BC3 Seminar: “Integrated Design and Analysis for Sustainable Energy Systems”
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainUN Sustainable Development Goals set 17 goals to transform our world which include ‘affordable and clean energy’ in No. 7 and ‘sustainable cities and communities’ in No. 11 to be achieved in 15 years. Paris agreement set by UNFCCC implies zero carbon emissions toward the year 2050.
Conventional energy system requires drastic and consistent changes based on an ideal design which satisfies multiple energy demands in future. The point of design inspires stakeholders to integrate physical, economic, and social dimensions to lead optimized energy configuration with less carbon emissions as well as reasonable costs. A practical approach of integrated design for sustainable energy systems is proposed to aid long term transition toward the Goals based on geographical/dynamic analysis. The approach has three dimensions, which are A) physical integration, B) spatial integration, and C) time transition. The point is illustrated based on our several case studies in Japan, in particular for earthquake area stricken by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Data driven innovation provides major impetus for designing sustainable energy systems in near future.
BC3 Seminar: “Carbon footprint of human settlements in Spain”
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainThe role of towns and their inhabitants in fighting climate change is becoming increasingly important (Shi et al., 2016). In this context, we propose to apply a multi-regional input-output model to study the evolution of the carbon footprint for Spanish households as determined by the different type of settlement. This study analyses the household carbon footprint as a function of the municipality’s population size, whether it is located in a rural or urban environment, and its relation to population density. By using a multi-regional model, we are able to calculate the share of that carbon footprint that is generated within the settlement and the share that is produced around the world along global value chains. This methodology has been widely applied to study carbon footprints for households in terms of different characteristics: income levels (R. Duarte, A. Mainar, & J. Sánchez-Chóliz, 2012), age (Shigetomi, Nansai, Kagawa, & Tohno, 2014), consumption of agriculture products (L.-A. López, Cadarso, Gómez, & Tobarra, 2015), or tourism consumption (Cadarso, Gómez, López, & Tobarra, 2016). The structure of household consumption as a function of the type of settlement will be used to analyse whether socio-economic features are the greatest influence in the level of carbon footprint, or by the contrary, structural, institutional or geographical factors of the settlement are more relevant. Previous literature has addressed this link in other countries, for instance Fan, Guo, Marinova, Wu, and Zhao (2012), J. Minx et al. (2013), Baiocchi, Creutzig, Minx, and Pichler (2015) or Ahmad, Baiocchi, and Creutzig (2015), but not for the Spanish case.
BC3 Seminar: “Tracking water use and carbon uptake in a global change scenario: bridging scales and approaches”
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainThe terrestrial biosphere has the ability to partially mitigate climate change as it can counterbalance anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, to a certain extent. However, this ability is in turn constraint by climate change. To predict future biosphere-climatic feedbacks we need a better understanding of the impact of climate change on the key underlying processes regulating the exchange of carbon, water and nutrients in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. In this talk, I will focus on the impacts of rising atmospheric CO2 concentration and increased aridity, due to climate change, on the exchange of water and carbon between the terrestrial vegetation and the soil and the atmosphere. I will give an overview of the results from two manipulative experiments where we assessed the effects of future atmospheric CO2 concentrations and changes in precipitation regimes at the whole ecosystem level. I will also introduce some novel approaches to track these fluxes using atmospheric trace gases and stable isotopes of carbon and water that we implemented applying the latest available spectroscopy techniques.
BC3 Seminar: “Un-Sustainable Intensification of Livestock Production”
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainLivestock production has increased twofold in the last 50 years, and this trend will continue in the near future. Intensification through the genetics, feeding and management improvements is behind this livestock boom. This intensification process has broken the link between animal feed production regions and livestock production areas worldwide. Moreover, most of this productive increase is driven by monogastric animals (pigs and poultry) who directly compete with humans for feed resources. Global consequences of this productive model in future must be discussed, considering food security, environmental impacts, climate change scenarios and social aspects.
Jornada “Planificación Espacial Marítima y Crecimiento Azul en el País Vasco”
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainBC3 Basque Centre for Climate Change, como institución que acoge el Equipo de Apoyo al Plan de Acción del Atlántico en España, organiza en colaboración con la Plataforma Europea de Planificación Espacial Marína una jornada sobre "Planificación Espacial Marítima y Crecimiento Azul".
BC3 Seminar: “Role of Antarctic and Arctic Ice in Climate Change”
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainLand based Antarctic and Greenland ice and Arctic sea ice cover a significant fraction of the Earth's surface, and its high albedo means that much of the solar energy reaching its surface is reflected back into the atmosphere. Ice sheet and sea ice dynamics are therefore a component of a climate change model which involves the interaction of ocean and atmosphere, of ocean and sea ice, of sea ice and atmosphere and grounded ice and atmosphere. An outline is presented of how these ice dynamics are formulated and modelled for solution by large-scale numerical codes, with discussion of theoretical flaws and numerical weaknesses.
BC3 Seminar: “Dimensionality reduction for the ocean wave dynamics”
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainThe large amount of spatiotemporal data used in ocean wave modelling can be analysed by dimensionality reduction techniques. Firstly, the use of empirical orthogonal functions and singular value decomposition show how global predictions of ocean waves can be better understood. In particular, it is seen that the total wave field obtained from wave model simulations can be reduced into a few dominant modes expressing the aspects of the global wave climate and relationships between the atmosphere and the ocean.
We then employ a generalised concept of ensemble dimension to the dynamics of ocean waves, aiming at establishing the regions of the globe´s oceans which have lower/higher local dimensionality. Bred vectors of surface winds, obtained by a global atmospheric ensemble system, are employed and used as forcings of multiple runs of the WAM wave model. Ensemble members of an ocean wave ensemble prediction system is then used to compute the ensemble dimension of the ocean waves. The numerical results show the local low dimensionality of the significant wave height, swell height and peak period as well as the ensemble spread of the wind fields used in the experiment.
BC3 Seminar: “The limits of valuing ecosystem services and the search for alternative ways of conceiving human-nature relations”
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainLand based Antarctic and Greenland ice and Arctic sea ice cover a significant fraction of the Earth's surface, and its high albedo means that much of the solar energy reaching its surface is reflected back into the atmosphere. Ice sheet and sea ice dynamics are therefore a component of a climate change model which involves the interaction of ocean and atmosphere, of ocean and sea ice, of sea ice and atmosphere and grounded ice and atmosphere. An outline is presented of how these ice dynamics are formulated and modelled for solution by large-scale numerical codes, with discussion of theoretical flaws and numerical weaknesses.
Workshop “Assessing the links between Nature’s Contributions to People and a Good Quality of Life”
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainBC3 organiza el Workshop “Assessing the links between Nature’s Contributions to People and a Good Quality of Life".
3rd Expert workshop on lessons learned from Accuracy Assessments in the context of REDD+: Uncertainties of emission factors and biomass maps
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainThe objetive of this Workshop is to provide improved guidance on accuracy assessments in the context of REDD+. In particular, the workshop will provide guidance to practitioners to meet the IPCC good practice criteria related to bias and uncertainty in estimates of emissions factors.
