ALBERT

Description: Over the past 30 years, interest in extraterrestrial intelligence has progressed from philosophical discussion to rigorous scientific endeavors attempting to make contact. Since it is impossible to assess the probability of success and the amount of telescope time needed for detection, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Projects are plagued with the problem of attaining the large amounts of time needed on the world's precious few large radio telescopes. To circumvent this problem, the Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations (SERENDIP) instrument operates autonomously in a piggyback mode utilizing whatever observing plan is chosen by the primary observer. In this way, large quantities of high-quality data can be collected in a cost-effective and unobtrusive manner. During normal operations, SERENDIP logs statistically significant events for further offline analysis. Due to the large number of terrestrial and near-space transmitters on earth, a major element of the SERENDIP project involves identifying and rejecting spurious signals from these sources. Another major element of the SERENDIP Project (as well as most other SETI efforts) is detecting extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) signals. Events selected as candidate ETI signals are studied further in a targeted search program which utilizes between 24 to 48 hours of dedicated telescope time each year.

Description: Ideally, the results from models operating at different scales should agree in trend direction and magnitude of impacts under climate change. However, this implies that the sensitivity to climate variability and climate change is comparable for impact models designed for either scale. In this study, we compare hydrological changes simulated by 9 global and 9 regional hydrological models (HM) for 11 large river basins in all continents under reference and scenario conditions. The foci are on model validation runs, sensitivity of annual discharge to climate variability in the reference period, and sensitivity of the long-term average monthly seasonal dynamics to climate change. One major result is that the global models, mostly not calibrated against observations, often show a considerable bias in mean monthly discharge, whereas regional models show a better reproduction of reference conditions. However, the sensitivity of the two HM ensembles to climate variability is in general similar. The simulated climate change impacts in terms of long-term average monthly dynamics evaluated for HM ensemble medians and spreads show that the medians are to a certain extent comparable in some cases, but have distinct differences in other cases, and the spreads related to global models are mostly notably larger. Summarizing, this implies that global HMs are useful tools when looking at large-scale impacts of climate change and variability. Whenever impacts for a specific river basin or region are of interest, e.g. for complex water management applications, the regional-scale models calibrated and validated against observed discharge should be used.

Description: The SERENDIP project is an ongoing program of monitoring and processing broadband radio signals acquired by existing radio astronomy observatories. SERENDIP operates in a piggyback mode: it makes use of whatever observing plan (sequence of frequencies, sky coordinates, and polarizations) is under way at its host observatory. Moreover, the SERENDIP data acquisition system, once installed, operates autonomously. This approach makes it possible to obtain large amounts of high quality observing time in a manner that is economical and that does not adversely affect ongoing radio astronomy survey work. The SERENDIP II system has been installed at the NRAO 300-foot telescope at Green Bank, West Virginia, and has operated there for several thousand hours. In this report, we summarize our findings from these observations and describe the present status of the project. Two key elements of SERENDIP are the automated data acquisition system that uses adaptive thresholds and logs only statistically significant peaks in the real-time power spectra, and the subsequent off-line analysis programs that identify and reject a variety of interference signals. Several specific correlations have been identified that offer promise. At present, the development and testing of these interference rejection algorithms is the main thrust of our work.

Description: The paper investigates climate change impacts on streamflow seasonality for a set of eleven representative large river basins covering all continents and a wide range of climatic and physiographic settings. Based on an ensemble of nine regional hydrological models driven by climate projections derived from five global circulation models under four representative concentration pathways, we analyzed the median and range of projected changes in seasonal streamflow by the end of the twenty-first century and examined the uncertainty arising from the different members of the modelling chain. Climate change impacts on the timing of seasonal streamflow were found to be small except for two basins. In many basins, we found an acceleration of the existing seasonality pattern, i.e. high-flows are projected to increase and/or low-flows are projected to decrease. In some basins the hydrologic projections indicate opposite directions of change which cancel out in the ensemble median, i.e., no robust conclusions could be drawn. In the majority of the basins, differences in projected streamflow seasonality between the low emission pathway and the high emission pathway are small with the exception of four basins. For these basins our results allow conclusions on the potential benefits (or adverse effects) of avoided GHG emissions for the seasonal streamflow regime.

Description: Impacts of climate change at 1.5, 2 and 3 °C mean global warming above preindustrial level are investigated and compared for runoff, discharge and snowpack in Europe. Ensembles of climate projections representing each of the warming levels were assembled to describe the hydro-meteorological climate at 1.5, 2 and 3 °C. These ensembles were then used to force an ensemble of five hydrological models and changes to hydrological indicators were calculated. It is seen that there are clear changes in local impacts on evapotranspiration, mean, low and high runoff and snow water equivalent between a 1.5, 2 and 3 °C degree warmer world. In a warmer world, the hydrological impacts of climate change are more intense and spatially more extensive. Robust increases in runoff affect the Scandinavian mountains at 1.5 °C, but at 3 °C extend over most of Norway, Sweden and northern Poland. At 3 °C, Norway is affected by robust changes in all indicators. Decreases in mean annual runoff are seen only in Portugal at 1.5 °C warming, but at 3 °C warming, decreases to runoff are seen around the entire Iberian coast, the Balkan Coast and parts of the French coast. In affected parts of Europe, there is a distinct increase in the changes to mean, low and high runoff at 2 °C compared to 1.5 °C, strengthening the case for mitigation to lower levels of global warming. Between 2 and 3 °C, the changes in low and high runoff levels continue to increase, but the changes to mean runoff are less clear. Changes to discharge in Europe’s larger rivers are less distinct due to the lack of homogenous and robust changes across larger river catchments, with the exception of Scandinavia where discharges increase with warming level.

Description: Ideally, the results from models operating at different scales should agree in trend direction and magnitude of impacts under climate change. However, this implies that the sensitivity to climate variability and climate change is comparable for impact models designed for either scale. In this study, we compare hydrological changes simulated by 9 global and 9 regional hydrological models (HM) for 11 large river basins in all continents under reference and scenario conditions. The foci are on model validation runs, sensitivity of annual discharge to climate variability in the reference period, and sensitivity of the long-term average monthly seasonal dynamics to climate change. One major result is that the global models, mostly not calibrated against observations, often show a considerable bias in mean monthly discharge, whereas regional models show a better reproduction of reference conditions. However, the sensitivity of the two HM ensembles to climate variability is in general similar. The simulated climate change impacts in terms of long-term average monthly dynamics evaluated for HM ensemble medians and spreads show that the medians are to a certain extent comparable in some cases, but have distinct differences in other cases, and the spreads related to global models are mostly notably larger. Summarizing, this implies that global HMs are useful tools when looking at large-scale impacts of climate change and variability. Whenever impacts for a specific river basin or region are of interest, e.g. for complex water management applications, the regional-scale models calibrated and validated against observed discharge should be used.

Description: Climate change impacts on water availability and hydrological extremes are major concerns as regards the Sustainable Development Goals. Impacts on hydrology are normally investigated as part of a modelling chain, in which climate projections from multiple climate models are used as inputs to multiple impact models, under different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, which result in different amounts of global temperature rise. While the goal is generally to investigate the relevance of changes in climate for the water cycle, water resources or hydrological extremes, it is often the case that variations in other components of the model chain obscure the effect of climate scenario variation. This is particularly important when assessing the impacts of relatively lower magnitudes of global warming, such as those associated with the aspirational goals of the Paris Agreement. In our study, we use ANOVA (analyses of variance) to allocate and quantify the main sources of uncertainty in the hydrological impact modelling chain. In turn we determine the statistical significance of different sources of uncertainty. We achieve this by using a set of five climate models and up to 13 hydrological models, for nine large scale river basins across the globe, under four emissions scenarios. The impact variable we consider in our analysis is daily river discharge. We analyze overall water availability and flow regime, including seasonality, high flows and low flows. Scaling effects are investigated by separately looking at discharge generated by global and regional hydrological models respectively. Finally, we compare our results with other recently published studies. We find that small differences in global temperature rise associated with some emissions scenarios have mostly significant impacts on river discharge—however, climate model related uncertainty is so large that it obscures the sensitivity of the hydrological system.

Description: Science diplomacy has been instrumental in facilitating cooperation in the Arctic region, yet through the projection of vast hydrocarbon potential in the region, it has also served to undermine the major transformation necessary in Arctic decision-making towards the goals of climate governance. This article surveys the translation of science from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reports (i.e. the CARA study and Factsheet 2008-3049) on Arctic oil and gas and its transformation into common knowledge within Arctic discourse through repetition by the agents in between and its subsequent adoption into Arctic policy documents. In this process, we interrogate the production of the science underpinning US science diplomacy and the influence of this science on international Arctic discourse and policy use science diplomacy. This paper contributes to the literature of science diplomacy in the Arctic by examining the contributions of the USGS to Arctic policy discourses and its impact on Arctic governance at the nexus of science diplomacy on climate and energy.