Related papers: The largest elephant in the room: aerosol masking
Climate change is the long-term shift in global weather patterns, largely caused by anthropogenic activity of greenhouse gas emissions. Global climate temperatures have unmistakably risen and naturally occurring climate variability alone…
We first recall fundamentals of elementary climate physics: solar constant, radiative balance, greenhouse effect, astronomical parameters of the climate (theory of Milankovitch). Without disputing the analyzes of climatologists and the…
Along with the accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the loss of primary forests and other natural ecosystems is a major disruption of the Earth system causing global concern. Quantifying planetary warming from carbon emissions,…
Climate policy has become increasingly politicized in many countries including the US, with some political parties unwilling to pursue strong measures. Therefore, to be successful in mitigation, climate policies must be politically…
Global warming arises from 'temperature forcing', a net imbalance between energy fluxes entering and leaving the climate system and arising within it. Humanity introduces temperature forcing through greenhouse gas emissions, agriculture,…
Global warming due to human-made gases, mainly CO2, is already 0.8{\deg}C and deleterious climate impacts are growing worldwide. More warming is 'in the pipeline' because Earth is out of energy balance, with absorbed solar energy exceeding…
There are many indications that anthropogenic global warming poses a serious threat to our civilization and its ecological support systems. Ideally this problem will be overcome by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Various space-based…
Many aspects of solar energy and policies to tackle the energy transition have been neglected. Even though the earth is plenty of sun energy, our planet is not plenty of resources to transform that energy into electricity. This is a case…
The South and East Asian summer monsoons are globally significant meteorological features, creating a strongly seasonal pattern of precipitation. The stability of the monsoon is of extreme importance for a vast range of ecosystems and for…
Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI) is accelerating, partly due to declining planetary albedo from reduced cloud cover. Boreal afforestation can either mitigate or exacerbate this trend through competing biophysical feedbacks. While snow masking…
Improving observations of ocean heat content show that Earth is absorbing more energy from the sun than it is radiating to space as heat, even during the recent solar minimum. The inferred planetary energy imbalance, 0.59 \pm 0.15 W/m2…
Understanding the role of human behavior in shaping environmental outcomes is crucial for addressing global challenges such as climate change. Environmental systems are influenced not only by natural factors like temperature, but also by…
Extinction is the elephant in the room that almost everyone tries to avoid when analyzing optical/IR data: astronomers tend to find a quick fix for it that the referee will accept, but that does not mean such a solution is correct or even…
Responses to the global climate crisis often focus on the largest current emitters of greenhouse gases. However, analysis shows that about a third of emissions come from a collection of small emitters, each contributing one- to two-percent…
To halt further climate change, computing, along with the rest of society, must reduce, and eventually eliminate, its carbon emissions. Recently, many researchers have focused on estimating and optimizing computing's \emph{embodied carbon},…
Conventional economic analysis of stringent climate change mitigation policy generally concludes various levels of economic slowdown as a result of substantial spending on low carbon technology. Equilibrium economics however could not…
The global climate crisis poses new risks to humanity, and with them, new challenges to the practices of professional astronomy. Avoiding the more catastrophic consequences of global warming by more than 1.5 degrees requires an immediate…
Climate change, which is now considered one of the biggest threats to humanity, is also the reason behind various other environmental concerns. Continued negligence might lead us to an irreparably damaged environment. After the partial…
Vital parts of the climate system, such as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, are at risk even within the aspired aims of the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 -- 2{\deg}C. These so-called natural tipping elements are…
Great socio-economic transitions see the demise of certain industries and the rise of others. The losers of the transition tend to deploy a variety of tactics to obstruct change. We develop a political-economy model of interest group…