Since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988, it has engaged a substantial proportion of those individuals with relevant scientific expertise in the process of forming reasonable judgments about the effects of aggregate human activity on the composition of the earth’s atmosphere and about the resulting implications for global climate. It is now widely agreed tha...

The Planck feedback parameter λ0 is the most fundamental quantity in the theory of global warming, because the surface temperature change ∆Ts,0 is calculated by— (radiative forcing due to CO2 doubling)/λ0 in the absence of feedbacks other than that of surface temperature change. The following three groups of Planck feedback parameters are found in the literature depending on the choice of tempe...

This paper estimates methane emissions from solid waste disposal sites in Panama for years 1990-2020 using both the 2006 IPCC Waste Model spreadsheet and the default emissions estimate approach presented in the 1996 IPCC Good Practice Guidelines. The IPCC Waste Model has the ability to calculate emissions from a variety of solid waste disposal site types, taking into account countryor region-sp...

The concept of climate sensitivity has more than a century of history. According to this concept, a change in the global near-surface air temperature of the Earth, T , due to external disturbance of the Earth’s energy balance, can be linearly related to a change in the net radiation at some level in the atmosphere, F. Thus,
T F, where is the climate sensitivity. By doubling the pre-industrial ...

The way the Alpine environment will evolve in the 21 st century depends upon climate change. This could lead to climates never before seen in the Alps, resulting in a major and lasting environmental crisis. In the face of these challenges, funding is still insufficient for specialised research on mountain environments. State funding often prioritises polar research at the expense of high altitu...

In September, 2007, the IPCC convened a workshop to discuss how a new set of scenarios to support climate model runs, mitigation analyses, and impact, adaptation and vulnerability research might be developed. The first phase of the suggested new approach is now approaching completion. This article discusses some of the issues raised by scenario relevant research and analysis since the last set ...

This article restates and extends our critique of the economic and statistical work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), including in particular the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). We respond to the article in the previous issue of Energy and Environment, in which 15 authors associated with the SRES argued against the case we had made there. We give reasons for...

Most emission metrics have previously been inconsistently estimated by including the climate– carbon feedback for the reference gas (i.e. CO2) but not the other species (e.g. CH4). In the fifth assessment report of the IPCC, a first attempt was made to consistently account for the climate–carbon feedback in emission metrics. This attempt was based on only one study, and therefore the IPCC concl...

BACKGROUND The fully differentiated progeny of ES cells (ESC) may eventually be used for cell replacement therapy (CRT). However, elements of the innate immune system may contribute to damage or destruction of these tissues when transplanted. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Herein, we assessed the hitherto ill-defined contribution of the early innate immune response in CRT after transplantatio...

H activities have caused dramatic and unprecedented changes in the global chemical and physical environment, including well-documented increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration and mean annual temperature (Karl and Knight 1998, New et al. 2001, IPCC 2007). If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at present rates, atmospheric CO2 concentrations will more than double pr...