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Climatic extreme events are predicted to occur more frequently and intensely and will significantly threat the living of residents in arid and semi-arid regions. Therefore, this study aims to assess climatic extremes’ response to the emerging climate change mitigation strategy using a marine cloud brightening (MCB) scheme.

Based on Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 2-Earth System model simulations of a MCB scheme, this study used six climatic extreme indices [i.e. the hottest days (TXx), the coolest nights (TNn), the warm spell duration (WSDI), the cold spell duration (CSDI), the consecutive dry days (CDD) and wettest consecutive five days (RX5day)] to analyze spatiotemporal evolution of climate extreme events in the arid Sahara-Sahel-Arabian Peninsula Zone with and without MCB implementation.

Compared with a Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 scenario, from 2030 to 2059, implementation of MCB is predicted to decrease the mean annual TXx and TNn indices by 0.4–1.7 and 0.3–2.1°C, respectively, for most of the Sahara-Sahel-Arabian Peninsula zone. It would also shorten the mean annual WSDI index by 118–183 days and the mean annual CSDI index by only 1–3 days, especially in the southern Sahara-Sahel-Arabian Peninsula zone. In terms of extreme precipitation, MCB could also decrease the mean annual CDD index by 5–25 days in the whole Sahara and Sahel belt and increase the mean annual RX5day index by approximately 10 mm in the east part of the Sahel belt during 2030–2059.

The results provide the first insights into the impacts of MCB on extreme climate in the arid Sahara-Sahel-Arabian Peninsula zone.

The purpose of this paper is to show that the observed strong link between global economic output and primary energy use will continue in future; and attempts to replace fossil fuels with alternative energy sources or implementing CO₂ removal or geoengineering approaches cannot provide the level of clean energy that economic growth needs. Global economic growth, therefore, is unlikely to continue for much longer.

The paper uses historical and recent global data (2012) for energy output from various sources, economic output and CO₂, emissions to make its case.

Alternative energy output is growing too slowly, and faces too many problems, to significantly change the energy mix in the coming decades. Continued use of fossil fuels requires either massive CO₂ removal/sequestration or global solar radiation management (SRM). The first is too expensive and would take decades to be significant, the second carries risks, some already known and possibly also unknown ones.

The paper makes the case that technical fixes such as alternative fuels, energy efficiency improvements, carbon dioxide capture and SRM will not be sufficient to prevent global climate change.

Social change, rather than reliance on technical fixes, is needed for ecologically sustainable economies.

Most research argues that global energy intensity and carbon intensity will continue to fall. In contrast, we argue that the strong link observed between global economic output and primary energy use will most likely continue.

The most obvious symptom of the most obvious trend in the building of new libraries is the fact that, as yet, no spade has entered the ground of the site on Euston Road, London, upon which the new building for the British Library Reference Division has to be erected. Some twenty years of continued negotiation and discussion finally resulted in the choice of this site. The UK and much more of the world awaits with anticipation what could and should be the major building library of the twentieth century. The planning and design of a library building, however large or small, is, relatively speaking, a major operation, and deserves time, care and patience if the best results are to be produced.