Publications related to Scientific consensus on climate change

Climate Change Contributions to Increasing Compound Flooding Risk in New York City

Efforts to meaningfully quantify the changes in coastal compound surge- and rainfall -driven flooding hazard associated with tropical cyclones (TCs) and extratropical cyclones (ETCs) in a warming climate have increased in recent years. Despite substantial ...

Amer Meteorological Soc2024

On the importance of the humidity flux for the surface mass balance in the accumulation zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Sonja Wahl

It is highly uncertain how the humidity flux between the snow surface and the atmosphere contributes to the surface mass balance (SMB) of the interior Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). Due to sparse observations, evaluations of the simulated humidity flux are li ...

Copernicus Gesellschaft Mbh2024

Quantifying functional group compositions of household fuel-burning emissions

Satoshi Takahama, Amir Yazdani

Globally, billions of people burn fuels indoors for cooking and heating, which contributes to millions of chronic illnesses and premature deaths annually. Additionally, residential burning contributes significantly to black carbon emissions, which have the ...

Copernicus Gesellschaft Mbh2024

Characteristics and sources of fluorescent aerosols in the central Arctic Ocean

Julia Schmale, Benjamin Jérémy Laurent Heutte, Jakob Boyd Pernov, Nora Bergner, Ivo Fabio Beck, Oliver Müller, Hélène Paule Angot, Alireza Moallemi, Margarida Teles Nogueira Rolo, Markus Frey

The Arctic is sensitive to cloud radiative forcing. Due to the limited number of aerosols present throughout much of the year, cloud formation is susceptible to the presence of cloud condensation nuclei and ice nucleating particles (INPs). Primary biologic ...

2024

The microbial genomics of glacier-fed streams: adaptations to an extreme ecosystem

Massimo Bourquin

Glacier-fed streams are the cold, ultra-oligotrophic, and unstable streams that are fed by glacial meltwater. Despite these extreme conditions, they harbour a diverse and abundant microbial diversity that develops into biofilms, covering the boulders and s ...

EPFL2024

Wind, Hail, and Climate Extremes: Modelling and Attribution Studies for Environmental Data

Ophélia Mireille Anna Miralles

This thesis presents work at the junction of statistics and climate science. We first provide methodology for use by climate scientists when performing fast event attribution using extreme value theory, and then describe two interdisciplinary projects in c ...

EPFL2023

Influence of future climate scenarios on the sizing of Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) installations. Case study of a new research-center building in Switzerland

Sergi Aguacil Moreno

This paper analyzes the findings obtained when applying a multi-criteria performance-based method for sizing a BIPV installation considering different weather files, representing historical data (TMY; typical meteorological year) and prospective data (thre ...

2023

Homogeneous Environmental Selection Structures the Bacterial Communities of Benthic Biofilms in Proglacial Floodplain Streams

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Leïla Ezzat, Massimo Bourquin, Jade Brandani, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis

Streams draining proglacial floodplains harbor benthic biofilms comprised of diverse microbial communities. These high-mountain ecosystems are rapidly changing with climate warming, and it is therefore critical to better understand the mechanisms underlyin ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2023

Integration of Life Cycle Impact Assessment in Energy System Modelling

François Maréchal, Jonas Schnidrig, Manuele Domenico Margni, Justine Brun

The Paris agreement is the first-ever universally accepted and legally binding agreement on global climate change. It is a bridge between today’s and climate-neutrality policies and strategies before the end of the century. However, government and private ...

2023

Snow-Atmosphere Humidity Exchange at the Ice Sheet Surface Alters Annual Mean Climate Signals in Ice Core Records

Sonja Wahl

Surface processes alter the water stable isotope signal of the surface snow after deposition. However, it remains an open question to which extent surface post-depositional processes should be considered when inferring past climate information from ice cor ...

Amer Geophysical Union2023

Addressing chemical pollution in biodiversity research

Kristin Schirmer, Ahmed Tlili, Colette vom Berg

Climate change, biodiversity loss, and chemical pollution are planetary-scale emergencies requiring urgent mitigation actions. As these "triple crises" are deeply interlinked, they need to be tackled in an integrative manner. However, while climate change ...

WILEY2023

Economic valuation of temperature-related mortality attributed to urban heat islands in European cities

Gabriele Manoli

As the climate warms, increasing heat-related health risks are expected, and can be exacerbated by the urban heat island (UHI) effect. UHIs can also offer protection against cold weather, but a clear quantification of their impacts on human health across d ...

Nature Portfolio2023

Dynamic environmental flows using hydrodynamic-based solutions for sustainable hydropower

Giovanni De Cesare, Paolo Perona

Water diversions from rivers and torrents for anthropic uses of the resource alter the natural flow regime. As a measure, environmental flows have been prescribed and often are enforced by law to follow policies (e.g., minimal flow, proportional redistribu ...

CRC Press/Balkema2023

Near-bed stratification controls bottom hypoxia in ice-covered alpine lakes

Damien Bouffard, Camille Roland Marie Minaudo, Tomy Doda, Hugo Nicolás Ulloa Sánchez, Hannah Elisa Chmiel, Janine Rüegg, Nicolas Thomas Georges Escoffier, Pascal Perolo

In ice-covered lakes, near-bottom oxygen concentration decreases for most of the wintertime, sometimes down to the point that bottom waters become hypoxic. Studies insofar have reached divergent conclusions on whether climate change limits or reinforces th ...

American Society of Limnology and Oceanography2023

Iron Reduction in Profundal Sediments of Ultraoligotrophic Lake Tahoe under Oxygen-Limited Conditions

Meret Aeppli

Increased periods of bottom water anoxia in deep temperate lakes due to decreasing frequency and depth of water column mixing in a warming climate may result in the reductive dissolution of iron minerals and increased flux of nutrients from the sediment in ...

2023

Untangling the influence of Antarctic and Southern Ocean life on clouds

Julia Schmale, Hélène Paule Angot, Jenny Thomas, Markus Frey

Polar environments are among the fastest changing regions on the planet. It is a crucial time to make significant improvements in our understanding of how ocean and ice biogeochemical processes are linked with the atmosphere. This is especially true over A ...

2023

Spatiotemporal modelling of extreme wildfires and severe thunderstorm environments

Jonathan Koh Boon Han

Environmental extreme events can have devastating impacts on society when they interact with vulnerable human and natural systems. Such events can result from natural causes, like phenomena related to the El Ni~no-Southern Oscillation or decadal/multi-dec ...

EPFL2022

Arctic atmospheric mercury: Sources and changes

Hélène Paule Angot

Global anthropogenic and legacy mercury (Hg) emissions are the main sources of Arctic Hg contamination, primarily transported there via the atmosphere. This review summarizes the state of knowledge of the global anthropogenic sources of Hg emissions, and e ...

2022

Towards sustainability through housing functions: a systems perspective for the study of Swiss tenants' residential mobility

Anna Pagani

Problem. Housing is a major contributor to Switzerland's carbon footprint and energy consumption, but it is also a basic need. Research on climate change mitigation strategies has so far paid insufficient attention to households' preferences and their cont ...

EPFL2022

Pan-Arctic seasonal cycles and long-term trends of aerosol properties from 10 observatories

Julia Schmale, Jakob Boyd Pernov

Even though the Arctic is remote, aerosol properties observed there are strongly influenced by anthropogenic emissions from outside the Arctic. This is particularly true for the so-called Arctic haze season (January through April). In summer (June through ...

Copernicus Publications2022