An in-depth view of climate change:addressing climate change while making a transition on the development mode

While fossil fuels greatly contribute to human society,they pose great challenges to natural resources,the environment,and climate change.Developed countries,like the United States,formulated strategic measures to ensure their sustainable development and leading positions in the world.These measures include new green policies,development of shale gas,revitalization of nuclear power,energy independence,reindustrialization,and new low-carbon development based on a combination of Internet technology and renewable energy.Developing countries are also trying to introduce balanced strategies of poverty alleviation and sustainable development.Globally,industrial civilization is being transformed to ecological civilization and green,low-carbon development is a global trend.Addressing climate change provides new strategic factors to further this development.China should take substantial actions to realize sustainable development in a new road:China is in the critical stage of changing its development mode,so it is vital to choose an appropriate development path.This extensive development comes at the high price of consuming too much resources and scarring the environment.Mitigation and adaptation strategies for addressing climate change can help the transition of development.Based on the analysis of the development data of developed countries,the author introduces the concept of"two-type developed countries"with an understanding that not all developed countries must take the same development mode.He also holds the view that China should achieve modernization in a more energy-saving and more carbon-efficient manner compared with that of two-type developed countries.An analysis of"two competitions"that China is facing shows that changing the developing mode is urgent and China should grasp this opportunity in the next five to ten years,which is a key period for this transition.This paper discusses the low-carbon development goals and the three-step process.Low-carbon development does not necessarily restrict economic development.It,however,can expedite the transition of the development mode and this is a low-carbon and green development path.Transition of the development mode includes implementation of China’s green and low-carbon energy strategies,low-carbon society construction,development of agriculture and forestry,garbage sorting and utilization,innovation of urbanization,etc.Improvement of national infrastructure construction includes water safety,environment and climate monitoring system,intelligent energy web,basic database,etc.Addressing climate change can significantly improve the nation’s basic research level.In summary,it mitigates backward production capability,extensive development,and environmental damage while promoting technological advancement,scientific development,and ecological civilization.     

Structure and Content of the Discourse on Climate Change in the Blogosphere: The Big Picture

Based on the texts of 1.3 million blog posts and the structure of the links between the blogs in which these posts appeared, this study presents an analysis of the discourse on climate change in the English-language blogosphere. Our approach combines community detection with probabilistic topic modeling to show how topics related to climate change are discussed across various parts of the blogosphere. We find that there is one community of predominantly climate skeptical blogs but several accepter communities. The topic analysis reveals a series of issues that are characteristic of the climate change discourse in the blogosphere. Two topics, one related to climate change science and one related to climate change politics, are particularly important for characterizing the discourse. We also find that the distribution of topics over the communities cuts across the divide between skeptics and non-skeptics (accepters) and that there are differences in the patterns of interactions between the skeptics and different groups of accepters.     

SMART-SREC: A stochastic model of the New Jersey solar renewable energy certificate market

Markets for solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs) are gaining in prominence in many states, stimulating growth of the US solar industry. However, SREC market prices have been extremely volatile, causing high risk to participants and potentially less investment in solar power generation. Such concerns necessitate the development of realistic, flexible and tractable models of SREC prices that capture the behavior of participants given the rules that govern the market. We propose an original stochastic model called SMART-SREC to fill this role, building on established ideas from the carbon pricing literature, and including a feedback mechanism for generation response to prices. We calibrate the model to the New Jersey market and backtest it, analyzing parameter sensitivity and demonstrating its ability to reproduce historical dynamics. Finally, we run simulations to investigate the role and impact of regulatory parameters, thus providing insight into the crucial role played by market design.     

Models-as-usual for unusual risks? On the value of catastrophic climate change

We study the role of intertemporal preference representations in a model of economic growth, stock pollutant and endogenous risk of catastrophic collapse. We contrast two polar instances of risk-sensitive preferences: the traditional “discounted utility” model, which imposes a positive rate of pure time preference and risk neutrality with respect to intertemporal utility, and multiplicatively separable preferences, which display risk aversion in that dimension but no pure time preferences. We show that both representations of preferences can rationalize the same economy when there is no collapse risk associated with pollution. Once we introduce a collapse risk whose hazard rate depends on the pollution stock, multiplicatively separable preferences are associated with a much higher value of catastrophic risk reduction, and a more stringent policy response. A relatively high discount rate may thus be compatible with large emissions abatement in the face of a low probability large impact event, reflecting preferences for catastrophic risk reduction.     

Strength and tightness evaluation method for pipe flange connections considering thermal effects

The pipe flange connection is widely applied in chemical, power plants, petrochemical, offshore oil and gas industries, and its strength and tightness are significant for the safe operation. However, there are still no practical and applicable strength and tightness evaluation methods for pipe flange connections working in dramatically varying temperatures. This paper proposed an approach to evaluate the pipeline's strength and sealing performance considering thermal effects in actual operating conditions by combining the experimental measurement and thermostructural analysis. The critical thermodynamic parameters are identified through measured temperature data in operating conditions, and then these parameters are used in the thermostructural analysis to obtain the actual temperature and stress fields. Then, the strength and tightness in complex temperature cases can be evaluated accurately. The pipe flange connection of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) fueling station is analyzed to verify the presented method's effectiveness. This method applies to evaluating the pipeline's strength and tightness and can predict the pipeline's performances under extreme temperatures using the tested data within the measurement range and the corresponding thermostructural analysis. Furthermore, the work in this paper also provides a reference for the design and analysis of pipe flange connections working in complex temperature conditions.     

Influence of sewage culvert cover plate thickness on dynamic response and damage of the cover plate under gas explosion

In order to address the risk of combustible gas explosions in sewage culverts, a numerical model was established using ANSYS/LS-DYNA software. The model consisted of a culvert and a cover plate, and was used to study the effect of cover plate thickness (ranging from 0.08 m to 0.12 m) on the dynamic response and damage of the structure under explosive loads. The results indicated that, during the loading negative pressure stage, the equivalent stress peak value of the central monitoring unit of the cover plate first increased and then decreased with increasing cover plate thickness. Additionally, the maximum principal stress peak value first decreased and then increased, while the maximum shear stress peak value first increased and then decreased. During the loading positive pressure stage, the maximum principal strain peak value of the monitoring unit decreased overall with increasing cover plate thickness. However, the equivalent plastic strain peak value initially increased and then decreased gradually. The equivalent strain indicated that plastic damage occurred in the cover plate. Beyond a thickness of 0.11 m, increasing the cover thickness did not appear to enhance its resistance to plastic damage. The damage analysis revealed that as cover plate thickness increased, the peak displacement and velocity of the monitoring unit continued to decrease, while the overall stability and explosive resistance of the cover plate increased. Additionally, the number of damaged fragments decreased. However, once the cover plate thickness reached 0.11 m, the bonding performance of the reinforced concrete structure had been fully developed, increasing the thickness of the cover plate no longer had a significant impact on the explosive resistance of the cover plate.     

The integrated project AquaTerra of the EU sixth framework lays foundations for better understanding of river-sediment-soil-groundwater systems

The integrated project "AquaTerra" with the full title "integrated modeling of the river-sediment-soil-groundwater system; advanced tools for the management of catchment areas and river basins in the context of global change" is among the first environmental projects within the sixth Framework Program of the European Union. Commencing in June 2004, it brought together a multidisciplinary team of 45 partner organizations from 12 EU countries, Romania, Switzerland, Serbia and Montenegro. AquaTerra is an ambitious project with the primary objective of laying the foundations for a better understanding of the behavior of environmental pollutants and their fluxes in the soil-sediment-water system with respect to climate and land use changes. The project performs research as well as modeling on river-sediment-soil-groundwater systems through quantification of deposition, sorption and turnover rates and the development of numerical models to reveal fluxes and trends in soil and sediment functioning. Scales ranging from the laboratory to river basins are addressed with the potential to provide improved river basin management, enhanced soil and groundwater monitoring as well as the early identification and forecasting of impacts on water quantity and quality. Study areas are the catchments of the Ebro, Meuse, Elbe and Danube Rivers and the Brévilles Spring. Here we outline the general structure of the project and the activities conducted within eleven existing sub-projects of AquaTerra.     

Environmental risk perception, environmental concern and propensity to participate in organic farming programmes

This paper aims to identify the factors underlying farmers' propensity to participate in organic farming programmes in a Romanian rural region that confronts non-point source pollution. For this, we employ structural equation modelling with latent variables using a specific data set collected through an agri-environmental farm survey in 2001. The model includes one 'behavioural intention' latent variable ('propensity to participate in organic farming programmes') and five 'attitude' and 'socio-economic' latent variables ('socio-demographic characteristics', 'economic characteristics', 'agri-environmental information access', 'environmental risk perception' and 'general environmental concern'). The results indicate that, overall, the model has an adequate fit to the data. All loadings are statistically significant, supporting the theoretical basis for assignment of indicators for each latent variable. The significance tests for the structural model parameters show 'environmental risk perception' as the strongest determinant of farmers' propensity to participate in organic farming programmes.     

农业土地利用转变对土壤团聚体组成及碳、氮含量的影响

为探究农业土地利用转变对土壤团聚体组成、稳定性及有机碳（SOC）、全氮（TN）含量变化的影响,选取玉米地、玉米地转变为姜地、稻田和稻田转变为姜地4种农业土地利用类型为研究对象,对土壤水稳性团聚体的组成、稳定性及SOC、TN含量进行测定与分析.结果表明： ①玉米地转变为姜地后,>0.25 mm粒级的大团聚体减少21.48%（p<0.01）,>0.25 mm稳定性团聚体的含量（DR_0.25）显著降低53.39%;稻田转变为姜地后,大团聚体差异不显著,<0.053 mm粒级的粉黏团聚体增加8.93%（p<0.01）;冗余分析和相关分析表明,土壤含水量是团聚体组成和 稳定性的重要影响因素;②玉米地转变为姜地后,0.25~1 mm粒级团聚体中SOC、TN含量分别减少52.68%、50.98%,粉黏团聚体（<0.053 mm）中SOC和TN含量增加约2倍（p<0.01）;稻田转变为姜地后,>0.25 mm的大团聚体和0.053~0.25 mm的微团聚体中的SOC、TN含量均减少（p<0.05）,其中,大团聚体碳氮比与团聚体组成和稳定性存在相关关系（p<0.05）;③所有处理均为大团聚体SOC、TN贡献率最高,转变后的姜地较玉米地、稻田的土壤粉黏团聚体的SOC、TN贡献率显著增加,尤其是较玉米地的粉黏团聚体SOC、TN贡献率增加3倍（p<0.01）;④平均质量 直径（MWD）和几何平均直径（GMD）与大团聚体的SOC、TN含量呈显著正相关（p<0.05）,分形维数（D）与MWD及1~2 mm粒级大团聚体的SOC、TN含量呈显著负相关（p<0.01）,DR_0.25与大团聚体的SOC、TN含量呈显著正相关（p<0.01）.总体上,玉米地和稻田两种用地转变为姜地后,土壤团聚体的组成发生较大变化,团聚体稳定性变化虽不显著,但大团聚体中SOC、TN含量降低,粉黏团聚体中SOC、TN含量增加.本研究的开展对农田科学管理和可持续生产具有重要的指导意义.     

基于InVEST-PLUS模型的碳储量空间关联性及预测——以广东省为例

构建土地利用碳储量数据库,基于InVEST模型Carbon模块,得到广东省1990~2020年碳储量时空分布情况.用Moran’s I指数和Getis-Ord Gi^*分析格网尺度下碳储量时空分布特征,用Anselin Local Moran’s I得到LISA集聚图.然后运用PLUS模型和14个土地利用驱动因子预测2050年土地利用及其碳储量分布.结果表明,土地利用变化直接影响区域碳储量高低,林地、草地等具有生态服务功能地类碳密度最高,分别是188.44,329.34Mg/hm².碳储量空间格局整体呈现出中部低、北部高、东西中等的特点.碳储量空间分布特征与土地利用特征一致,碳储量显著高值集聚区域分布在建设用地少、生态用地多且连片的粤北地区,显著低值区域分布在国土开发强度和生态用地破碎化程度高的珠三角地带.在自然发展情景下,到2050年广东省土地利用碳储量将减少4327.21万Mg,随着国土空间进一步开发,环珠江口沿岸城市碳储量持续下降.增加植被生态系统碳储量,是实现碳中和的重要手段之一.要继续维持粤北山区生态保护屏障的重要地位,减缓珠三角城市土地开发强度,提高建设用地集约节约能力,形成平衡协调的土地利用和碳储量格局.