Most recent 30 articles: Nature Climate Change
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Philosophers and economists agree on climate policy paths but for different reasons - Nature Climate Change (May 25) |
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May 25 · The estimated value to society from climate change mitigation is highly sensitive to the long-term social discount rate. Governmental discounting guidance has almost exclusively been influenced by economists, although it is not clear that they possess any special expertise on intergenerational ethics. Here, by contrast, we report the views of philosophers, who are the most trained in ethical matters. We show that, as a group, these experts offer strong support for a real social discount rate of 2%, a value that is also predominantly backed by economists. We find multidisciplinary support for climate policy paths in line with the United Nations climate targets when views on ... Read more ...
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Coastal vegetation and estuaries are collectively a greenhouse gas sink - Nature Climate Change (May 22) |
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May 22 · Coastal ecosystems release or absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), but the net effects of these ecosystems on the radiative balance remain unknown. We compiled a dataset of observations from 738 sites from studies published between 1975 and 2020 to quantify CO2, CH4 and N2O fluxes in estuaries and coastal vegetation in ten global regions. We show that the CO2-equivalent (CO2e) uptake by coastal vegetation is decreased by 23–27% due to estuarine CO2e outgassing, resulting in a global median net sink of 391 or 444?TgCO2e?yr-1 using the 20- or 100-year global warming potentials, respectively. Globally, total coastal CH4 and N2O emissions decrease the ... Read more ...
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Social cost of carbon estimates have increased over time - Nature Climate Change (May 15) |
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May 15 · Estimates of the social cost of carbon are the yardstick for climate policy targets. However, there is great uncertainty and we do not know how estimates have evolved over time. Here I present a meta-analysis of published estimates showing that the social cost of carbon has increased as knowledge about climate change accumulates. Correcting for inflation and emission year and controlling for the discount rate, kernel density decomposition reveals a non-stationary distribution. In the past 10 years, estimates of the social cost of carbon have increased from US$9 per tCO2 to US$40 per tCO2 for a high discount rate and from US$122 per tCO2 to US$525 per tCO2 for a low discount rate. ... Read more ...
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Macroclimate data overestimate range shifts of plants in response to climate change - Nature Climate Change (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Current conservation policy has been shaped by the expectation that, for many species, places with suitable climate will lie outside their current range, thus leading to predictions of numerous extinctions. Here we show that the magnitude of range shifts is often overestimated as climate data used do not reflect the microclimatic conditions that many organisms experience. We model the historic (1977–1995) distributions of 244 heathland and grassland plant taxa using both macro- and microclimate data and project these distributions to present day (2003–2021). Whereas macroclimate models predicted major range shifts (median 14?km shift), microclimate models predicted localized shifts, ... Read more ...
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Wildfire and degradation accelerate northern peatland carbon release - Nature Climate Change (Apr 20) |
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Apr 20 · The northern peatland carbon sink plays a vital role in climate regulation; however, the future of the carbon sink is uncertain, in part, due to the changing interactions of peatlands and wildfire. Here, we use empirical datasets from natural, degraded and restored peatlands in non-permafrost boreal and temperate regions to model net ecosystem exchange and methane fluxes, integrating peatland degradation status, wildfire combustion and post-fire dynamics. We find that wildfire processes reduced carbon uptake in pristine peatlands by 35% and further enhanced emissions from degraded peatlands by 10%. The current small net sink is vulnerable to the interactions of peatland degraded ... Read more ...
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Biogenic factors explain soil carbon in paired urban and natural ecosystems worldwide - Nature Climate Change (Mar 27) |
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Mar 27 · Urban greenspaces support multiple nature-based services, many of which depend on the amount of soil carbon (C). Yet, the environmental drivers of soil C and its sensitivity to warming are still poorly understood globally. Here we use soil samples from 56 paired urban greenspaces and natural ecosystems worldwide and combine soil C concentration and size fractionation measures with metagenomics and warming incubations. We show that surface soils in urban and natural ecosystems sustain similar C concentrations that follow comparable negative relationships with temperature. Plant productivity’s contribution to explaining soil C was higher in natural ecosystems, while in urban ... Read more ...
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New damage curves and multimodel analysis suggest lower optimal temperature - Nature Climate Change (Mar 23) |
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Mar 23 · Economic analyses of global climate change have been criticized for their poor representation of climate change damages. Here we develop and apply aggregate damage functions in three economic Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) with different degrees of complexity. The damage functions encompass a wide but still incomplete set of climate change impacts based on physical impact models. We show that with medium estimates for damage functions, global damages are in the range of 10% to 12% of GDP by 2100 in a baseline scenario with 3?°C temperature change, and about 2% in a well-below 2?°C scenario. These damages are much higher than previous estimates in benefit-cost studies, resulting ... Read more ...
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The timing of decreasing coastal flood protection due to sea-level rise - Nature Climate Change (Mar 23) |
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Mar 23 · Sea-level rise amplifies the frequency of extreme sea levels by raising their baseline height. Amplifications are often projected for arbitrary future years and benchmark frequencies. Consequently, such projections do not indicate when flood risk thresholds may be crossed given the current degree of local coastal protection. To better support adaptation planning and comparative vulnerability analyses, we project the timing of the frequency amplification of extreme sea levels relative to estimated local flood protection standards, using sea-level rise projections of IPCC AR6 until 2150. Our central estimates indicate that those degrees of protection will be exceeded ten times as ... Read more ...
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Weakening greenhouse gas sink of pristine wetlands under warming - Nature Climate Change (Mar 20) |
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Mar 20 · Pristine wetlands have high potential for mitigating climate change because of their large carbon stocks. However, whether and where wetlands will act as a greenhouse gas sink or source under warming is uncertain. Here we report the observations from 167 sites of the responses of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions to experimental warming in northern wetlands between latitudes 30°?N and 80°?N during the period 1990–2022. We show that the 100-year global warming potential of wetlands increased by 57% in response to an average temperature increase of 1.5–2.0?°C. The difference in dominant plant functional types explains the uncertainties in emissions. Although warming ... Read more ...
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Increasing hypoxia on global coral reefs under ocean warming - Nature Climate Change (Mar 16) |
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Mar 16 · Ocean deoxygenation is predicted to threaten marine ecosystems globally. However, current and future oxygen concentrations and the occurrence of hypoxic events on coral reefs remain underexplored. Here, using autonomous sensor data to explore oxygen variability and hypoxia exposure at 32 representative reef sites, we reveal that hypoxia is already pervasive on many reefs. Eighty-four percent of reefs experienced weak to moderate (=153?µmol O2 kg-1 to =92?µmol O2 kg-1) hypoxia and 13% experienced severe (=61?µmol O2 kg-1) hypoxia. Under different climate change scenarios based on four Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), we show that projected ocean warming and deoxygenation will ... Read more ...
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Sea surface warming patterns drive hydrological sensitivity uncertainties - Nature Climate Change (Mar 16) |
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Mar 16 · Similar articles being viewed by others
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Diverse carbon dioxide removal approaches could reduce impacts on the energy–water–land system - Nature Climate Change (Mar 9) |
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Mar 9 · Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a critical tool in all plans to limit warming to below 1.5?°C, but only a few CDR pathways have been incorporated into integrated assessment models that international climate policy deliberations rely on. A more diverse set of CDR approaches could have important benefits and costs for energy–water–land systems. Here we use an integrated assessment model to assess a complete suite of CDR approaches including bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, afforestation, direct air capture with carbon storage, enhanced weathering, biochar and direct ocean capture with carbon storage. CDR provided by each approach spans three orders of magnitude, with ... Read more ...
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Large sinuous rivers are slowing down in a warming Arctic - Nature Climate Change (Mar 9) |
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Mar 9 · Arctic regions are disproportionately affected by atmospheric warming, with cascading effects on multiple surface processes. Atmospheric warming is destabilizing permafrost, which could weaken riverbanks and in turn increase the lateral mobility of their channels. Here, using timelapse analysis of satellite imagery, we show that the lateral migration of large Arctic sinuous rivers has decreased by about 20% over the last half-century, at a mean rate of 3.7‰ per year. Through a comparison with rivers in non-permafrost regions, we hypothesize that the observed migration slowdown is rooted in a series of indirect effects driven by atmospheric warming, such as bank shrubification and ... Read more ...
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Growing importance of climate change beliefs for attitudes towards gas - Nature Climate Change (Mar 2) |
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Mar 2 · Tense global politics, spikes in gas prices and increasingly urgent warnings about climate change raise questions over the future use of natural gas. UK longitudinal survey data reveal that beliefs about climate change increasingly reduced support for gas extraction between 2019 and 2022. Mounting public connections between climate and gas use suggest growing opportunities for climate communication to lower support for all fossil fuels, not just the more carbon-intensive oil and coal.
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and continued war there has led to massive political and public pressure worldwide to rethink energy security. The European Union has pledged to become ... Read more ...
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Increased exposure of coastal cities to sea-level rise due to internal climate variability - Nature Climate Change (Mar 2) |
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Mar 2 · Adaptation to future sea-level rise is based on projections of continuously improving climate models. These projections are accompanied by inherent uncertainties, including those due to internal climate variability (ICV). The ICV arises from complex and unpredictable interactions within and between climate-system components, rendering its impact irreducible. Although neglecting this uncertainty can lead to an underestimation of future sea-level rise, its estimation and impacts have not been fully explored. Combining the Community Earth System Model version 1 Large Ensemble experiments with power-law statistics, we show that, by 2100, if the ICV uncertainty reaches its upper limit, ... Read more ...
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Interspecific interactions alter the metabolic costs of climate warming - Nature Climate Change (Mar 2) |
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Mar 2 · Climate warming is expected to increase the energy demands of ectotherms by accelerating their metabolic rates exponentially. However, this prediction ignores environmental complexity such as species interactions. Here, to better understand the metabolic costs of climate change for ectotherms, we reared three Drosophila species in either single-species or two-species cultures at different temperatures and projected adult metabolic responses under an intermediate climate-warming scenario across the global range of Drosophila. We determined that developmental acclimation to warmer temperatures can reduce the energetic cost of climate warming from 39% to ~16% on average by reducing the ... Read more ...
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Increasing sequential tropical cyclone hazards along the US East and Gulf coasts - Nature Climate Change (Feb 27) |
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Feb 27 · Two tropical cyclones (TCs) that make landfall close together can induce sequential hazards to coastal areas. Here we investigate the change in sequential TC hazards in the historical and future projected climates. We find that the chance of sequential TC hazards has been increasing over the past several decades at many US locations. Under the high (moderate) emission scenario, the chance of hazards from two TCs impacting the same location within 15 days may substantially increase, with the return period decreasing over the century from 10–92 years to ~1–2 (1–3) years along the US East and Gulf coasts, due to sea-level rise and storm climatology change. Climate change can also cause ... Read more ...
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Cross-national analysis of attitudes towards fossil fuel subsidy removal - Nature Climate Change (Feb 23) |
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Feb 23 · In 2021, governments of 51 countries spent US$697?billion on subsidizing fossil fuels. Removing fossil fuel subsidies is crucial not only for reducing CO2 emissions and making carbon pricing more effective, but also for making more valuable use of government funds. Currently, however, scientific evidence on the scale and scope of public attitudes towards fossil fuel subsidy-removal policies is lacking, yet it is instrumental for gauging political feasibility. Furthermore, previous studies tend to focus on carbon pricing in the developed world only. Here we present a comparative analysis of attitudes towards both carbon taxation and fossil fuel subsidy removal, focusing on five ... Read more ...
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Antarctic shelf ocean warming and sea ice melt affected by projected El Niño changes - Nature Climate Change (Feb 20) |
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Feb 20 · Antarctic shelf ocean warming affects melt of ice shelf/sheets and sea ice but projected changes vary vastly across climate models. A projected increase in El Niño variability has been found to slow future mid-latitude Southern Ocean warming but how this impacts the Antarctic shelf ocean is unknown. Here we show that a projected increase in El Niño variability accelerates Antarctic shelf ocean warming, hastening ice shelf/sheet melt but slowing sea ice reduction.
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Around Antarctica (poleward ~60°?S), ocean below 200?m is warmer than the surface ocean1. This inversion in vertical temperature profile is not present north of ~60°?S (see 'Observations’ in Methods) ... Read more ...
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Unpriced climate risk and the potential consequences of overvaluation in US housing markets - Nature Climate Change (Feb 16) |
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Feb 16 · Climate change impacts threaten the stability of the US housing market. In response to growing concerns that increasing costs of flooding are not fully captured in property values, we quantify the magnitude of unpriced flood risk in the housing market by comparing the empirical and economically efficient prices for properties at risk. We find that residential properties exposed to flood risk are overvalued by US$121–US$237 billion, depending on the discount rate. In general, highly overvalued properties are concentrated in counties along the coast with no flood risk disclosure laws and where there is less concern about climate change. Low-income households are at greater risk of ... Read more ...
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Carbon emissions and economic impacts of an EU embargo on Russian fossil fuels - Nature Climate Change (Feb 6) |
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Feb 6 · The Russia–Ukraine conflict lays bare the dependence of the European Union (EU) on fossil fuel imports from Russia. Here, we use a global computable general equilibrium model, C3IAM/GEEPA, to estimate CO2 emission and gross domestic product (GDP) impact of embargoing fossil fuels from Russia. We find that embargoes induce more than 10% reduction of CO2 emissions in the EU and slight increases of emissions in Russia, while both regions experience GDP losses (around 2% for the EU and about 5% for Russia, ignoring the relative impact of other sanctions). Reacting to increasing energy prices with demand-side response inside the EU would increase CO2 emission savings, while turning GDP ... Read more ...
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Coal-exit alliance must confront freeriding sectors to propel Paris-aligned momentum - Nature Climate Change (Feb 6) |
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Feb 6 · The global phase-out of coal by mid-century is considered vital to the Paris Agreement to limit warming well-below 2?°C above pre-industrial levels. Since the inception of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) at COP23, political ambitions to accelerate the decline of coal have mounted to become the foremost priority at COP26. However, mitigation research lacks the tools to assess whether this bottom-up momentum can self-propagate toward Paris alignment. Here, we introduce dynamic policy evaluation (DPE), an evidence-based approach for emulating real-world policy-making. Given empirical relationships established between energy-economic developments and policy adoption, we ... Read more ...
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Cost-effective adaptation strategies to rising river flood risk in Europe - Nature Climate Change (Feb 6) |
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Feb 6 · River flood risk in Europe could rise to unprecedented levels due to global warming and continued development in flood-prone areas. Here, we appraise the potential of four key adaptation strategies to reduce flood risk across Europe based on flood risk modelling and cost–benefit analysis. We find that reducing flood peaks using detention areas is economically the most attractive option. In a scenario without climate mitigation (3?°C global warming), they can lower projected flood losses in Europe by 2100 from €44(30–61)?billion to €8.1(5.5–10.7)?billion per year and lower population exposed by 84% (75–90%) or achieve a risk level comparable to today. The economic investment required ... Read more ...
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More frequent atmospheric rivers slow the seasonal recovery of Arctic sea ice - Nature Climate Change (Feb 6) |
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Feb 6 · In recent decades, Arctic sea-ice coverage underwent a drastic decline in winter, when sea ice is expected to recover following the melting season. It is unclear to what extent atmospheric processes such as atmospheric rivers (ARs), intense corridors of moisture transport, contribute to this reduced recovery of sea ice. Here, using observations and climate model simulations, we find a robust frequency increase in ARs in early winter over the Barents–Kara Seas and the central Arctic for 1979–2021. The moisture carried by more frequent ARs has intensified surface downward longwave radiation and rainfall, caused stronger melting of thin, fragile ice cover and slowed the seasonal ... Read more ...
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Net loss of biomass predicted for tropical biomes in a changing climate - Nature Climate Change (Feb 6) |
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Feb 6 · Tropical ecosystems store over half of the world’s aboveground live carbon as biomass, and water availability plays a key role in its distribution. Although precipitation and temperature are shifting across the tropics, their effect on biomass and carbon storage remains uncertain. Here we use empirical relationships between climate and aboveground biomass content to show that the contraction of humid regions, and expansion of those with intense dry periods, results in substantial carbon loss from the neotropics. Under a low emission scenario (Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5) this could cause a net reduction of aboveground live carbon of ~14.4–23.9?PgC (6.8–12%) from ... Read more ...
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Socio-political feasibility of coal power phase-out and its role in mitigation pathways - Nature Climate Change (Feb 6) |
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Feb 6 · In IPCC pathways limiting warming to 1.5?°C, global coal power generation declines rapidly due to its emissions intensity and substitutability. However, we find that in countries heavily dependent on coal - China, India and South Africa - this translates to a national decline twice as rapid as that achieved historically for any power technology in any country, relative to system size. This raises questions about socio-political feasibility. Here we constrain an integrated assessment model to the Powering Past Coal Alliance’s differentiated phase-out timelines of 2030 in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/European Union and 2050 elsewhere which, for large coal ... Read more ...
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Geostrophic flows control future changes of oceanic eastern boundary upwelling - Nature Climate Change (Jan 30) |
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Jan 30 · Equatorward alongshore winds over major eastern boundary upwelling systems (EBUSs) drive intense upwelling via Ekman dynamics, surfacing nutrient-rich deep waters and promoting marine primary production and fisheries. It is generally thought, dating back to Bakun’s hypothesis, that greenhouse warming should enhance upwelling in EBUSs by intensifying upwelling-favourable winds; yet this has not been tested. Here, using an ensemble of high-resolution climate simulations with improved EBUS representation, we show that long-term upwelling changes in EBUSs differ substantially, under a high-emission scenario, from those inferred by the wind-based upwelling index. Specifically, weakened ... Read more ...
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Natural hybridization reduces vulnerability to climate change - Nature Climate Change (Jan 30) |
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Jan 30 · Under climate change, species unable to track their niche via range shifts are largely reliant on genetic variation to adapt and persist. Genomic vulnerability predictions are used to identify populations that lack the necessary variation, particularly at climate-relevant genes. However, hybridization as a source of novel adaptive variation is typically ignored in genomic vulnerability studies. We estimated environmental niche models and genomic vulnerability for closely related species of rainbowfish (Melanotaenia spp.) across an elevational gradient in the Australian Wet Tropics. Hybrid populations between a widespread generalist and several narrow range endemic species exhibited ... Read more ...
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Temperature effect on erosion-induced disturbances to soil organic carbon cycling - Nature Climate Change (Jan 30) |
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Jan 30 · Erosion exerts control on soil organic carbon (SOC) and both erosion and SOC are affected by climate. To what extent temperature controls the coupling between these erosion–C interactions remains unclear. Using 137Cs and SOC inventories from catchments spanning different climates, we find that increasing decomposition rates with temperature result in the efficient replacement of SOC laterally lost by erosion in eroding areas but lower preservation of deposited SOC in depositional areas. When combined at the landscape level, the erosion-induced C sink strength per unit lateral SOC flux increases with temperature from 0.19?g?C?(g?C)-1 at 0?°C to 0.24?g?C?(g?C)-1 at 25?°C. We estimated ... Read more ...
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