low level CO and SO2 emissions. During the tests (mainly with ignition from top), substantial emissions of NO were observed of up to 400 mg·m−3 at 10% O2. Therefore, further research is required to decrease emission related to the content of nitrogen in biomass. In this respect, research of impact on the combustion temperature of such emissions is needed.

Climate change affects the timing of phenological events, such as the start, end, and length of the growing season of vegetation. A better understanding of how the phenology responded to climatic determinants is important in order to better anticipate future climate-ecosystem interactions. We examined the changes of three phenological events for the Mongolian Plateau and their climatic determinants. To do so, we derived three phenological metrics from remotely sensed vegetation indices and associated these with climate data for the period of 1982 to 2011. The results suggested that the start of the growing season advanced by 0.10 days yr-1, the end was delayed by 0.11 days yr-1, and the length of the growing season expanded by 6.3 days during the period from 1982 to 2011. The delayed end and extended length of the growing season were observed consistently in grassland, forest, and shrubland, while the earlier start was only observed in grassland. Partial correlation analysis between the phenological events and the climate variables revealed that higher temperature was associated with an earlier start of the growing season, and both temperature and precipitation contributed to the later ending. Overall, our findings suggest that climate change will substantially alter the vegetation phenology in the grasslands of the Mongolian Plateau, and likely also in biomes with similar environmental conditions, such as other semi-arid steppe regions.

Abstract This article focuses on the results obtained by the enforcement of a original greenhouse gas emissions policy, issued in recent years in several municipalities in Northern Italy. The Municipality of Reggio Emilia was one of the firsts in Italy to develop and adopt a voluntary building energy-consumption certification method called Ecoabita, aiming to promote energy efficiency in buildings over its jurisdiction. Several reasons make this project innovative: first, the certification method has been processed through and verified by a quality international agency, secondly the procedure is assisting financial-incentive policies both on mandatory (European Directive 2002/91/CE) and voluntary basis (Municipality Protocol Ecoabita), finally it allows to obtain eligible credits for avoided emissions that can be negotiated on the CO2 exchange market. With specific reference to Reggio Emilia case, acknowledged the amount of actions, that are normally scheduled in the municipality throughout a year, it has been evaluated the benefit, in terms of environmental improvement, descended from the protocol, also projecting their trend in future years up to 2020 as well, demonstrating the scheduled interventions are fundamental in sought of the achievement of the Kyoto and Copenhagen commitments. The entire procedure has been developed in accordance to the parameters given by UNFCCC for these kinds of analyses and has been recently confirmed to be one of the most accurate international accounting procedure by a survey developed by the scientific committee of the European Project LIFE-LAKS.

Project: Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) datasets - These data have been generated as part of the internationally-coordinated Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6; see also GMD Special Issue: http://www.geosci-model-dev.net/special_issue590.html). The simulation data provides a basis for climate research designed to answer fundamental science questions and serves as resource for authors of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR6). CMIP6 is a project coordinated by the Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) as part of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). Phase 6 builds on previous phases executed under the leadership of the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and relies on the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) and the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) along with numerous related activities for implementation. The original data is hosted and partially replicated on a federated collection of data nodes, and most of the data relied on by the IPCC is being archived for long-term preservation at the IPCC Data Distribution Centre (IPCC DDC) hosted by the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ). The project includes simulations from about 120 global climate models and around 45 institutions and organizations worldwide. Summary: These data include the subset used by IPCC AR6 WGI authors of the datasets originally published in ESGF for 'CMIP6.ScenarioMIP.DWD.MPI-ESM1-2-HR' with the full Data Reference Syntax following the template 'mip_era.activity_id.institution_id.source_id.experiment_id.member_id.table_id.variable_id.grid_label.version'. The MPI-ESM1.2-HR climate model, released in 2017, includes the following components: aerosol: none, prescribed MACv2-SP, atmos: ECHAM6.3 (spectral T127; 384 x 192 longitude/latitude; 95 levels; top level 0.01 hPa), land: JSBACH3.20, landIce: none/prescribed, ocean: MPIOM1.63 (tripolar TP04, approximately 0.4deg; 802 x 404 longitude/latitude; 40 levels; top grid cell 0-12 m), ocnBgchem: HAMOCC6, seaIce: unnamed (thermodynamic (Semtner zero-layer) dynamic (Hibler 79) sea ice model). The model was run by the Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach am Main 63067, Germany (DWD) in native nominal resolutions: aerosol: 100 km, atmos: 100 km, land: 100 km, landIce: none, ocean: 50 km, ocnBgchem: 50 km, seaIce: 50 km.

Project: Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) datasets - These data have been generated as part of the internationally-coordinated Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6; see also GMD Special Issue: http://www.geosci-model-dev.net/special_issue590.html). The simulation data provides a basis for climate research designed to answer fundamental science questions and serves as resource for authors of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR6). CMIP6 is a project coordinated by the Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) as part of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). Phase 6 builds on previous phases executed under the leadership of the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and relies on the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) and the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) along with numerous related activities for implementation. The original data is hosted and partially replicated on a federated collection of data nodes, and most of the data relied on by the IPCC is being archived for long-term preservation at the IPCC Data Distribution Centre (IPCC DDC) hosted by the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ). The project includes simulations from about 120 global climate models and around 45 institutions and organizations worldwide. Summary: These data include the subset used by IPCC AR6 WGI authors of the datasets originally published in ESGF for 'CMIP6.CMIP.HAMMOZ-Consortium.MPI-ESM-1-2-HAM.historical' with the full Data Reference Syntax following the template 'mip_era.activity_id.institution_id.source_id.experiment_id.member_id.table_id.variable_id.grid_label.version'. The MPI-ESM1.2-HAM climate model, released in 2017, includes the following components: aerosol: HAM2.3, atmos: ECHAM6.3 (spectral T63; 192 x 96 longitude/latitude; 47 levels; top level 0.01 hPa), atmosChem: sulfur chemistry (unnamed), land: JSBACH 3.20, ocean: MPIOM1.63 (bipolar GR1.5, approximately 1.5deg; 256 x 220 longitude/latitude; 40 levels; top grid cell 0-12 m), ocnBgchem: HAMOCC6, seaIce: unnamed (thermodynamic (Semtner zero-layer) dynamic (Hibler 79) sea ice model). The model was run by the ETH Zurich, Switzerland; Max Planck Institut fur Meteorologie, Germany; Forschungszentrum Julich, Germany; University of Oxford, UK; Finnish Meteorological Institute, Finland; Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, Germany; Center for Climate Systems Modeling (C2SM) at ETH Zurich, Switzerland (HAMMOZ-Consortium) in native nominal resolutions: aerosol: 250 km, atmos: 250 km, atmosChem: 250 km, land: 250 km, ocean: 250 km, ocnBgchem: 250 km, seaIce: 250 km.