• Energy Research
• Closed Access close
• 13. Climate action close
• University of California System close

Water safety refers to the quality of one's drinking water and whether it lacks dangerous contaminants. Limited access to safe water is projected to impact approximately 5 billion people worldwide by 2050. Climate change and worsening severe weather events pose increasing threats to global water safety. However, people may not perceive links between climate change and water safety, potentially undermining their willingness to implement behaviors that improve water safety. Existing studies on water safety risk perceptions have mostly been conducted in single-country contexts, which limits researchers' ability to make cross-national comparisons. Here, we assessed the extent to which people's severe weather concern and climate change concern predict their water safety concern. Our analyses used survey data from the 142-country 2019 Lloyd's Register Foundation World Risk Poll, including 21 low-income and 34 lower-middle-income countries. In mixed-effects models, severe weather concern was significantly more predictive of water safety concern than was climate change concern, although both resulted in positive associations. Worldwide, this finding was robust, insensitive to key model specifications and countries' varying protection against unsafe drinking water. We suggest communicators and policymakers improve messaging about water safety and other environmental threats by explaining how they are impacted by worsening severe weather.

Abstract Carbon dioxide (CO2) injection into saline aquifers is one of the promising options to sequester large amounts of CO2 in geological formations. During as well as after injection of CO2 into an aquifer, CO2 migrates towards the top of the formation due to density differences between the formation brine and the injected CO2. The timescales of CO2 migration towards the top of an aquifer and the fraction of CO2 that is trapped as residual gas depends strongly on the driving forces acting on the injected CO2. When CO2 migrates to the top of an aquifer, brine may be displaced downwards in a counter-current flow setting particularly during the injection period. A majority of the published work on counter-current flow settings have reported significant reductions in the associated relative permeability functions as compared to co-current measurements. However, this phenomenon has not yet been considered in the simulation of CO2 storage into saline aquifers. In this paper we study the impact of changes in mobility for the two-phase brine/CO2 system as a result of transitions between co- and counter-current flow settings. We have included this effect in a simulator and studied the impact of the related mobility reduction on the saturation distribution and residual saturation of CO2 in aquifers over relevant time scales. We demonstrate that the reduction in relative permeability in the vertical direction changes the plume migration pattern and has an impact on the amount of gas that is trapped as a function of time. This is to our best knowledge the first attempt to integrate counter-current relative permeability into the simulation of injection and subsequent migration of CO2 in aquifers. The results and analysis presented in this paper are directly relevant to all ongoing activities related to the design of large-scale CO2 storage in saline aquifers.

AbstractThroughout much of the African continent, healthcare systems are already strained in their efforts to meet the needs of a growing population using limited resources. Climate change threatens to undermine many of the public health gains that have been made in this region in the last several decades via multiple mechanisms, including malnutrition secondary to drought‐induced food insecurity, mass human displacement from newly uninhabitable areas, exacerbation of environmentally sensitive chronic diseases, and enhanced viability of pathogenic microbes and their vectors. We reviewed the literature describing the various direct and indirect effects of climate change on diseases with cutaneous manifestations in Africa. We included non‐communicable diseases such as malignancies (non‐melanoma skin cancers), inflammatory dermatoses (i.e. photosensitive dermatoses, atopic dermatitis), and trauma (skin injury), as well as communicable diseases and neglected tropical diseases. Physicians should be aware of the ways in which climate change threatens human health in low‐ and middle‐income countries in general, and particularly in countries throughout Africa, the world's lowest‐income and second most populous continent.

The signs of climate change are undeniable, and the inevitable impact for Earth and all its inhabitants is a serious concern. Ice is melting, sea levels are rising, biodiversity is declining, precipitation has increased, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases are alarmingly high, and extreme weather conditions are becoming increasingly common. But what role do microorganisms have in this global challenge? In this Viewpoint article, several experts in the field discuss the microbial contributions to climate change and consider the effects of global warming, extreme weather, flooding and other consequences of climate change on microbial communities in the ocean and soil, on host-microbiota interactions and on the global burden of infectious diseases and ecosystem processes, and they explore open questions and research needs.

Water heating represented nearly 13% of 2010 residential energy consumption making it an important target for energy conservation efforts. The objective of this work is to identify spatially-resolved strategies for energy conservation, since little analysis has been done to identify how regional characteristics affect the energy consumed for water heating. We present a first-order thermodynamic analysis, utilizing ab initio calculations and regression methods, to quantify primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions with regional specificity by considering by considering local electricity mixes, heat rates, solar radiation profiles, heating degrees days, and water heating unit sales for 27 regions of the US. Results suggest that shifting from electric towards natural gas or solar water heating offered primary energy and CO2 emission reductions in most US regions, but these reductions varied considerably according to regional electricity mix and solar resources. We find that regions that would benefit most from technology transitions, are often least likely to switch due to limited economic incentives. Our results suggest that federal energy factor metrics, which ignore upstream losses in power generation, are insufficient in informing consumers about the energy performance of residential end use appliances.

Abstract Air monitoring was performed in the vicinity of the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) during the spring of 2003. The purpose of this monitoring was to determine the extent of airport emissions on downwind ambient air in a mixed use neighborhood that includes residences. A mobile air monitoring platform was developed and deployed to measure ultrafine particle numbers (UFP), size distributions, particle length, black carbon (BC), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and particle-phase polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PM-PAH). Pollutant levels were low at a coastal site upwind of the airport, with UFP ranging between 580 and 3800 counts cm−3, oxides of nitrogen (NOx) from 4 to 22 ppb, black carbon from 0.2 to 0.6 μg m−3, and PM-PAH ranged from 18 to 36 ng m−3. Markedly higher UFP counts, with average counts of approximately 50,000 cm−3, were observed at a site 500 m downwind of the airport, which was strongly influenced by aircraft landings and where the community interfaced with airport facilities. Black carbon, PM-PAH, and NOx levels were elevated to a lesser extent at downwind locations. Transient peaks in UFP corresponding to aircraft landings and takeoffs were evident. A maximum UFP count reached 4.8 million particles cm−3 downwind of a runway used by jet aircraft for takeoffs. Particle size distributions differed substantially between upwind and downwind locations. The particle numbers at the upwind site were dominated by particles of approximately 90 nm diameter while downwind sites were dominated by particles peaking at approximately 10–15 nm. Additional data obtained from a study of UFP levels conducted subsequently by a co-author indicates that aircraft-generated UFP persist up to 900 m from an LAX runway [Biswas, S., Fine, P.M., Geller, M.D., Hering, S.V., Sioutas, C., 2005. Performance evaluation of a recently developed water-based condensation particle counter. Aerosol Science and Technology 39, 419–427]. Considered together, these observations suggest that airport operations are associated with elevated levels of UFP much further downwind in the neighboring community than would have been predicted by prior studies of UFP from roadway-traffic.

Interventions to reduce household air pollution (HAP) are key to reducing associated morbidity and mortality in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs); especially among pregnant women and young children. This systematic review aims to determine the effectiveness of interventions aimed to reduce HAP exposure associated with domestic solid biomass fuel combustion, compared to usual cooking practices, for improving health outcomes in pregnant women and children under five in LMIC settings. A systematic review and meta-analysis was undertaken with searches undertaken in MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL, GIM, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Greenfile in August 2020. Inclusion criteria were experimental, non-experimental, or quasi-experimental studies investigating the impact of interventions to reduce HAP exposure and improve associated health outcomes among pregnant women or children under 5 years. Study selection, data extraction, and quality assessment using the Effective Public Health Practice Project tool were undertaken independently by two reviewers. Seventeen out of 7293 retrieved articles (seven pregnancy, nine child health outcome; 13 studies) met the inclusion criteria. These assessed improved cookstoves (ICS; n = 10 studies), ethanol stoves (n = 1 study), and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG; n = 2 studies) stoves interventions. Meta-analysis showed no significant effect of ICS interventions compared to traditional cooking for risk of preterm birth (n = 2 studies), small for gestational age (n = 2 studies), and incidence of acute respiratory infections (n = 6 studies). Although an observed increase in mean birthweight was observed, this was not statistically significant (n = 4). However, ICS interventions reduced the incidence of childhood burns (n = 3; observations = 41 723; Rate Ratio: 0.66 [95% CI: 0.45-0.96]; I2 : 46.7%) and risk of low birth weight (LBW; n = 4; observations = 3456; Odds Ratio: 0.73 [95% CI: 0.61-0.87]; I2 : 21.1%). Although few studies reported health outcomes, the data indicate that ICS interventions were associated with reduced risk of childhood burns and LBW. The data highlight the need for the development and implementation of robust, well-reported and monitored, community-driven intervention trials with longer-term participant follow-up.

We conducted shipboard microcosm experiments at both off-shore (SEATS) and near-shore (D001) stations in the northern South China Sea (NSCS) under three treatments, low temperature and low pCO2 (LTLC), high temperature and low pCO2 (HTLC), and high temperature and high pCO2 (HTHC). Biomass of phytoplankton at both stations were enhanced by HT. HTHC did not affect phytoplankton biomass at station D001 but decreased it at station SEATS. HT alone increased net primary productivity by 234% at station SEATS and by 67% at station D001 but the stimulating effect disappeared when HC was combined. HT also increased respiration rate by 236% at station SEATS and by 87% at station D001 whereas HTHC reduced it by 61% at station SEATS and did not affect it at station D001. Overall, our findings indicate that the positive effect of ocean warming on phytoplankton assemblages in NSCS could be damped or offset by ocean acidification.