User-recommended papers allows you to suggest a paper you would like to see on Climate Change. When these papers appear on our site, users may comment and vote on them. To recommend a paper please use this form. Please note that you cannot recommend a paper you have authored. The editors will reject any self-recommendations. All comments and recommendation are checked by the editors and may be edited prior to publication on the site.

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    Anthropogenic change

    • Impact of Artificial Reservoir Water Impoundment on Global Sea Level

      • B. F. Chao, Y. H. Wu, Y. S. Li
        Original article citation: Science doi:10.1126/science.1154580 (2008)

      • Categories: Anthropogenic change and Ocean Sciences
      • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 03/27/2008 05:44PM GMT

        I wrote up this paper - the first detailed tally of water locked up behind dams during the 20th century, with some surprising implications for global sea level rise - as a Research Highlight in NRCC this week (http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0804/full/climate.2008.27.html). The lead author told me that the IPCC already was not quite able to account for observed sea level rise in terms of thermal expansion of warming surface water, ice melt, and other known sources of increasing ocean volume. Adding up these sources still left a slight gap in the budget. Now, with the finding that damming has prevented 3 cm of rise, the gap is even larger. Something must have made up for the water removed into reservoirs - but what? And on another note, what do you make of the way the sea level rise flattens to a constant rate for the last 80 years when the stored water is added back?
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  • 0 votes

    Atmospheric Sciences

    • Influence of the Gulf Stream on the troposphere

      • Shoshiro Minobe, Akira Kuwano-Yoshida, Nobumasa Komori, Shang-Ping Xie, Richard Justin Small
        Original article citation: Nature 452," 206 - 209, (2008).

      • Categories: Atmospheric Sciences and Regional Climate
      • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 03/13/2008 11:28AM GMT

        The Gulf Stream not only blows warm air across the surface of the Atlantic toward Europe, but reaches upward through the entire troposphere, according to the new data and modelling here (recapped on the Climate Feedback blog, http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2008/03/gulf_stream_revisited.html, and in an editorial summary, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7184/covers/). An interesting, though still speculative, implication is that atmospheric waves emanating from this tall column of wind and weather might link the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation with climatic effects throughout the Northern Hemisphere. What could this mean for feedbacks between climate change and ocean circulation?
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  • 0 votes

    Atmospheric Sciences

  • 1 vote

    Climate Impacts

    • On the causal link between carbon dioxide and air pollution mortality

      • Mark Z. Jacobson
        Original article citation: Geophys. Res. Lett. 35," (2008).

      • Categories: Climate Impacts and Chemistry
      • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 02/28/2008 04:00PM GMT

        Despite the manifold harm it does as a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is not considered a classic air pollutant because it doesn't affect human respiration directly. Noting that increasing levels of CO2 cause temperature and water vapor content to rise, Jacobson uses photochemistry to determine that these factors independently feed back to increase ground-level ozone concentrations. This can harm lung function and irritate the respiratory system. He calculates that this could cause 22,000 excess deaths worldwide each year.
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  • 0 votes

    Paleoclimate

    • Millennial- and orbital-scale changes in the East Asian monsoon over the past 224,000 years

      • Yongjin Wang, Hai Cheng, R. Lawrence Edwards, Xinggong Kong, Xiaohua Shao, Shitao Chen, Jiangyin Wu, Xiouyang Jiang, Xianfeng Wang, Zhisheng An
        Original article citation: Nature 451," 1090 - 1093, (2008).

      • Categories: Paleoclimate
      • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 02/28/2008 03:54PM GMT

        This week's Nature has a high-resolution, absolute-dated record of the strength of the East Asian monsoon, authored by Wang et al. The record, taken from cave deposits, stretches back for 224,000 years, and may serve as a benchmark for correlating other climate records. Jonathan Overpeck and Julia Cole look at this article in a News & Views piece for Nature, which we've reprinted here: http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0803/full/4511061a.html
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  • 0 votes

    Technology

    • Emissions from Photovoltaic Life Cycles

      • Vasilis M. Fthenakis, Hyung Chul Kim, Erik Alsema
        Original article citation: Environ. Sci. Technol. doi:10.1021/es071763q

      • Categories: Technology and Mitigation
      • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 02/22/2008 10:17AM GMT

        Manufacturing the latest solar cells produces far less greenhouse gases and other pollutants than conventional fossil fuels, finds this life-cycle assessment by Fthenakis et al. This means that "at least 89% of air emissions associated with electricity generation could be prevented if electricity from photovoltaics displaces electricity from the grid," they say.
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  • 0 votes

    Ocean Sciences

  • 0 votes

    Technology

    • High-Throughput Synthesis of Zeolitic Imidazolate Frameworks and Application to CO2 Capture

      • R. Banerjee, A. Phan, B. Wang, C. Knobler, H. Furukawa, M. O'Keeffe, O. M. Yaghi
        Original article citation: Science 319," 939 - 943, (2008).

      • Categories: Technology and Mitigation
      • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 02/18/2008 12:05PM GMT

        Banerjee et al. have created metal-organic 'micro-sponges' that can soak up carbon dioxide and might be useful in carbon capture and storage. The sponges are crystalline materials in which organic molecules hold together a framework of metal atoms. Twenty-five types of crystals that work for soaking up carbon were discovered in a screen of thousands of combinatorial possibilities, in a process analogous to drug design.
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  • 0 votes

    Ocean Sciences

  • 0 votes

    Climate Impacts

    • Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system

      • T. M. Lenton, H. Held, E. Kriegler, J. W. Hall, W. Lucht, S. Rahmstorf, H. J. Schellnhuber
        Original article citation: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences doi:10.1073/pnas.0705414105 (2008)

      • Categories: Climate Impacts, Policy, and Extreme Events
      • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 02/11/2008 01:33PM GMT

        Lenton et al. review the dangers posed by nine climate 'tipping elements' - large-scale components in the earth's climate system that may pass a tipping point where small perturbations lead to qualitative changes. They've tried to capture cutting-edge thinking by supplementing the published literature with expert opinions elicited at a recent meeting on tipping points.
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