Skeptical Science New Research for Week #11 2024

How do childcare centers cope with heat? – Findings of a mixed-method approach from three German cities, Otto & Thieken, Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2024.100597

Temperature impacts on dengue incidence are nonlinear and mediated by climatic and socioeconomic factors: A meta-analysis, Kirk et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000152

Other

Peatland restoration in Norway – evaluation of ongoing monitoring and identification of plant indicators of restoration success, Kyrkjeeide et al., Nordic Journal of Botany Open Access pdf 10.1111/njb.03988

Some feminist strands and their potential for the performativity of climate regulations: a review, Kyriacou, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 10.1016/j.cosust.2024.101434

Trends of lightning flash density over India during different seasons, Prasanna et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.8400

Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

A Glimpse into the Future: The 2023 Ocean Temperature and Sea Ice Extremes in the Context of Longer-Term Climate Change, Kuhlbrodt et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access pdf 10.1175/bams-d-23-0209.1

Bridging gaps in permafrost-shrub understanding, Wilcox et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000360

Build networked resilience across cities, Bai, Science 10.1126/science.ado5304

Feeding the future world, Williams, Current Biology Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.cub.2009.10.045

Key components of sustainable climate-smart ocean planning, Frazão Santos et al., npj Ocean Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44183-024-00045-x

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Clean Clicks or Dirty Chips?, Gary Cook, StandEarth

The authors examine the U.S. wave of factory expansion by the world’s four largest semiconductor manufacturers. They found that despite public commitments to 100% renewable energy across the IT sector and subsidies from federal and state governments, the rapid facility expansion underway is poised to fuel an unprecedented new demand for dirty energy in states where these factories are currently under construction. Intel, TSMC, Samsung, and Micron rely heavily on unbundled renewable energy certificates (RECs) that do little to increase the supply of renewable electricity. Rather than following the approach used by Apple and Google to add renewable energy supply to power their fast-growing data centers, Intel and other semiconductor giants are using RECs to greenwash the massive carbon footprint of their semiconductor factories.

Climate Change in the Irish Mind, Wave 2 Report 1, O’Mahony et al., Environmental Protection Agency

95% of the Irish people think climate change is happening. By contrast, our latest national survey in the U.S. found that 72% of Americans think global warming is happening. (Note: The term “climate change” was used in Ireland, while “global warming” was used in the U.S.) 80% of the Irish public says that “most scientists think climate change is happening.” By contrast, 53% of Americans say the same. 81% of the Irish public is worried about climate change. In the U.S., 65% of Americans are worried. 78% of the Irish public says they discuss climate change occasionally or often with their families and friends. In the U.S., only 35% of Americans do. 74% of the Irish public says they hear about climate change in the media “at least once a week.” By contrast, in the U.S., only 28% do. 79% of the Irish public says climate change should be a very high or high priority for the national government. In the U.S., 56% of registered voters say the same.

The AI Threats to Climate Change, Climate Action Against Disinformation, Check My Adds, Friends of the Earth, Global Action Plan, Greenpeace, and Kairos

Silicon Valley and Wall Street love to hype artificial intelligence (AI). The more it’s used, they say, the more diseases we’ll cure, the fewer errors we’ll make—and the lower emissions will go. But there are two significant and immediate dangers posed by AI that are much less discussed: 1) the vast increase in energy and water consumption required by AI systems like ChatGPT; and 2) the threat of AI turbocharging disinformation—on a topic already rife with anti-science lies and funded by fossil fuel companies and their networks.

Beyond the Eye of the Storm. Mapping Out a Comprehensive Research Agenda for the National Security Implications of Climate Change, Bryan Frederick and Caitlin McCulloch, RAND

Climate change is on the verge of altering political, economic, and social systems in ways that could have far-reaching effects on U.S. security interests. There is growing awareness within the U.S. government that climate change could pose a serious national security threat. However, although the need to prepare for the physical effects of climate change on military operations and basing is well understood, how climate change might affect other aspects of international security has not been thoroughly studied. The authors argue that there is still an enormous amount to be learned about how climate change may affect U.S. national security. To help close this gap, the authors highlight specific areas that researchers should study further and illustrate how the impacts of climate change in these areas may affect both the Department of Defense as a whole and the Department of the Air Force specifically.

The unjust climate. Measuring the impacts of climate change on rural poor, women and youth, Sitko et al., Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

The authors show for the first time, concrete evidence from 24 countries on the magnitude of the challenge posed by the climate crisis for rural people in socially and economically vulnerable positions due to their wealth status, gender, and age. They demonstrate that extreme weather events and long-run climate change are disproportionately affecting the incomes of rural people living in poverty, women, and older populations. As a result, climate change is widening even further existing income gaps in rural areas, pushing vulnerable people towards maladaptive coping strategies and ultimately making it harder for these groups to escape cycles of poverty and hunger.

Seasonal Attribution Report. An analysis of how climate change boosted temperatures worldwide between December 2023 and February 2024, Climate Central

Carbon pollution drove abnormal warmth experienced by 59% of humanity between December 2023 and February 2024. Roughly 80% of Earth’s population, 6.7 billion people, were exposed to unusual warmth linked to climate change. More than half — 4.8 billion people, approximately 59% — experienced at least one day of temperatures that would be virtually impossible without the influence of carbon pollution. For 1.7 billion people worldwide, daily temperatures during this span — meteorological winter in the northern hemisphere — reached the maximum level 5 on Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index (CSI) at least 31 times. That equates to a month or more of abnormal warmth made at least five times more likely by the influence of climate change.

ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1- 2022: Energy Savings Analysis, Maddox et al., US. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Building Technologies Office

To meet legal requirements, the Department of Energy conducted a technical analysis to evaluate and quantify the expected energy savings associated with the American National Standards Institute; American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers; and the Illuminating Engineering Society’s Standard 90.1-2022 (Energy Standard for Sites and Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings). The authors document the methods, technical analysis, and findings supporting DOE’s determination on Standard 90.1-2022. The Standard includes a renewable energy requirement for the first time.

Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

The risks to U.S. national security interests are increasing as the physical effects of climate and environmental change intersect with geopolitical tension and vulnerabilities of some global systems. Climate-related disasters in low-income countries will deepen economic challenges, raise the risk of inter-communal conflict over scarce resources, and increase the need for humanitarian and financial assistance. Climate-related disasters and economic losses in low-income countries are poised to continue contributing to cross-border migration. Competition over access and economic resources in the Arctic, as sea ice recedes, increases the risk of miscalculation, particularly while there is military tension between Russia and the other seven countries with Arctic territory. El Nino weather patterns arc combining with :he effects of climate change and pre-existing vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure to worsen populations’ exposure to flooding, drought, heatwaves, and intense storms. El Nino-related events arc projected to reduce global economic growth, resulting in more than $3 trillion in lost GDP during the rest of the decade.

Climate change opinion and recent presidential elections, Burgess et al., Center for Social and Environmental Futures, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

The authors review patterns of climate change opinion and polarization and estimate the effect of climate change opinion on recent U.S. presidential elections. They found that climate change opinion has had a significant and growing effect on voting that favors the Democrats and is large enough to be pivotal to the outcomes of close elections. They project that climate change opinion probably cost Republicans the 2020 presidential election, all else being equal.

Savings in Action: Lessons Learned from a Vermont Community with Solar Plus Storage, Manogaran et al., National Renewable Energy Laboratory

The authors analyze field data from a deployment of solar-plus-storage (S+S) in a community of highly efficient homes in Vermont—the McKnight Lane community. The authors then use these data to quantify value streams of the existing S+S across stakeholders and use modeled results to show how additional value could be derived from these systems. The authors demonstrate how these value streams can be visualized and communicated across stakeholders using a novel scorecard.

Battery Energy Storage System Evaluation Method, Walker et al., US. Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program

The authors describe the development of an effort to assess Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) performance that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) and others can use to evaluate the performance of deployed BESS or solar photovoltaic (PV) +BESS systems. The proposed method is based on actual battery charge and discharge metered data to be collected from BESS systems provided by federal agencies participating in the FEMP’s performance assessment initiatives. Long-term (e.g., at least one year) time series (e.g., hourly) charge and discharge data are analyzed to provide approximate estimates of key performance indicators (KPIs).

The Lifecycle Emissions of Electric Vehicles, Corey Cantor and Nikolas Soulopoulos, Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Electric vehicles (EVs) have zero tailpipe emissions, yet the emissions associated with their manufacturing and use have raised questions regarding just how clean they really are. The answer: in all analyzed cases, EVs have lower lifecycle emissions than their internal combustion engine (ICE) counterparts. Just how much lower depends on how far they are driven, and the cleanliness of the grid where they charge. With zero-emission generation deployment rising globally, we expect that EVs will reach the breakeven emissions point with ICEs even earlier.

Obtaining articles without journal subscriptions

We know it’s frustrating that many articles we cite here are not free to read. One-off paid access fees are generally astronomically priced, suitable for such as “On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light”  but not as a gamble on unknowns. With a median world income of US$ 9,373, for most of us US$ 42 is significant money to wager on an article’s relevance and importance. 

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• The weekly New Research catch is checked against the Unpaywall database with accessible items being flagged. Especially for just-published articles this mechansim may fail. If you’re interested in an article title and it is not listed here as “open access,” be sure to check the link anyway. 

How is New Research assembled?

Most articles appearing here are found via  RSS feeds from journal publishers, filtered by search terms to produce raw output for assessment of relevance. 

Relevant articles are then queried against the Unpaywall database, to identify open access articles and expose useful metadata for articles appearing in the database. 

The objective of New Research isn’t to cast a tinge on scientific results, to color readers’ impressions. Hence candidate articles are assessed via two metrics only:

• Was an article deemed of sufficient merit by a team of journal editors and peer reviewers? The fact of journal RSS output assigns a “yes” to this automatically. 
• Is an article relevant to the topic of anthropogenic climate change? Due to filter overlap with other publication topics of inquiry, of a typical week’s 550 or so input articles about 1/4 of RSS output makes the cut.

A few journals offer public access to “preprint” versions of articles for which the review process is not yet complete. For some key journals this all the mention we’ll see in RSS feeds, so we include such items in New Research. These are flagged as “preprint.”

The section “Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives” includes some items that are not scientific research per se but fall instead into the category of “perspectives,” observations of implications of research findings, areas needing attention, etc.

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Journals covered

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