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Due to climate change, the Northwesterner Gilgit Baltistan's, Ghizer district is highly susceptible to glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). Nearly 24 GLOFs have occurred in this area in the last ∼200 years, demonstrating the growing recurrent nature of these incidents. Taking this into account, the assessment of risks associated with GLOFs was investigated in this study. All regional glacial lakes were identified in the first phase, and changes between 2000 and 2023 were mapped using moderate-resolution satellite images (Landsat). To map built-up and agricultural areas, Landsat's lower resolution limited its use in such complex topography. Therefore, Sentinel-2 data were used, and images from 2016 to 2023 were classified using a random forest classifier. A total of 617 glacial lakes covering ∼31.67 km2 of the area were mapped in 2023. Since 2000, ∼88 glacial lakes have appeared, showing an increasing trend in the number of lakes. In the second phase, categorization and susceptibility to GLOFs were assessed using multicriteria decision analysis. The grass GIS tool, r.avaflow, was used to generate GLOFs simulations based on friction, density, release area, travel time, and two travel time scenarios, i.e., 1800 and 3600 s, for four high-weighted glacial lakes. Results showed that the glacial lake near Darkut village, Yaseen Valley, poses a significant threat to downstream communities. In contrast, two other lakes in Gupis Valley will have a moderate effect on the infrastructure and agriculture. The glacial lake of Punyal Valley poses no significant threat.

Abstract The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE) is an Explorer-class mission concept to measure the energy spectrum and linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). A single cryogenic Fourier transform spectrometer compares the sky to an external blackbody calibration target, measuring the Stokes I, Q, U parameters to levels ∼200 Jy/sr in each 2.65° diameter beam over the full sky, in each of 300 frequency channels from 28 GHz to 6 THz. With sensitivity over 1000 times greater than COBE/FIRAS, PIXIE opens a broad discovery space for the origin, contents, and evolution of the universe. Measurements of small distortions from a CMB blackbody spectrum provide a robust determination of the mean electron pressure and temperature in the universe while constraining processes including dissipation of primordial density perturbations, black holes, and the decay or annihilation of dark matter. Full-sky maps of linear polarization measure the optical depth to reionization at nearly the cosmic variance limit and constrain models of primordial inflation. Spectra with sub-percent absolute calibration spanning microwave to far-IR wavelengths provide a legacy data set for analyses including line intensity mapping of extragalactic emission and the cosmic infrared background amplitude and anisotropy. We describe the PIXIE instrument sensitivity, foreground subtraction, and anticipated science return from both the baseline 2-year mission and a potential extended mission.

India is anticipated to grow its total energy consumption and CO(2) emissions by more than any other country over the next two decades. India will have to attract around $400 billion in financing to realize its 500 GW target of renewable energy by 2030. Given complex renewable energy sector risks, rapidly scaling-up risk-friendly private equity financing will be critical to achieve India's target. This research seeks to answer questions regarding the motivation, perceptions, strategies, and investment behavior of private equity investors in the Indian renewable energy sector. The answers to these questions presented herein have been distilled from primary research interviews with 40 executive-level sector practitioners and literature analysis. This research finds that global-macro forces and sector-specific appeal are attracting varied investors to the sector. These investors primarily deploy capital in existing developer platforms, creating control developer platforms, and Infrastructure Investment Trusts. Critical investment criteria and value creation strategies of these investors are comprehensively discussed. Emerging investment opportunities to create new renewable energy sector value by partnering with companies across the power sector value chain are also presented. This research concludes that despite significant sector risks, investors remain confident they can achieve outsized risk-adjusted returns relative to most other global infrastructure assets. This optimism stems from the confidence of investors in their own ability to manage risk-return dynamics through judicious investment selection and management strategies, the sector's uniquely large demand growth and market size, and the Indian central government's perceived strong commitment to finding creative solutions to chronic sector issues. Lessons from the investment insights, themes and factor analyses discussed herein can be drawn upon in evaluating renewable energy investments and policymaking worldwide.

Universal access to energy is a global priority, increasingly delivered through grid-tied and off-grid infrastructure. However, energy policies frequently conflate universal access with extending and subsidising networked electricity, resulting in technology-dominated approaches. Rapid urbanisation in the global south has outstripped infrastructure capacity, where urban dwellers’ access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable forms of energy are precarious. This failure to reflect human needs and societal expectations alongside technical considerations is threatening the sustainability of urban energy transitions. This paper draws from qualitative data with low-income urban dwellers and municipal policymakers to critically examine South Africa’s energy access policies. We demonstrate how prioritising ‘electricity for all’ via grid connections fails to deliver universal access to affordable energy. First, the state’s emphasis on extending and subsidising networked electricity prioritises proximity to grid connections rather than access to energy services, and permanently excludes households living in un-serviceable structures/settlements. Second, limited community participation produces a policy that ignores low-income households’ urban practices and creates perverse incentives to distort energy consumption. We argue that delivering an urban energy transition that is economically feasible, locally appropriate and socially desirable requires policy expansion beyond physical delivery, working with targeted communities on policy development, knowledge exchange, and capacity building.

Data availability: The authors do not have permission to share data. The adaptability of hydrogen across sectors such as transportation, heavy industry, and its support for intermittent renewable generation through flexible storage has sparked growing interest in electrolysis-based hydrogen production. While large-scale electrolyser integration enhances network stability by aiding constraint management and reducing renewable curtailment through storage, it also places considerable demand on electricity networks. This makes understanding the role of electrolyser deployment on distribution networks (DNs) increasingly crucial. While existing studies on hydrogen-integrated DNs often target specific operational costs or isolated constraints, they typically lack a comprehensive view that considers broader economic, operational, and environmental impacts. This study offers an extensive analysis across these dimensions, exploring diverse hydrogen supply configurations, including hydrogen pipeline and storage unit availability, within a real UK DN to provide a practical perspective. This study introduces a conflicting multi-objective function that improves load factor (LF) by 85.516% and reduces power loss by 22.947%, all while managing operational costs effectively. Findings underline that deploying electrolysers with efficient management algorithms can significantly enhance the operations of DNs. Additionally, this paper contributes to the field by detailing recent UK-based electrolysis projects, providing insights into the future of hydrogen–electricity coupled multi-energy networks. This research was supported by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Grant Reference EP/W524542/1. The authors thank UK Power Networks DSO for providing data during the corresponding author’s employment, which contributed significantly to the analysis presented in this study.

Shifts in the timing of phenological events across many taxa and ecosystems are a result of climate change. Within a trophic network, phenological mismatches between interlinked species can have negative impacts for biodiversity, ecosystems, and the trophic network. Here we developed interaction indices that quantify the level of synchrony and asynchrony among groups of species in three interlinked trophic levels, as well as accounting for a dynamic representation of meteorology. Insect first flight, vegetation green-up and arrival of migrant birds were the phenological indicators, obtained from a combination of spatially and temporally explicit species observations from citizen science programmes and remote sensing platforms (i.e., Landsat). To determine phenological shifts in interlinked taxa we created and applied several phenological indices of synchrony-asynchrony, combining information from the phenological events and critical time windows of meteorological variables. To demonstrate our method of incorporating a meteorological component in our new interaction index, we implemented the relative sliding time window analysis, a stepwise regression model, to identify critical time windows preceding the phenological events on a yearly basis. The new indices of phenological change identified several asynchronies within trophic levels, allowing exploration of potential interactions based on synchrony among interlinked species. Our novel index of synchrony-asynchrony including a meteorological dimension could be highly informative and should open new pathways for studying synchrony among species and interaction networks.