Related papers: Should we geoengineer larger ice caps?
Climate modification measures to counteract global warming receive some more new attentions in these years. Most current researches only discuss the impact of these measures to climate, but how to design such a climate regulator is still…
The presence of giant planets influences potentially habitable worlds in numerous ways. Massive celestial neighbors can facilitate the formation of planetary cores and modify the influx of asteroids and comets towards Earth-analogs later…
One of the big problems of the age concerns 'Global Warming', and whether it is 'man-made' or 'natural'. Most climatologists believe that it is very likely to be the former but some scientists (mostly non-climatologists) subscribe to the…
Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) of the climate and economy aim to analyze the impact and efficacy of policies that aim to control climate change, such as carbon taxes and subsidies. A major characteristic of IAMs is that their…
Carbon dioxide ice clouds are thought to play an important role for cold terrestrial planets with thick CO2 dominated atmospheres. Various previous studies showed that a scattering greenhouse effect by carbon dioxide ice clouds could result…
This white paper recognizes gaps in observations that will, when addressed, much improve solar radiation hazard and geomagnetic storm forecasting. Radiation forecasting depends on observations of the entire "Solar Radiation Hemisphere" that…
Obtaining reliable answers to the major scientific questions raised by climate change in time to take appropriate action gives added urgency to the open access program.
The study of planets outside our solar system may lead to major advances in our understanding of the Earth, and provide insight into the universal set of rules by which planets form and evolve. To achieve these goals requires applying…
We need enough new carbon sinks to 1) cancel out any continuing use of fossil fuels, 2) overcome the delayed effect of earlier excesses, and then 3) lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations to the old maximum value of 280 ppm. We need to sink…
The world is changing fast, and so is the space sector. Planning for large scientific experiments two decades ahead may no longer be the most sensible approach. I develop the argument that large science experiments are becoming comparable…
Conventionally, a habitable planet is one that can support liquid water on its surface. Habitability depends on temperature, which is set by insolation and the greenhouse effect, due mainly to CO2 and water vapor. The CO2 level is increased…
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports indicate that the global mean temperature is about one-degree Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, that this increase is anthropogenic, and that there is a causal relationship…
Climate change is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century, and many in the robotics community are looking for ways to contribute. This paper presents a roadmap for climate-relevant robotics research, identifying high-impact…
We consider global catastrophic risks due to cosmic explosions (supernovae, magnetars and gamma-ray bursts) and possible mitigation strategies by humans and other hypothetical intelligent beings. While by their very nature these events are…
A transition to a fully global renewable energy infrastructure is potentially possible in no more than a few decades, even using current wind/solar technologies. We demonstrate that at its completion this transition would terminate…
We review how machine learning has transformed our ability to model the Earth system, and how we expect recent breakthroughs to benefit end-users in Switzerland in the near future. Drawing from our review, we identify three recommendations.…
Society needs to prepare for more severe space weather than it has experienced in the modern technological era. To enable that, we must both quantify extreme-event characteristics and analyze impacts of lesser events that are frequent yet…
Data-driven machine learning models for weather forecasting have made transformational progress in the last 1-2 years, with state-of-the-art ones now outperforming the best physics-based models for a wide range of skill scores. Given the…
Global temperature is a fundamental climate metric highly correlated with sea level, which implies that keeping shorelines near their present location requires keeping global temperature within or close to its preindustrial Holocene range.…
Geoengineering may offer a way to pause global warming, providing the time for more permanent solutions to become effective. Erection of a high-altitude hose offers an affordable and near-term approach to deliver sulfur-bearing fluids to…