[geo] Fellowship Opportunity at UCLA: Societal Implications, Governance, and Legal and Policy Aspects of Climate Engineering

[parson]

The Emmett Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School 
of Law invites applications for a two-year fellowship on the societal 
implications, governance, and legal and policy issues posed by climate 
engineering (geoengineering), beginning on July 1, 2018

Fellows will conduct research, and legal and policy analysis, relevant to the 
societal challenges posed by potential climate engineering technologies.  
Examples of specific areas of interest include the following: 

- The development of practical governance frameworks for proposed climate 
engineering research;

- The assessment and monitoring needs posed by potential climate engineering 
interventions, and how these might be integrated into legal and regulatory 
frameworks;

- Potential interactions of climate engineering proposals (either large-scale 
atmospheric carbon-dioxide removal or interventions in the Earth’s radiation 
balance) with existing and developing policy and legal frameworks for climate 
change, at both the international and national/sub-national level;

- Potential interactions of climate engineering with climate-change adaptation, 
particularly concerning the unique vulnerabilities to climate change of 
low-income developing countries.

- The identification of feasible early initiatives to help aid 
longer-development of governance capability that may be needed to effectively 
respond to future proposals to engage in climate engineering

Fellows’ responsibilities will involve some combination of individual and 
collaborative research, with some expected contribution to the administration 
and development of the project, as well as possible opportunities to teach. The 
specific configuration of responsibilities for the successful candidate or 
candidates will be developed in consultation with the project PI, Professor 
Edward Parson. 

Candidates should hold an advanced degree in a relevant field and should have 
demonstrated interest and experience relevant to climate engineering and a 
willingness and ability to engage new areas of inquiry as needed to succeed in 
interdisciplinary work.

Interested candidates are invited to apply at 
https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/apply/JPF03572.  The deadline for submitting an 
application is 30 April, 2018. 


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[geo] The Response of the Ocean Thermal Skin Layer to Variations in Incident Infrared Radiation

[Greg Rau]

Is there a GE angle in here? Of course ocean-air heat flux is reduced if the 
ocean skin temp is higher than the subsurface water(!?) Mixing, wind, wave 
effects?
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2017JC013351

“Ocean warming trends are observed and coincide with the increase in 
concentrations of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere resulting from human 
activities. At the ocean surface, most of the incoming infrared (IR) radiation 
is absorbed within the top micrometers of the ocean's surface where the thermal 
skin layer (TSL) exists. Thus, the incident IR radiation does not directly heat 
the upper few meters of the ocean. This paper investigates the physical 
mechanism between the absorption of IR radiation and its effect on heat 
transfer at the air‐sea boundary. The hypothesis is that given the heat lost 
through the air‐sea interface is controlled by the TSL, the TSL adjusts in 
response to variations in incident IR radiation to maintain the surface heat 
loss. This modulates the flow of heat from below, and hence controls upper 
ocean heat content. This hypothesis is tested using the increase in incoming 
longwave radiation from clouds and analyzing vertical temperature profiles in 
the TSL retrieved from sea‐surface emission spectra. The additional energy from 
the absorption of increasing IR radiation adjusts the curvature of the TSL such 
that the upward conduction of heat from the bulk of the ocean into the TSL is 
reduced. The additional energy absorbed within the TSL supports more of the 
surface heat loss. Thus, more heat beneath the TSL is retained leading to the 
observed increase in upper ocean heat content.”

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