Abstract. The climate science community faces a major challenge with respect to communicating the
risks associated with climate change within a heavily politicised landscape that is
characterised by varying degrees of denial, scepticism, distrust in
scientific enterprise, and an increased prevalence of misinformation (“fake
news”). This issue is particularly significant given the reliance on
conventional “deficit” communication approaches, which are based on the
assumption that scientific information provision will necessarily lead to
desired behavioural changes. Indeed, the constrained orthodoxy of scientific practices in seeking to maintain strict objectivity and political separation imposes very tangible limits on the potential effectiveness of climate
scientists for communicating risk in many contemporary settings. To address
these challenges, this paper uses insights from a collaboration between UK
climate scientists and artist researchers to argue for a more creative and
emotionally attentive approach to climate science engagement and advocacy.
In so doing, the paper highlights innovative ways in which climate change
communication can be reimagined through different art forms to enable
complex concepts to become knowable. We suggest that in learning to express
their work through forms of art, including print-making, theatre and
performance, song-writing, and creative writing, researchers experienced not
only a sense of liberation from the rigid communicative framework operating
in their familiar scientific environment but also a growing self-confidence in their ability and willingness to engage in new ways of expressing their work. As such, we argue that scientific institutions and funding bodies should recognise the potential value of climate scientists engaging in advocacy through art–science collaborations and that these personal investments and contributions to science engagement by individuals should be rewarded and valued alongside conventional scientific outputs.
.

Abstract. The climate science community faces a major challenge with respect to communicating the
risks associated with climate change within a heavily politicised landscape that is
characterised by varying degrees of denial, scepticism, distrust in
scientific enterprise, and an increased prevalence of misinformation (“fake
news”). This issue is particularly significant given the reliance on
conventional “deficit” communication approaches, which are based on the
assumption that scientific information provision will necessarily lead to
desired behavioural changes. Indeed, the constrained orthodoxy of scientific practices in seeking to maintain strict objectivity and political separation imposes very tangible limits on the potential effectiveness of climate
scientists for communicating risk in many contemporary settings. To address
these challenges, this paper uses insights from a collaboration between UK
climate scientists and artist researchers to argue for a more creative and
emotionally attentive approach to climate science engagement and advocacy.
In so doing, the paper highlights innovative ways in which climate change
communication can be reimagined through different art forms to enable
complex concepts to become knowable. We suggest that in learning to express
their work through forms of art, including print-making, theatre and
performance, song-writing, and creative writing, researchers experienced not
only a sense of liberation from the rigid communicative framework operating
in their familiar scientific environment but also a growing self-confidence in their ability and willingness to engage in new ways of expressing their work. As such, we argue that scientific institutions and funding bodies should recognise the potential value of climate scientists engaging in advocacy through art–science collaborations and that these personal investments and contributions to science engagement by individuals should be rewarded and valued alongside conventional scientific outputs.
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Evidence for a major climate event at 5.2 ka has been reported globally and is associated with considerable societal disruption, but is poorly characterised in northwest Europe. This event forms part of a broader period of re-organisation in the Earth's ocean-atmosphere circulation system between 6 and 5 ka. This study tests the nature and timing of the event in northwest Europe, a region highly sensitive to change in meridional overturning circulation and mid-latitude westerly airflow. Here we report three high-resolution Irish multi-proxy records obtained from ombrotrophic peatlands that have robust chronological frameworks. We identify the 5.2 ka event by a sustained decrease in δ18Ocellulose at all three sites, with additional and parallel changes in δ13Ccellulose and palaeoecological (testate amoebae, plant macrofossil and humification) data from two sites in northern Ireland. Data from Sluggan Moss demonstrate a particularly coherent shift towards wetter conditions. These data support the hypothesis that the event was caused by a prolonged period of positive North Atlantic Oscillation conditions, resulting in pervasive cyclonic weather patterns across northwest Europe, increasing precipitation over Ireland.

Scientists argue that climate change caused by humans is a major threat to billions of people in the world today. Yet many of us don’t appear to accept the science. This article explores why we need to study the ways that people react to issues like climate change and how we can help people understand the risks they pose to their everyday lives.

The increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere in combination with climatic changes throughout the last century are likely to have had a profound effect on the physiology of trees: altering the carbon and water fluxes passing through the stomatal pores. However, the magnitude and spatial patterns of such changes in natural forests remain highly uncertain. Here, stable carbon isotope ratios from a network of 35 tree-ring sites located across Europe are investigated to determine the intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE), the ratio of photosynthesis to stomatal conductance from 1901 to 2000. The results were compared with simulations of a dynamic vegetation model (LPX-Bern 1.0) that integrates numerous ecosystem and land-atmosphere exchange processes in a theoretical framework. The spatial pattern of tree-ring derived iWUE of the investigated coniferous and deciduous species and the model results agreed significantly with a clear south-to-north gradient, as well as a general increase in iWUE over the 20th century. The magnitude of the iWUE increase was not spatially uniform, with the strongest increase observed and modelled for temperate forests in Central Europe, a region where summer soil-water availability decreased over the last century. We were able to demonstrate that the combined effects of increasing CO2 and climate change leading to soil drying have resulted in an accelerated increase in iWUE. These findings will help to reduce uncertainties in the land surface schemes of global climate models, where vegetation-climate feedbacks are currently still poorly constrained by observational data.

Accurate modelling of long-term changes in plant stomatal functioning is vital to global climate change studies because changes in evapotranspiration influence temperature via physiological forcing of the climate. Various stomatal models are included in land surface schemes, but their robustness over longer timescales is difficult to validate. We compare the performance of three stomatal models, varying in their degree of complexity, and coupled to a land surface model. This is carried out by simulating the carbon isotope ratio of tree leaves (δ13Cleaf) over a period of 53 years, and comparing the results with carbon isotope ratios obtained from tree rings (δ13Cstem) measured at six sites in northern Europe. All three stomatal models fail to capture the observed interannual variability in the measured δ13Cstem time series. However, the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere (SPA) model performs significantly better than the Ball-Berry (BB) or COX models when tested for goodness-of-fit against measured δ13Cstem. The δ13Cleaf time series simulated using the SPA model are significantly positively correlated (P < 0.05) with measured results over the full time period tested, at all six sites. The SPA model underestimates interannual variability measured in δ13Cstem, but is no worse than the BB model and significantly better than the COX model. The inability of current models to adequately replicate changes in stomatal response to rising levels of CO2 concentrations, and thus to quantify the associated physiological forcing, warrants further investigation. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Here we present stable isotope and geochemical data from Lake Prespa (Macedonia/Albania border) over the Last Glacial cycle (Marine Isotope Stages 5e1) and discuss past lake hydrology and climate (TIC, oxygen and carbon isotopes), as well as responses to climate of terrestrial and aquatic vegetation (TOC, Rock Eval pyrolysis, carbon isotopes, pollen). The Lake Prespa sediments broadly fall into 5 zones based on their sedimentology, geochemistry, palynology and the existing chronology. The Glacial sediments suggest low supply of carbon to the lake, but high summer productivity; intermittent siderite layers suggest that although the lake was likely to have mixed regularly leading to enhanced oxidation of organic matter, there must have been within sediment reducing conditions and methanogenesis. MIS 5 and 1 sediments suggest much more productivity, higher rates of organic material preservation possibly due to more limited mixing with longer periods of oxygen-depleted bottom waters. We also calculated lakewater d18O from siderite (authigenic/Glacial) and calcite (endogenic/Holocene) and show much lower lakewater d18O values in the Glacial when compared to the Holocene, suggesting the lake was less evaporative in the Glacial, probably as a consequence of cooler summers and longer winter ice cover. In the Holocene the oxygen isotope data suggests general humidity, with just 2 marked arid phases, features observed in other Eastern and Central Mediterranean lakes. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.

Here we present Holocene organic carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, carbon isotope ratio and macrofossil data from a small freshwater lake near Sisimiut in south-west Greenland. The lake was formed c. 11calkaBP following retreat of the ice sheet margin and is located above the marine limit in this area. The elemental and isotope data suggest a complex deglaciation history of interactions between the lake and its catchment, reflecting glacial retreat and post-glacial hydrological flushing probably due to periodic melting of local remnant glacial ice and firn areas between 11 and 8.5calkaBP. After 8.5calkaBP, soil development and associated vegetation processes began to exert a greater control on terrestrial-aquatic carbon cycling. By 5.5calkaBP, in the early Neoglacial cooling, the sediment record indicates a change in catchment-lake interactions with consistent δ 13C while C/N exhibits greater variability. The period after 5.5calkaBP is also characterized by higher organic C accumulation in the lake. These changes (total organic carbon, C/N, δ 13C) are most likely the result of increasing contribution (and burial) of terrestrial organic matter as a result of enhanced soil instability, as indicated by an increase in Cenococcum remains, but also Sphagnum and Empetrum. The impact of glacial retreat and relatively subdued mid- to late Holocene climate variation at the coast is in marked contrast to the greater environmental variability seen in inland lakes closer to the present-day ice sheet margin. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Stable carbon isotope time-series (δ 13C) from tree-rings are capable of providing valuable palaeoclimatic information, but analysis of individual tree-rings is time consuming and expensive. Pooling material from several tree-rings prior to isotopic analysis reduces costs, but does not allow the magnitude of uncertainty in the mean δ 13C chronology to be calculated unless the pool is broken and each tree-ring measured individually at regular intervals. Here we use a comparison of pooled and mean individual (the arithmetic mean of isotopic data from tree series measured individually) δ 13C records between AD 1650 and 2007, comprising cores from 21 Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) trees growing in the western Highlands of Scotland. The aim is to determine whether the true error structure of the time series is better captured by using the overall mean error estimate for the entire time series or by linear interpolation between the equally spaced measurements. We conclude that where autocorrelation exists within the error structure of a chronology, annual estimates of 95% confidence intervals, developed through linear interpolation at 5-year or 10-year intervals, are preferable to using the overall mean uncertainty. The method outlined increases the viability of pooled δ 13C records for palaeoclimatic research by retaining error structure whilst reducing analytical time and costs. The method is applied here using tree-ring data, but could theoretically be applied to any well-replicated time-series. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Stable isotope analysis of cellulose is an increasingly important aspect of ecological and palaeoenvironmental research. Since these techniques are very costly, any methodological development which can provide simultaneous measurement of stable carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in cellulose deserves further exploration. A large number (3074) of tree-ring α-cellulose samples are used to compare the stable carbon isotope ratios (δ(13)C) produced by high-temperature (1400°C) pyrolysis/gas chromatography (GC)/isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) with those produced by combustion GC/IRMS. Although the two data sets are very strongly correlated, the pyrolysis results display reduced variance and are strongly biased towards the mean. The low carbon isotope ratios of tree-ring cellulose during the last century, reflecting anthropogenic disturbance of atmospheric carbon dioxide, are thus overestimated. The likely explanation is that a proportion of the oxygen atoms are bonding with residual carbon in the reaction chamber to form carbon monoxide. The 'pyrolysis adjustment', proposed here, is based on combusting a stratified sub-sample of the pyrolysis results, across the full range of carbon isotope ratios, and using the paired results to define a regression equation that can be used to adjust all the pyrolysis measurements. In this study, subsamples of 30 combustion measurements produced adjusted chronologies statistically indistinguishable from those produced by combusting every sample. This methodology allows simultaneous measurement of the stable isotopes of carbon and oxygen using high-temperature pyrolysis, reducing the amount of sample required and the analytical costs of measuring them separately.