International Association of Chinese Youth in Water Sciences

International Association of Chinese Youth in Water Sciences is pleased to announce that the selection of the CYWater 2023 Young Scientist Best Paper Award goes to the following paper led by Laibao Liu and other coauthors including Philippe Ciais, Mengxi Wu, Ryan S. Padrón, Pierre Friedlingstein, Jonas Schwaab, Lukas Gudmundsson, and Sonia I. Seneviratne:

Increasingly negative tropical water-interannual CO2 growth rate coupling published on Nature.

Ceremony at 2023 AGU meeting

The CYWater 2023 Young Scientist Best Paper Award Ceremony will be held during AGU meeting, USA.

Time: December 12, 17:30-18:00 (San Francisco).

Venue: MC-3002 West, After Session A24G.

Recorded Video

Power outage events due to climate extremes

In January of 2022, an extreme heatwave hit Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires, and then resulted in a power outage by causing a spike in electricity demand. More than 700,0000 persons are affected in this heatwave according to the National Electricity Regulatory Entity. Last summer in the Sichuan province of China, a power outage occurred as a result of an extreme drought limiting the hydropower supply and a heatwave simultaneously causing a surge in demand, more than 80 million people were affected over some time. Similar power outage events become increasingly frequent worldwide as a consequence of climate extremes. ETH Zurich researchers have found that droughts and land water variability have had an increasing effect on the carbon cycle in the tropics over the last sixty years. Most climate models fail to capture this observation. This could mean that terrestrial ecosystems could absorb less CO2 than expected in their role as carbon sinks in the future.

Interface between climate science and energy science

‘My first background is in climate science. You know, climate scientists are very familiar with weather and climate extremes. However, from recent power outage events due to climate extremes, I strongly sense that the interface between climate science and energy science attracts much less attention but is increasingly important for energy system security. Therefore, I decided to start a study about climate change impacts on energy systems’, said Laibao Liu, a postdoctoral research scientist at the Institute of Atmosphere and Climate Science, ETH Zurich.

Why do we focus on Wind and Solar?

The world is on the way to transitioning from fossil fuels to green and low-carbon energy. Wind and Solar are undergoing unprecedented growth and are anticipated to become dominant power sources in many energy systems. Because wind and solar energy production depends on weather and climate, unlike fossil fuel-dominated energy systems, future energy system operation will heavily depend on weather and climate.

“In fact, this is not my first project at the interface between climate science and energy science. I did some research focusing on China’s wind and solar energy, inspired by China’s carbon-neutrality goal. This is also part of the reason why we focus on wind and solar energy systems,” said Laibao Liu.

What do we find and why these findings are important?

Our new study published in Nature Energy simply shows that the climate change risk on global wind and solar energy system security, which results from supply-demand mismatch, would increase a lot in many regions of the world. We emphasize that climate change will impact supply and demand at the same time. Ignoring climate change impacts on either supply or demand will cause biases in assessing climate change risk on energy system security.

‘The most concerned climate change indicators are temperature for sure. Warming will cause more cooling demand and less heating demand. However, in the supply-demand mismatch of wind and solar energy systems, supply changes caused by wind stilling might prevail over demand changes caused by warming in many circumstances,’ said Laibao Liu.

This study provides a very important early warning signal for future energy systems such that the relevant stakeholders can be aware of this issue and make plans to avoid it. Spatially explicit information is provided, so local stakeholders can have a look for climate change adaptation.

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ETH Zurich News

Droughts increasingly reduce CO2 uptake in the tropics

ETH Zurich researchers have found that droughts and land water variability have had an increasing effect on the carbon cycle in the tropics over the last sixty years. Most climate models fail to capture this observation. This could mean that terrestrial ecosystems could absorb less CO2 than expected in their role as carbon sinks in the future.

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MONGABAY

Drought cycles erode tropics’ ability to absorb CO₂, study finds

A recent study finds that tropical carbon sinks have become increasingly vulnerable to water scarcity since 1960, and are consequently less able to absorb carbon dioxide.

These findings suggest that tropical ecosystems are less resilient to climate change than previously thought.

While the study doesn’t necessarily make projections for the future, the findings suggest that an acceleration of climate change, which is very likely to bring more drought, could further limit the ability of tropical ecosystems to absorb carbon dioxide, which, in turn, would worsen climate change.

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Salzburger Nachrichten

Rainforest absorbs less CO2 due to droughts

Denn Pflanzen stellen die CO2-Aufnahme ein, um Wasserverluste zu vermeiden, wenn es zu heiß und trocken wird. Zudem gibt es bei heiß-trockenen Bedingungen auch mehr Waldbrände, die zu CO2-Verlusten in der Biosphäre führen. Kommen solche Bedingungen also öfter vor, könnte der Wald laut den Forscherinnen und Forschern weniger klimaschädliches CO2 aufnehmen. Die Klimaerwärmung würde dadurch verstärkt.

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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 2022 Best Paper Award

The annual Best Paper Awards recognize high-quality, high-impact papers published in Resources, Conservation & Recycling (RCR) every year. The awards are selected based on scholarly merits by an Award Committee consisting of editors and members of the Editorial Board. Among the 612 papers we published in 2022, three research and three review papers were selected by the Award Committee to receive the 2022 Best Paper Award.

The selection of the Best Research Paper Awards is based on the following four criteria, and Best Research Paper Awards is based on the first three of them:

• Rigor: How rigorous and thorough is the work?
• Importance: How significant does the work advance the field?
• Presentation: How clear does the paper present the research?
• Novelty: How innovative is the research?

Potential Contributions of Wind and Solar Power to China’s Carbon Neutrality , by Dr. Laibao Liu and colleagues, is one of the three research papers.

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