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AbstractGlobal impact models represent process-level understanding of how natural and human systems may be affected by climate change. Their projections are used in integrated assessments of climate change. Here we test, for the first time, systematically across many important systems, how well such impact models capture the impacts of extreme climate conditions. Using the 2003 European heat wave and drought as a historical analogue for comparable events in the future, we find that a majority of models underestimate the extremeness of impacts in important sectors such as agriculture, terrestrial ecosystems, and heat-related human mortality, while impacts on water resources and hydropower are overestimated in some river basins; and the spread across models is often large. This has important implications for economic assessments of climate change impacts that rely on these models. It also means that societal risks from future extreme events may be greater than previously thought.

Hydrochars were obtained after hydrous pyrolysis of a pine Kraft lignin using different reaction conditions (temperature, water content and residence time) and the residues were characterized through a wide range of analytical techniques including high-temperature rheometry, solid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The results indicated that an increase in reaction temperature, an increase in residence time or a decrease in water content reduces the amount of fluid material in the residue. The hydrous pyrolysis conditions studied were not able to increase the maturation of lignin, which would result in an increase in the resolidification temperature, but reduced the amount of mineral matter in the hydrochar produced. On the other hand, the hydrochars obtained from pristine lignin, torrefied lignin (300 °C, 1 h) and their 50:50 wt.%/wt.% blend at temperatures of 350 °C after 6 h using 30 ml of water had lower ash contents (45%) is excessively high compared to that of the good coking coal (10%) and the micro-strength of the biocokes (R139%) and high microporous surface areas ( > 400 m2/g) of the biocokes and high alkalinity index of the lignins (>27%) compared to those of the coke (27% and 145 m2/g) and coal (0.6%), respectively. Furthermore, the biocoke derived from the hydrous pyrolysed torrefied lignin did not agglomerate, which could not be explained by changes in the chemical properties of the material and requires further investigation. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Research Programme of the Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) research programme under grant agreement No. [RFCR-CT-2014-00006]. Peer reviewed

In this paper, the user–base station (BS) association problem is addressed to reduce grid consumption in heterogeneous cellular networks (HetNets) powered by hybrid energy sources (grid and renewable energy). The paper proposes a novel distributed control scheme inspired by population games and designed considering both atomicity and non-anonymity – i.e., describing the individual decisions of each agent. The controller performance is considered from an energy–efficiency perspective, which requires the guarantee of appropriate qualityof-service (QoS) levels according to renewable energy availability. The efficiency of the proposed scheme is compared with other heuristic and optimal alternatives in two simulation scenarios. Simulation results show that the proposed approach inspired by population games reduces grid consumption by 12% when compared to the traditional best-signal-level association policy.

Laboratory rotational spectra of norbornadiene and its cyano derivatives were recorded using chirped-pulse millimetre-wave spectroscopy. These molecules were then searched for in the starless core TMC-1 using the QUIJOTE line survey.

9 paginas, 6 figuras, 2 tablas, Chemical looping combustion (CLC) is a promising CO2 capture technology with a very low energy penalty and cost. Several previous studies have demonstrated the feasibility of this technology using both gaseous and solid fuels. The combustion of biomass using CLC would make the concept of negative-CO2 emission possible. This paper presents a study of biomass combustion in a continuous CLC unit using pine wood as fuel and iron ore as an oxygen carrier and analyses several parameters influencing the CLC process. High carbon captures (>95%) were achieved in the interval 880–915 °C using both steam and CO2 as gasifying agents. Tar compounds were detected at the fuel reactor outlet. After 78 h of continuous operation, no changes were detected in the physical and chemical properties of the oxygen carrier particles. The authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation for financial support received via the ENE2011-26354 project. This work was also partially supported by the European Commission, under the RFCS program (ACCLAIM Project, Contract RFCP-CT-2012-406). T. Mendiara acknowledges the “Juan de la Cierva” postdoctoral contract awarded by this Ministry. The authors also thank PROMINDSA for providing the iron ore used in this work. Peer reviewed