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Abstract To track peaks in resource abundance, temperate-zone animals use predictive environmental cues to rear their offspring when conditions are most favourable. However, climate change threatens the reliability of such cues when an animal and its resource respond differently to a changing environment. This is especially problematic in alpine environments, where climate warming exceeds the Holarctic trend and may thus lead to rapid asynchrony between peaks in resource abundance and periods of increased resource requirements such as reproductive period of high-alpine specialists. We therefore investigated interannual variation and long-term trends in the breeding phenology of a high-alpine specialist, the white-winged snowfinch, Montifringilla nivalis, using a 20-year dataset from Switzerland. We found that two thirds of broods hatched during snowmelt. Hatching dates positively correlated with April and May precipitation, but changes in mean hatching dates did not coincide with earlier snowmelt in recent years. Our results offer a potential explanation for recently observed population declines already recognisable at lower elevations. We discuss non-adaptive phenotypic plasticity as potential causes for the asynchrony between changes in snowmelt and hatching dates of snowfinches, but the underlying causes are subject to further research.

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).

High-resolution information on climatic conditions is essential to many applications in environmental and ecological sciences. Here we present the CHELSA (Climatologies at high resolution for the earth’s land surface areas) data of downscaled temperature and precipitation to a high resolution of 30 arc sec. The temperature algorithm is based on statistical downscaling of atmospheric temperatures. The precipitation algorithm incorporates orographic predictors including wind fields, valley exposition, and boundary layer height, with a subsequent bias correction. CHELSA data published in EnviDat includes the deprecated version 1.2 (originally published under 10.5061/dryad.kd1d4). Please use the current 2.1 version. Paper Citation: - _Karger DN. et al. Climatologies at high resolution for the earth’s land surface areas, Scientific Data, 4, 170122 (2017) [doi: 10.1038/sdata.2017.122](https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.122)._

Project: High Resolution dynamically downscaled CMIP5 climate data over India - The datasets in this project are developed as a part of a project associated with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India, and the National Mission for Clean Ganga, Government of India. We have dynamically downscaled a coarser resolution CMIP5 GCM (CESMv1) climate data using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for the current (2006-2015) and future (2091-2100) RCP8.5 emission scenario to produce a 10km resolution dataset over India. This dataset is expected to be of massive value to fine-scale regional modelling based climate change adaptive and mitigative studies in fields of water resources, energy, agriculture, and forestry over India. This project is financially supported by the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India, through grant number TE-16015/02/2019/NMCG. Summary: The Bias Corrected CESMv1 data for mid-century (2041-2050) for RCP8.5 emission scenario at coarser resolution has been downscaled to 10km resolution over India using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The climate variables included are 2m Temperature (t2m), relative humidity (rh), wind speed (wspd), total precipitation (prec), mean surface shortwave flux (sw), top-of-atmosphere outgoing longwave radiation (lw), mean surface latent (lhf) and sensible (shf) heat fluxes along with the latitude, longitude, and time information. The dataset covers the Indian National Territory region at a 369 x 369 grid. The data is available at three temporal resolutions: Daily TS, Monthly TS, and Monthly Climatology. The dataset has been structured into a total of 30 files (10 variables x 3 temporal resolutions) packed in self-explanatory NetCDF format. The daily, monthly, and monthly climatology files contain 369x369x3650, 369x369x30, and 369x369x12 data points, respectively. The entire dataset is about 30 GB in size. The precipitation files in the older version contained hourly accumulated values for every day. This version contains the correct daily accumulated, monthly accumulated and monthly climatology precipitation data.

Dar, Arslan Salim, and Fernando Porté-Agel. "Wind turbine wakes on escarpments: A wind-tunnel study." Renewable Energy 181 (2022): 1258-1275.

Improving access to safe drinking water can result in multi-dimensional impacts on people's livelihood. This has been aptly reflected in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) as one of the major objectives. Despite the availability of diverse and complex set of technologies for water purification, pragmatic and cost-effective use of the same is impeding the use of available sources of water. Hence, in country like India simple low-energy technologies such as solar still are likely to succeed. Solar stills would suffice the basic minimum drinking water requirements of man. Solar stills use sunlight, to kill or inactivate many, if not all, of the pathogens found in water. This paper provides an integrated assessment of the suitability of domestic solar still as a viable safe water technology for India. Also an attempt has been made to critically assess the operational feasibility and costs incurred for using this technology in rural India.

The impacts of increasing natural climate disasters are threatening food security in the Asia-Pacific region. Rice is Asia’s most important staple food. Climate variability and change directly impact rice production, through changes in rainfall, temperature and CO2 concentrations. The key for sustainable rice crop is water management. Adaptation can occur through shifts of cropping to higher latitudes and can profit from river systems (via irrigation) so far not considered. New opportunities arise to produce more than one crop per year in cooler areas. Asian wheat production in 2005 represents about 43 % of the global total. Changes in agronomic practices, such as earlier plant dates and cultivar substitution will be required. Fisheries play a crucial role in providing food security with the contribution of fish to dietary animal protein being very high in the region – up to 90 % in small island developing states (SIDS). With the warming of the Pacific and Indian Oceans and increased acidification, marine ecosystems are presently under stress. Despite these trends, maintaining or enhancing food production from the sea is critical. However, future sustainability must be maintained whilst also securing biodiversity conservation. Improved fisheries management to address the existing non-climate threats remains paramount in the Indian and Pacific Oceans with sustainable management regimes being established. Climate-related impacts are expected to increase in magnitude over the coming decades, thus preliminary adaptation to climate change is valuable.

Abstract Globally, three-quarter of a billion people live without electricity. Besides, hundreds of million use a solar lantern for less than 4 h a day. Most of the access-deprived are in the Global South, predominantly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The United Nations framed the seventh Sustainable Development Goal to improve access. Solar photovoltaic powered mini-grids are increasingly extending better service to deprived regions. However, poor load-factor and expensive storage adversely affect viability. Also, these mini-grids do not support infrequent large loads to avoid further loss of load-factor. Electric cooking is efficient and non-polluting; water treatment facilities can save millions from contaminant and pathogen by providing clean water. Besides, both electric cooking and water treatment are less expensive than alternatives. But mini-grids frequently do not support these. Indeed, the presence of sustained productive loads favourably influences the mini-grid economy. This study investigates the role of critical household loads to deliver similar bearing on the mini-grid economy. Results underscore realisation of desirable impact with household collaboration under a demand-response program. Collaborative consumption can lower initial investment by 62% and reduce the unit energy cost to $0.23. Also, cooperation improves the mini-grid load factor and promotes viability. Additionally, fast deployment needs during and after Covid-19 remains inherently supported while mitigating the pandemic induced financial stress of both consumer and mini-grid operator. This study of 88 nation-states underscores that demand response in a mini-grid can not only improve affordability for all consumers, but it can also bring 186 million people within affordable access.

With the fast growth of the global economy, energy supply and demand have a strong impact on social, economic, and environmental aspects. As a consequence, this has pushed the decision-makers to formulate objectives, guiding economic policies toward sustainable goals. The process is known as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that have been proposed by the United Nations. This being said, the energy sector is a vital domain with a vast potential for improvments in terms of technologies and ligistalations. Solar energy is among the most efficient solutions proposed to reduce the economic and environmental footprints of energy. In this frame, the current paper aims to localize solar energy within SDGs and analyze the contribution of the solar energy towards the achievement of the SDGs. Moreover, the current work highlights the contributions of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (MBR) Solar Park in the United Arab Emirates to achieving the SDGs. Indeed, the MBR Solar Park concept offers valuable insights of environmental impacts by deploying clean and affordable energy sources in place of conventional fossil fuel power plants that are still heavily used in the region. The MBR Solar Park operation has already mitigated 6.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent and this number will likely rise when all phases are installed and operational. Moreover, it has been shown that MBR Solar Park achieve several SDGs such SDG 8: decent work and economic growth, SDG 9: industry, innovation and infrastructure, SDG 11: sustainable cities and communities, and SDG 15: life on land.