UC San Diego Scientists Bringing New Science on Geoengineering, Atmospheric Rivers, Plummeting Oxygen in the Oceans to COP24
New results, policy analysis offered by leading-edge researchers in Katowice, Poland
More than 20 researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) at UC San Diego are attending the COP24 climate talks in Katowice, Poland. The team is part of UC Revelle, the observer organization representing the University of California.
The following is a list of scheduled press conferences and speaking engagements that the UC San Diego team will be presenting:
Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018
UC Revelle Press Conference
Blue Carbon' or 'Marine Ecosystem Regeneration': Ecosystem Service Conservation versus Technological Intervention
Speakers: Matthew Costa and Jack Pan, PhD students at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego
Date/Time: Dec. 4, 9:30 - 10:00 a.m.
Location: Press Conference Room Katowice, Area F - Theatre
Description: It is inevitable that carbon sequestration is necessary in order to control the rising global temperature well below 1.5°C, above pre-industrial levels. The ocean offers great potential to address this problem, and researchers and decision-makers have begun developing marine carbon drawdown strategies. Open ocean geoengineering and coastal blue carbon sequestration are the two branches of research to date on increasing ocean carbon storage. However, they are often considered in isolation or even in opposition, because they represent distinct mindsets on environmental sustainability. Rather, they are two aspects of a common problem. It is necessary to integrate nearshore and open ocean solutions in order to achieve “negative emissions.”
Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018
UC Revelle Press Conference
“Meandering Rivers in the Sky, Modulating Drought & Floods”
Speakers: Tashiana Osborne, Meredith Fish, and Kara Voss, PhD students at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego
Date/Time: Dec. 5, 10:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Location: Press Conference Room Katowice, Area F - Theatre
Description: Atmospheric rivers can be thought of as “rivers in the sky”—long, narrow high-moisture ribbons traveling in the lower atmosphere over oceans and land. They impact various regions of the world. When atmospheric rivers reach land, their moisture can interact with terrain, resulting in rain and snow events. There are both benefits and hazards associated with atmospheric rivers. While atmospheric rivers provide essential water for drought relief (providing up to 60% of precipitation in some areas), they can also wreak havoc (can contribute to flooding, high winds, heavy snowfall). Here, we share new and emerging atmospheric river research, emphasizing implications for safety and water resources, and the power this work has to help inform responsible policy actions.
Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018
Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) hosting side event featuring Yassir Eddebbar, Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation (CCCIA) at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego
“The challenge of a changing Pacific Ocean: understanding impacts, observing networks and building capacity to inform policy”
Date/Time: Dec. 6, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Location: Pacific and Koronivia Pavilion
Friday, Dec. 7, 2018
UN Oceans Side Event: “Dialogue 3”
Date/Time: Dec. 7, 2:15 - 2:35 p.m. (14:14 - 14:35)
Location: Bug Side Event Room 6
Description: This dialogue will explore concrete and pragmatic ways that may be used to increase capacity to support resilience and sustainability through cooperation on oceans, including through NDCs. How can action on SDG14 be scaled up and scaled out through NDCs?
Speakers include Yassir Eddebbar of the Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation (CCCIA) at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, Manuel Barange, Director of the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy and Resources Division (FIA) and Vladimir Ryabinin, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and Assistant Director General of UNESCO
Monday, Dec. 10, 2018
UC Revelle Press Conference
“Advances in Understanding Ocean Deoxygenation”
Speakers: Lisa Levin and Yassir Eddebbar of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego
Date/Time: Dec. 10, 4:30 - 5:00 p.m. (16:30 – 17:00)
Location: Press Conference Room Katowice, Area F - Theatre
Description: Join us for a press conference on ocean deoxygenation. What is it? Where is it happening? Why does it matter? We will cover recent advances in understanding this phenomena, including how warming and nutrients are causing ocean oxygen loss, attribution of human caused warming vs natural variability, and ecological impacts.
Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018
UC Revelle Press Conference
“Global Observing Needs for the Deep Ocean”
Speakers: Lisa Levin, Distinguished Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, and Samantha Murray, Executive Director, Master’s Program in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego
Date/Time: Dec. 11, 3:30 - 4:00 p.m. (15:30 – 16:00)
Location: Press Conference Room Katowice, Area F - Theatre
Description: Growing reliance on the deep ocean for climate regulation, food, energy and soon minerals creates a new mandate for observation to inform management and conservation. Join us to learn about new advances in deep-ocean observing, a broadened community of observers, the resulting new discoveries and how they can inform international policy.
Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018
UC Revelle Press Conference
“Lessons learned from modelling trade-offs in greenhouse gas emissions, food security and land use for biodiversity in Mexico”
Speaker: Andres Prieto, Graduate Student, Master of Public Policy, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy
Date/Time: Dec. 12, 11:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Location: Press Conference Room Katowice, Area F - Theatre
Description: This press conference will highlight the apparent trade-offs for Mexico in greenhouse gas emissions, food security, and land use. The pathway used in this iteration of the model is based on current or soon to be implemented national policies on agriculture, afforestation/reforestation, diets. Researchers have found some early evidence that if Mexico wishes to simultaneously meet its land use, nutritional, and greenhouse gas targets, it may need to increase food imports. This highlights that for many developing economies, the physical and/or regulatory limits of available productive land may prove insufficient for growing food intake, and begs the question whether other countries can fill the food deficit without breaching their GHG targets.
Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018
UC Revelle Press Conference
“Insufficient mitigation efforts and the need for increased emphasis on research on solar geoengineering”
Speaker: Corey Gabriel, Executive Director, Master’s Program in Climate Science and Policy at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego
Date/Time: Dec. 13, 11:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Location: Press Conference Room Katowice, Area F - Theatre
Description: Solar radiation management (SRM) or geoengineering has been proposed as a method of reducing global mean temperature to help avoid some of the most severe consequences of ongoing climate change. Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), an intervention in which reflective particles are released into Earth’s stratosphere, has gained a large amount of attention in recent years for several reasons. These reasons include the high likelihood of SAI being effective in reducing global mean temperature, the potentially low direct cost of SAI, the possibility of SAI being effective in achieving relatively uniform global cooling and SAI’s technological feasibility relative to other proposed SRM methods. While no sanctioned outdoor SRM experiments have been conducted, indoor research, using numerical models, has been underway for more than a decade. Extremely small-scale outdoor experiments have been proposed, but not yet undertaken, to gain additional information about how exactly SAI could be performed. The absence of a global consensus that is supportive of effective and aggressive mitigation policy obviates the need to fund and support modeling research to better elucidate the feasibility, potential effectiveness, and, importantly, the potential negative side-effects of SRM, to help develop the necessary technologies and competencies to seriously consider SAI implementation should one be needed in the future. Here we will discuss the current state of scientific and policy research concerning SRM and how the decisions we make today about SRM research governance will ultimately impact future generation’s decisions about SRM.