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The steady loss of sea ice around the Arctic over the past few decades is expected to have a strong impact on the climate. Recent studies have linked the loss of ice to a cooling over mid-latitudes in the northern hemisphere – a counterintuitive result, since the lost ice should itself have had a reflective, cooling quality. Scientists think that an initial warming caused by the ice loss might have weakened the sub-polar jet stream, which would have eased the flow of cold Arctic air southwards. In any case, the message seems clear: there is a complex interaction between sea ice and the climate, which scientists need to understand. […]

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Cellulosic biofuels are a type of ethanol biofuel derived from lignocellulose, the basic structural material of plants. Compared with widely used biofuels, such as ethanol derived from corn or sugarcane, cellulosic biofuel has a much lower carbon footprint. This is largely down to the grassy crops used – miscanthus and switchgrass, which require little fertilizer to grow, and from which woody “lignin” can be extracted to convert into liquid fuel. […]

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An extreme climate event is one that falls outside normal climate variability. However, the precise definition depends on the time period covered. Over the short term, floods or storms can classify as extreme events. Longer-term events can include prolonged periods of high or low temperatures. Examples of these include the 2010 wildfires in Russia and the 2003 heatwave in southern and central Europe, which is estimated to have caused around 70,000 deaths. […]

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Fires are well known to impact the climate by releasing sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. As the climate warms, scientists expect the number of wildfires to grow – and, as a result, more carbon to be released. […]

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Stagnation tends to occur in areas where the temperature is fairly even, the atmosphere is stable and there is little rainfall. It is a serious issue for the climate because it allows ozone and particulate matter to accumulate near the Earth’s surface. […]

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Most scientists agree that the world is getting warmer due to anthropogenic carbon emissions. Some areas, such as the Arctic, appear to be warming faster than others. The phenomenon is temporal as well as geographical: in general, night-time temperatures have increased more than daytime temperatures. […]

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The use of ethanol as a transport fuel has increased in recent years. Some countries, including Brazil, are already using high blends – up to “E100″, or 100% ethanol. Meanwhile, the US is expected to take on E85 – 85% ethanol and 15% petrol – in up to one in 10 vehicles by 2035, entailing an annual ethanol combustion of 9.5 billion gallons. […]

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Scientists are concerned about discrepancies between model temperature predictions and actual measurements of the upper troposphere because they may affect the models’ sensitivity to increased carbon dioxide. Although the discrepancies do not necessarily suggest that estimates of surface global warming will be inaccurate, they may indicate inaccuracies in the predictions for atmospheric circulation. […]

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Deforestation is being tackled internationally by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), through the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) programme. REDD seeks to give financial incentives to developing countries to reduce deforestation and forest degradation – the latter is essentially the thinning out of forests during processes such as selective logging. Meanwhile REDD’s offshoot programme, REDD+, seeks to deliver other benefits, such as biodiversity conservation. […]

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The biosphere is one of the most critical influences on the climate, yet it is also one of the most poorly understood. Over very long periods, the biosphere neither sequesters nor releases carbon to the atmosphere, but on shorter timescales it can function as a net source, through plants’ absorption of carbon dioxide, or a sink – through the respiration and decomposition of plants, and the burning of wildfires. […]

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