Gunnar Myhre

The HYway project contributes to the understanding of the climate and environmental risks and co-benefits of a hydrogen economy and aims to advise policymakers and industry on options for addressing those risks.

The development of green ammonia (NH3) has recently gained wide interest due to its potential to decarbonize ammonia production and as a carbon-free solution for energy storage and transportation. Green ammonia production is purely based on renewable energy sources and no carbon is associated with its use, e.g. as a chemical fertilizer, or when ammonia is combusted in an engine. However, the production and use of ammonia come with other climate and environmental challenges due to its alteration of the Earth’s nitrogen cycle.

In REGAME we will update chemistry transport models (FLEXPART, OsloCTM) to include the kinetic isotope effect (KIE) of methane (CH4), enabling better constraints on the CH4 budget (KIE is dependent on source/ sink). We will update the atmospheric inversion framework FLXINVERT to include novel use of satellite CH4 fields (Sentinel 5P). This will include significant changes to FLEXINVERT, which will also be applicable to other satellite data e.g. carbon dioxide (co₂) and improve the model capabilities to handle large data fields in general. With these upgrades we assess CH4 emissions from the major sources (wetlands, biomass burning, anthropogenic) at the global scale using all available data (e.g. ICOS, NOAA data, data on ebas.nilu.no). This data includes measurements from the Zeppelin Observatory in the Arctic, to Troll in Antarctica, i.e. from pole-to-pole.

BUDGET will increase our understanding of the causes to why climate models have such large differences in future Arctic rainfall and summer precipitation in northern Europe. This will be accomplished using satellite data and climate model calculations over the last 40 years. The analyzes will provide knowledge of whether processes related to transport in the atmosphere, evaporation or absorption of radiation are the reasons for different results from the climate models. By using and developing the climate models with most realistic precipitation changes and largescale processes in accordance with ground-based observations and satellite measurements, we can improve estimates of precipitation change and related climate extremes.

In EPIC we are investigating a possible link between changes in air pollution and a trend towards more hazardous extreme precipitation. Our overall goal is to increase our understanding of what controls extreme precipitation and reduce the uncertainty in estimates of future extremes. At this stage of our project, we are analyzing observational data and running cloud models to investigate how heavy precipitation reacts to our particle emissions.

The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, with dramatically decreasing trends in sea-ice and snow cover (AMAP,2017). This ‘Arctic amplification’ of global warming is a feature of human-made climate change, but its causes and consequences are not fully understood.

Hydrogen is often considered a green energy carrier that has the potential to replace oil, but little is known about its environmental and climate impacts. Over the next three years, CICERO will therefore study what these impacts are.

ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) is a programme within the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) list of European infrastructures. 

The international community has agreed that the increase in global temperature must be limited to 2°C above the pre-industrial levels. Meeting this ambitious goal requires a large-scale shift away from the fossil economy towards one based on renewable materials and energy like biomass.

Predicting how the climate will change over the next 20-50 years, as well as defining emissions pathways to keep the world on track, requires a better understanding of how several human and natural factors will affect the climate in coming decades. These include how atmospheric aerosols affect the Earth’s radiation budget, and the roles of clouds and oceans in driving climate change.