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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).

This data package contains data used for an model-data intercomparison originally published in: D. K. Hutchinson, H. K. Coxall, D. J. Lunt, M. Steinthorsdottir, A. M. de Boer, M. Baatsen, A. von der Heydt, M. Huber, A. T. Kennedy-Asser, L. Kunzmann, J.-B. Ladant, C. H. Lear, K. Moraweck, P. N. Pearson, E. Piga, M. J. Pound, U. Salzmann, H. D. Scher, W. P. Sijp, K. K. Śliwińska, P. A. Wilson, and Z. Zhang, 2021: The Eocene-Oligocene transition: a review of marine and terrestrial proxy data, models and model-data comparisons, Climate of the Past, 17, 269-315. https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-269-2021 These data are also used in a further model-data intercomparison of Antarctic temperatures: Emily Tibbett, Natalie J Burls, David K. Hutchinson, Sarah J Feakins, (2023), Proxy-Model Comparison for the Eocene-Oligocene Transition in Southern High Latitudes, Paleoceanography and Paleocliamtology, In Review. Pre-print avaiable from: https://www.authorea.com/doi/full/10.1002/essoar.10511735.2 The package contains surface air temperature and sea surface temperature from an ensemble of model simulations of the Eocene-Oligocene transition. These data are provided at annual and monthly frequency. They are also provided on the original model grid, and an interpolated common grid used for the intercomparison. (The common grid is based on the HadCM3BL model grid.) All data are provided in NETCDF format with self-describing variable names. The name and explanation of the interpolated data files are contained in: table_of_experiments.xlsx Please read that spreadsheet to interpret the filenames, and see Table 2 (p291) of Hutchinson et al (2021) for experiment descriptions. Please also be mindful to cite the original authors of the simulations when using these data, whose work made this dataset possible. The appropriate citations are listed below: Reference DOI link Baatsen et al (2020) https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-2573-2020 Goldner et al (2014) https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13597 Ladant et al (2014a,b) https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-1957-2014 https://doi.org/10.1002/2013PA002593 Hutchinson et al (2018, 2019) https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-14-789-2018 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11828-z Kennedy et al (2015) https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0419 Zhang et al (2012, 2014) https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-5-523-2012 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13705 Sijp et al (2009) https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JCLI3003.1

AbstractChina is under pressure to improve its agricultural productivity to keep up with the demands of a growing population with increasingly resource‐intensive diets. This productivity improvement must occur against a backdrop of carbon intensity reduction targets, and a highly fragmented, nutrient‐inefficient farming system. Moreover, the Chinese government increasingly recognizes the need to rationalize the management of the 800 million tonnes of agricultural crop straw that China produces each year, up to 40% of which is burned in‐field as a waste. Biochar produced from these residues and applied to land could contribute to China's agricultural productivity, resource use efficiency and carbon reduction goals. However competing uses for China's straw residues are rapidly emerging, particularly from bioenergy generation. Therefore it is important to understand the relative economic viability and carbon abatement potential of directing agricultural residues to biochar rather than bioenergy. Using cost‐benefit analysis (CBA) and life‐cycle analysis (LCA), this paper therefore compares the economic viability and carbon abatement potential of biochar production via pyrolysis, with that of bioenergy production via briquetting and gasification. Straw reincorporation and in‐field straw burning are used as baseline scenarios. We find that briquetting straw for heat energy is the most cost‐effective carbon abatement technology, requiring a subsidy of $7 MgCO2e−1 abated. However China's current bioelectricity subsidy scheme makes gasification (NPV $12.6 million) more financially attractive for investors than both briquetting (NPV $7.34 million), and pyrolysis ($−1.84 million). The direct carbon abatement potential of pyrolysis (1.06 MgCO2e per odt straw) is also lower than that of briquetting (1.35 MgCO2e per odt straw) and gasification (1.16 MgCO2e per odt straw). However indirect carbon abatement processes arising from biochar application could significantly improve the carbon abatement potential of the pyrolysis scenario. Likewise, increasing the agronomic value of biochar is essential for the pyrolysis scenario to compete as an economically viable, cost‐effective mitigation technology.

AbstractA better understanding of how climate affects growth in tree species is essential for improved predictions of forest dynamics under climate change. Long-term climate averages (mean climate) and short-term deviations from these averages (anomalies) both influence tree growth, but the rarity of long-term data integrating climatic gradients with tree censuses has so far limited our understanding of their respective role, especially in tropical systems. Here, we combined 49 years of growth data for 509 tree species across 23 tropical rainforest plots along a climatic gradient to examine how tree growth responds to both climate means and anomalies, and how species functional traits mediate these tree growth responses to climate. We showed that short-term, anomalous increases in atmospheric evaporative demand and solar radiation consistently reduced tree growth. Drier forests and fast-growing species were more sensitive to water stress anomalies. In addition, species traits related to water use and photosynthesis partly explained differences in growth sensitivity to both long-term and short-term climate variations. Our study demonstrates that both climate means and anomalies shape tree growth in tropical forests, and that species traits can be leveraged to understand these demographic responses to climate change, offering a promising way forward to forecast tropical forest dynamics under different climate trajectories.

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.

The interface between the head of the window and the wall represents one of the largest thermal bridges of a building and one of the areas with the highest risk of surface condensation and mould growth. This study is concerned with the reliability and accuracy of assessing this thermal bridge heat loss and surface temperature at the junction of a window with a specific steel lintel where the window frame itself is excluded from the thermal model. Four cases were modelled, covering the evolution of the construction details of this junction, following changes in British legislation in regards to U-values. They were assessed with HEAT2D software under the standard (simplified) method and a more detailed approach. The outputs revealed that replacing the window frame with an adiabatic surface during the modeling process (as per standard) underestimates the risks of mould growth or surface condensation (as per PartL1A 2010), especially if the window has a high U-value.

Fullerene derivatives are commonly used as electron acceptors in combination with (macro)molecular electron donors in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices. Understanding the BHJ structure at different electron donor/acceptor ratios is critical to the continued improvement and development of OPVs. The high neutron scattering length densities (SLDs) of the fullerenes provide effective contrast for probing the distribution of the fullerene within the blend in a nondestructive way. However, recent neutron scattering studies on BHJ films have reported a wide range of SLDs ((3.6-4.4) × 10(-6) Å(-2)) for the fullerenes 60-PCBM and 70-PCBM, leading to differing interpretations of their distribution in thin films. In this article, we describe an approach for determining more precisely the scattering length densities of the fullerenes within a polymer matrix in order to accurately quantify their distribution within the active layers of OPV devices by neutron scattering techniques.