Climate Change Working Group

CLICK HERE - The Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP)

submitted by Albert Gomez

e360.yale.edu - July 15, 2014

Thirty scientific institutions from 15 countries last week released a report for the United Nations outlining how the world’s major carbon dioxide-emitting nations can slash those emissions by mid-century. Called the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project, the initiative aims to provide government leaders with a plan of action in advance of a UN climate summit in September and climate negotiations in Paris in late 2015. Yale Environment 360 asked Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute and a key player in the decarbonization project, five questions about the initiative and the prospects for global action on the climate front.

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Image: The Keeling Curve

economist.com - May 11th, 2013

Charles D. Keeling, mostly known as Dave, was a soft-spoken, somewhat courtly man who changed the way people and governments see the world. A slightly aimless chemistry graduate with an interest in projects that took him out into the wild, in 1956 he started to build instruments that could measure the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a scientific topic which, back then, was barely even a backwater. In 1958, looking for a place where the level of carbon dioxide would not be too severely influenced by local plants or industry, he installed some instruments high up on Mauna Loa, a Hawaiian volcano.

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environmentalleader.com - by Ailsa Burns - June 12, 2014

Greenhouse gases (GHG) can be measured by recording emissions at source by estimating the amount emitted using active data and applying relevant conversion factors. . . With recent changes to how the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) calculate CO2 emissions, the potential exists for companies in the UK to experience significant shifts in both individual emission factors and overall Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. These changes have been published as part of DEFRA’s greenhouse gas conversion factors for company reporting: methodology paper for emission factors which reviewed the format and content of GHG conversion factors.

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Meltwater channels run along the ice in Greenland. Soot, dust and microbes that live in the ice all contribute to its darkening.  Credit: Henry Patton/Flickr

climatecentral.org - by Brian Kahn - June 8, 2014

Despite it’s name, Greenland is predominantly white, as snow and ice cover the majority of the country. New research indicates that Greenland’s main color may be starting to fade and in fact darken, though, thanks to a widespread increase of dust across the ice sheets. That darkening could speed up surface melt, and with it, sea level rise around the globe.

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RESEARCH - Contribution of light-absorbing impurities in snow to Greenland’s darkening since 2009