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In 2018, Cape Town, South Africa’s second most populous city, came very close to running out of water as the multi-year “Day Zero” drought depleted its reservoirs. Since then, researchers from Stanford University determined that climate change had made this extreme drought five to six times more likely, and warned that a lot more Day Zero events could occur in regions with similar climates in the future.

Scientists project increased risk to water supplies in South Africa this century due to rising temperatures and declining rainfall

Held September 27-30 online, the MATLAB Computational Finance Conference 2021 convened industry professionals to illustrate practical applications of MATLAB and provide advice to practitioners on topics ranging from artificial intelligence to climate risk.

MIT Joint Program Deputy Director Sergey Paltsev delivers featured presentation at MATLAB Computational Finance Conference

The preeminent conference for the advancement of Earth and space sciences, the AGU (American Geophysical Union) Fall Meeting draws more than 25,000 attendees from over 100 countries each year to share research findings and identify innovative solutions to complex problems. Organized around the theme “Science is Society,” this year’s AGU Fall Meeting will take place in New Orleans and online on December 13 - 17.

AGU Fall Meeting goes hybrid for 2021
Sustained methane emissions from China after 2012 despite declining coal production and rice-cultivated area

Abstract: China's anthropogenic methane emissions are the largest of any country in the world. A recent study using atmospheric observations suggested that recent policies aimed at reducing emissions of methane due to coal production in China after 2010 had been largely ineffective.

Here, based on a longer observational record and an updated modelling approach, we find a statistically significant positive linear trend (0.36 ± 0.04 ($\pm1\sigma$) Tg CH4 yr−2) in China's methane emissions for 2010–2017. This trend was slowing down at a statistically significant rate of -0.1 ± 0.04 Tg CH4 yr−3.

We find that this decrease in growth rate can in part be attributed to a decline in China's coal production. However, coal mine methane emissions have not declined as rapidly as production, implying that there may be substantial fugitive emissions from abandoned coal mines that have previously been overlooked. We also find that emissions over rice-growing and aquaculture-farming regions show a positive trend (0.13 ± 0.05 Tg CH4 yr−2 for 2010–2017) despite reports of shrinking rice paddy areas, implying potentially significant emissions from new aquaculture activities, which are thought to be primarily located on converted rice paddies.

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