Research article assesses climate impacts of global warming

Public Library of ScienceDec 4 2013

PLOS ONE publishes "Assessing Dangerous Climate Change: Required Reductions of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature" from James Hansen and colleagues, and announces call for papers on responses to climate change:

• Research article assesses climate impacts of global warming using ongoing observations and paleoclimate data, and uses Earth's measured energy imbalance and simple representations of the global carbon cycle and temperature to define emission reductions needed to stabilize climate and avoid potentially disastrous impacts
• New PLOS ONE collection, "Responding to Climate Change" to incorporate the broad range of areas covered in Hansen et al's paper, with a particular focus on work aimed at returning the Earth to a state of energy balance

A new paper from James Hansen and colleagues entitled "Assessing Dangerous Climate Change: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature" will publish in the open access journal PLOS ONE on 3rd December. The article challenges researchers, policy makers and world leaders to respond to climate change with active attempts to restore energy balance and regain stability of Earth's ecosystem.

"Although there is merit in simply chronicling what is happening, there is still opportunity for humanity to exercise free will. Thus our objective is to define what the science indicates is needed," states Hansen, adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and former head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.

The publication will be announced December 3rd at a press conference at Columbia University by economist Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the university's Earth Institute and one of the co-authors of the paper.

By calculating atmospheric CO₂ as a function of fossil fuel emissions and examining the potential for drawing down atmospheric CO₂ via reforestation and increase of soil carbon, Hansen et al review fossil fuel emission reduction scenarios, concluding that an appropriate target is to keep global temperature within or close to the temperature range in the Holocene, the interglacial period in which civilization developed.

Following on from the PLOS Collection "Ecological Impacts of Climate Change" the publication of this paper is accompanied by a call for papers for responses to climate change.

"Our hope is to generate a wide range of submissions on climate research and in particular papers that address solutions to the challenges posed by a changing climate, such as alternative energy development, environmental preservation, the problems of acidification, adaptation strategies and restoration of failing ecosystems. As a multidisciplinary and open access journal, PLOS ONE is well equipped to handle the variety of submissions we hope to receive and make that research freely available to the world for application and further development" says Damian Pattinson, Editorial Director of PLOS ONE.

Papers submitted to the call that successfully undergo peer review will be published in PLOS ONE. A PLOS Collection, "Responding to Climate Change," will be launched in early 2014 to highlight the research.