JON CARTWRIGHT

The targets for climate change outlined in the Paris Accord are easier to achieve than commonly thought. That’s the claim of researchers in Canada, who have defined climate outlooks in a way that is both simple and easier to analyse.

The new definition relies on just two parameters – total energy use this century, and the carbon intensity of that energy – that can be mapped onto a phase-space diagram. By data-mining that phase space, the researchers found that current “business as usual” scenarios given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assume increasing carbon intensity, or so-called re-carbonization – contrary to recent trends.

“By thinking that we’re definitely heading in a direction of re-carbonization before we institute climate policies, it makes climate policy that aims for de-carbonization look overly difficult,” said Justin Ritchie of the University of British Columbia. “If we update our outlook for business-as-usual, the necessary climate policies to guide a low-carbon transition appear far more achievable than previously thought.” […]

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More old carbon is draining away from water systems in the Arctic than previously thought, according to scientists in the UK and the Netherlands.

The researchers – who measured for the first time the radiocarbon content of aquatic carbon dioxide and dissolved organic carbon in headwaters of the western Canadian Arctic – believe that carbon originating from before 1750 comprises up to 37% of total fluxes.

The results hint at the existence of a permafrost carbon feedback, in which old carbon released into the atmosphere causes the melting of more permafrost and so the release of more old carbon, although the researchers say this would need to be confirmed in future studies. […]

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The intensity of secondary cosmic rays reaching Earth is significantly correlated with mortality rates in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. That’s according to researchers in Brazil and the US.

Looking at data over the past 60 years, the team found that the mortality rates for all diseases they identified were slightly – yet significantly – greater during periods of diminished solar activity, when cosmic rays are more intense, and slightly lower during heightened solar activity, when cosmic rays are less intense.

The link was stronger than the researchers expected. “I believed we could find significant results but we got surprised,” said Carolina Vieira of the University of São Paulo. […]

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Researchers in the US have found that El Niños originating in the eastern tropical Pacific take longer to generate a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrationsthan those initiated in the central tropical Pacific.

The time lag before increasing carbon dioxide levels for El Niños originating in the eastern tropical Pacific is about 8.5 months, the researchers say, whereas the lag for El Niños starting in the central tropical Pacific is about 5.2 months. However, the sensitivity of carbon dioxide rise to tropical near-surface air temperatures is similar for each type of El Niño.

The results should enable scientists to better constrain the effects of El Niños in climate models. […]

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The poorest countries are likely to experience the most unfamiliar and problematic climates in a world of unbridled climate change, researchers in the UK and New Zealand have warned.

The scientists have invented a new approach to assess how easily countries can adapt to climate change, based on how many months of the year will bring temperatures that those countries have not experienced in recent memory. In their assessment, under an RCP8.5 warming scenario after 2050, richer countries will experience up to 4 months per year of unfamiliar temperatures, while poorer countries will experience up to 10 months per year.

The disparity is primarily due to the mid-latitude location of richer countries, which gives them distinct seasons and a greater range of annual temperatures, and so more experience on which to prepare for the future. […]

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Pollution in the form of aerosols heightens the risk of lightning strikes, say researchers in Israel, Mexico and the US.

The scientists came to the conclusion by correlating the amount of aerosols globally with the record of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, while excluding weather as a possible influence. Some 70% of the areas studied exhibited more lightning strikes from polluted skies rather than clean skies. […]

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