Good news? According to paleo research median CO2 climate sensitivity could be 0.7 degrees lower

climate sensitivity temperature CO2The most-quoted climate sensitivity range (IPCC 4AR) suggests a median temperature response to a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration of 3 degrees Celsius – and a 66 percent probability range warming under CO2-doubling will be somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees.

New paleoclimatic research focusing on reconstructed temperature-CO2 relations during the Last Glacial Maximum leads to climate model runs indicating an about 23 percent lower climate sensitivity, with a median sensitivity value of 2.3 degrees Celsius (and a 66 percent range of 1.7-2.6 degrees – so an especially smaller maximum response).

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World food demand could double by 2050 – if so agricultural intensification could save 2 billion tonnes of CO2 per year

A new projection by the University of Minnesota and the University of California Santa Barbara shows global food demand could rise by 100-110 percent between 2005 and 2050, which would pose a grave threat to remaining tropical rainforests and would lead to again further increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Rising food demand Amazon deforestation
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Sustainable energy possibilities rarely find their way to consumers

Green houseTest projects in which governments and companies demonstrate sustainable energy and material inventions are not adopted by the market and other companies.

Research by the VU University of Amsterdam shows many such inventions are done, but the amount that ends up being used is practically negligible.

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Invasive species and pollinator decline, compensating crises?

Here on Bitsofscience.org we try to keep things simple. CCD is bad. Invasive species are bad. But sometimes complex reality forces you to consider more pragmatic views. Or at least that’s what two Princeton researchers would argue.

invasive vs endemic pollinators
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BioScapes: the beauty of nature

Blue-green algaeSometimes a picture says it all, but occasionally a picture just fascinates you even though you’re not quite sure what you’re looking at.

The pictures from the Olympus BioScapes Competition fall into the latter category and we just couldn’t withhold a few of them from you.

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Natural nitrogen production: 1.5 per cent less global energy consumption

NitrogenaseThe introduction of nitrogen containing fertiliser in the 1860s has drastically improved crop yields. This not only increased the quantity of food that can be produced, but carbon uptake as well.

But due to the high pressure and temperature requirements, nitrogen production is also good for about 1.5 per cent of the world’s energy consumption. But now after a decade-long search researchers have finally made a breakthrough in understanding how nature does it without the high energy needs.

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Amphibians in more trouble than previously thought

Toad on beachClimate change, land-use change and the fungal disease chytridiomycosis.

Those are the main causes why more than 30 per cent of all amphibian species have appeared on the Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

With so many threatened species in their ranks, amphibians are much further along the way to extinction than any other animal group. And to make matters worse, a new study in Nature now shows that areas with the highest amphibian diversity are actually most likely to suffer from one of the three major threats.

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