In the debate on how to present and prevent climate change, the opinions have been conflicted. Some argue that a pessimistic projection will trigger a doomsday-effect and others argue that an optimistic projection enhances the risk of remaining passive. However, there is a fine line between what is too optimistic and too pessimistic. With the basis from choice architecture and the Zero Contribution Thesis, this study has dealt with how, and if, different projections could influence people's attitudes through nudges. By conducting two surveys which project different outcomes of climate change, one pessimistic, and one optimistic, this study aims at contributing to a greater understanding of how the use of communication can influence peoples’ attitudes and commitment towards climate change. When being a choice architect and constructing a nudge, it is crucial to carefully consider the design of the nudge since it is vital to understand that small details have a significant effect on the choices a person makes. By making small changes in our everyday life, we can reduce the impact of our ecological footprint. With the results it can be concluded that a purely pessimistic or optimistic projection may not be the most effective method when trying to influence environmentally friendly behaviour. Therefore, it could be beneficial to use a combination of both an optimistic- and pessimistic- projection of climate change. Furthermore, nudges could be considered as a legitimate policy tool when trying to create environmentally friendly behaviour.

The Mesozoic is punctuated by several rapid global warming events that are marked by the worldwide deposition of organic-rich marine sediments. These events, known as oceanic anoxic events (OAEs), are characterised by intervals where the worldwide carbon cycle suffers a disruption due to major palaeoceanographic and climatic shifts, leading to anoxic marine environments and the creation of black shales. For this study, the Oceanic Anoxic Event 1a (OAE 1a), which occurred during the Early Cretaceous Aptian age (~120 Ma) was analysed. It was likely triggered by the Greater Ontong Java underwater volcanic event and is associated with major changes in marine environments and ecosystems, including nekton and plankton turnover, and sea water composition changes. The impact of this event on terrestrial land-based ecosystems is, however, less well understood. Here I document well preserved and diverse spore-pollen assemblages spanning OAE 1a from southern Sweden by examining the Höllviken I core. Before the OAE, palynofloras are dominated by conifers, suggestive of a relatively mild and dry coastal environment. At the onset of the OAE a fern spike occurs, where there is a shift to early successional stage vegetation. Gymnosperm diversity and abundance sharply decrease, and the palynofloral assemblages become dominated by ferns, indicating a shift to warm and wet conditions. Gymnosperms gradually recover thereafter, but the formerly abundant conifer pollen Classopollis does not recover and remains rare. Dinoflagellate cysts and microforaminiferal test linings increase in abundance after OAE 1a, suggesting a higher degree of marine influence. These findings show that OAE 1a had a substantial impact on the composition and diversity of high latitude terrestrial vegetation and marine plankton communities. / <p>The work for this thesis was financially supported by the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree PANGEA programme.</p>

Atmospheric mineral dust plays a dynamic role in the climate system acting both as a forcing and a feedback mechanism. To date, the majority of paleodust studies have been conducted on marine sediments or polar ice cores, while terrestrial deposition has been less studied. As such, it is important to produce new terrestrial Holocene paleo–dust records and fill existing regional gaps. Ombrotrophic (atmospherically–fed) peat bogs can be used to reconstruct dust deposition through elemental chemistry analysis. Multi–elemental data sets are commonly used infer net dust deposition rates, source changes, grain size, and mineral composition. Mineralogical identification of dust particles is particularly important because it allows both provenance tracing and increased understanding in climate and ecosystem feedbacks. Establishing mineralogy from elemental data of mixed mineral matrixes can however be challenging. X–ray diffraction analysis (XRD) is a standard technique for mineral identification which ideally requires removal of organic matter (OM). Therefore, a test procedure was undertaken where common OM removal methods were evaluated on bulk peat samples was therefore undertaken. The results showed that combustion at 500°C was most efficient in removing OM, while leaving the majority of minerals intact, but not all. In this Licenciate thesis, early result of a paleodust study from Draftinge Mosse, southern Sweden, are also outlined. Here, the method development mentioned above was applied, enabling a combination of elemental data with mineralogy. Future work includes minor and trace element analysis by ICP–AES and ICP–MS, evaluation of the reproducibility of single core reconstructions, tests of some of the methodological assumptions used in previous paleodust studies, source tracing and paleodust reconstruction from a second site (Gällsered Mosse). / Atmosfäriskt mineraldamm, mineralpartiklar som lyfts upp i atmosfären och avsätts via eoliska processer, spelar en komplex roll i klimatsystemet då partiklarna påverkar klimatet, samtidigt som rådande klimat också påverkar partikelmängden. De flesta hittills genomförda mineraldamms- studier har utförts på marina sediment eller iskärnor trots att mineraldammspartiklar i störst utsträckning deponeras på kontinenterna. Ombrotrofa mossar (högmossar) kan användas för att rekonstruera avsättning av mineraldamm över tid genom geokemiska analyser på olika djup i torvkärnor. Den kemiska sammansättningen ger information som kan användas för att härleda variationer i partikelmängd, källområden, kornstorlek, samt mineralogisk sammansättning. Bestämning av mineralen är av särskild vikt då det möjliggör identifikation av partiklarnas källområden samt ger kunskap om partiklarnas del i klimat- och ekosystem processer. Att via geokemiska data identifiera mineral prover av blandad sammansättning är dock utmanande, särskilt då många mineral har en liknande kemisk sammansättning. Röntgen diffraktions analys (XRD) är en standardmetod inom berggrundsgeologi för att identifiera mineral, som här används på torvprover. Metoden är icke-destruktiv, men kräver att provet är relativt rent från amorfa faser, så som organiskt material. Då torv innehåller stora mängder organiskt material (&gt;98 %), som dessutom karaktäriseras av att vara svårnedbrutet, utformades ett testprotokoll för att studera vilken metod som är bäst lämpad för att ta bort organiskt material från denna specifika jordtyp. Resultaten från genomförda tester visade att förbränning (500°C) är mest effektivt och även lämnade en majoritet av mineralen intakta, dock inte alla. I denna licenciatavhandling beskrivs även de övergripande målen med min forskning samt tidiga resultat från en mineraldammstudie från Draftinge mosse (Småland), där resultaten från metodstudien ovan applicerats och kombinerats med andra geokemiska data. Vidare arbete inom detta doktorandprojekt kommer innefatta ytterligare geokemiska analyser (spårämnesanalys med ICP-MS och ICP-AES) samt identifiering av källområden. Dessutom kommer ytterligare en mosse (Gällsered mossse) att studeras för förändringar i avsättning av mineraldamm under de senaste 7000 åren.

Permafrost carbon stores have been suggested to react to warming trends with increased terrestrial loading to its coastal waters. Presently, the warming has been seen to be especially high in the East Siberian Arctic and the fate of the major release of terrestrial matter to these coasts is yet to be detailed. Our work is focused on the East Siberian Shelf (ESS) – which is the largest continental shelf in the world. It receives substantial inputs of terrestrial organic matter both from the large Russian rivers and from eroding coastlines. The largest of its rivers, the Lena, discharges in Buor-Khaya Bay, which is also a hot spot for coastal erosion. Previous studies of molecular and δ¹3C and Δ¹⁴C composition of terrestrial organic matter received by Arctic coastal waters have suggested a different propensity of different terrestrial source materials towards bacterial degradation. This detailed isotopic and molecular marker survey which is the basis for this thesis reveals clearly distinguished source patterns both between surface water (POC) and sea floor (SOC) as well as with distance away from the sources. The heavy terrestrial dominance over marine/planktonic sources are clearly detected in gradients of high POC and SOC levels, as well as depleted δ13C -OC and high HMW/LMW n-alkane ratios. Furthermore, data suggests that terr-OC was substantially older yet less degraded in the surface sediment than in the surface waters. This unusual vertical degradation trend was only recently found also for the coastal and central East Siberian Sea. It seems that the riverine terr-OC component comprising mainly annual thaw layer surface soil dominates the buoyant surface water POC and is readily degraded. This is in contrast to the coastline-erosion terr-OC which is associated with minerals and therefore ballasted to the sediments where it makes up the key OC component and seems relatively protected from degradation. The study area of this work is a region with strong terrestrial influence hosting many of the important carbon cycling processes, and data reveal two important OC contributors of different origin, mineral associated coastal erosion matter and riverine borne surface soil matter. These two components may well represent different propensities to contribute to a positive feedback to climate warming by converting OC from coastal and inland permafrost into CO₂.

Denna kunskapsöversikt syftar till att undersöka hur klimatundervisning i skolans tidiga år kan utformas för att bidra till miljövänliga attityder och beteenden i klimatundervisning. Arbetet behandlar även hur lärare kan minska klimatångest hos elever i klimatundervisning. Ämnet är av stor relevans att undersöka då forskning om klimatundervisning i förskoleklassen och skolans 1–3 (F–3) är begränsad.  För att få svar på frågeställningarna genomfördes en informationssökning i databaserna ERC och ERIC. Olika sökord har kombinerats med hjälp av boolesk sökteknik och frassökning för att hitta relevanta källor. Ytterligare sökteknik som använts är kedjesökning med hjälp av valda forskningsartiklars referenslistor. Totalt valdes 21 artiklar och rapporter ut. Då forskning om klimatundervisning i skolans tidiga år är begränsad har generaliseringar gjorts utifrån vad utvald forskning om klimatundervisning för andra årskurser än skolans F–3 beskriver.  Resultatet presenterar användbara undervisningsstrategier med varierande arbetssätt som kan vara gynnsamma i klimatundervisning för att utveckla positiva attityder och beteenden. Exempel på strategier som tas upp är diskussioner, att möta klimatvetenskapen, hantera missuppfattningar samt att göra lokala projekt. Dessa strategier kan implementeras i undervisningen genom erfarenhetsbaserat lärande, rollspel och användning av skönlitteratur. Arbetssätten som presenteras kan minska klimatångest och istället bidra till hopp för att utveckla miljövänliga attityder och beteenden. Slutsatserna som dras i kunskapsöversikten är att arbetet med klimatundervisning bör påbörjas i så tidig ålder som möjligt trots bristande direktiv från läroplanen för grundskola samt för förskoleklassen och fritidshem (LGR11). Att lärare för de lägre årskurserna kan välja att inte genomföra klimatundervisning med tanke på de bristande direktiven samt i oro för att väcka negativa känslor som klimatångest hos elever är ännu en slutsats som dras. På grund av att klimatångest är ett faktiskt problem är det av största vikt att fokusera på undervisning som bidrar till hopp.

Human activities have lead to changes in the energy balance of the Earth and the global climate. Changes in atmospheric aerosols are the second largest contributor to climate change after greenhouse gases since 1750 A.D. Land-use practices and other environmental drivers have caused changes in the emission of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) well before 1750 A.D, possibly causing climate effects through aerosol-radiation and aerosol-cloud interactions. Two numerical emission models LPJ-GUESS and MEGAN were used to quantify the changes in aerosol forming BVOC emissions in the past millennium. A chemical transport model of the atmosphere (GEOS-Chem-TOMAS) was driven with those BVOC emissions to quantify the effects on radiation caused by millennial changes in SOA. The specific objectives of this licentiate thesis are: 1) to understand what drove the changes in aerosol-forming BVOC emissions (i.e. isoprene, monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes) and to quantify these changes; 2) to calculate for the first time the combined historical aerosol direct and aerosol-cloud albedo effects on radiation from changing BVOC emissions through SOA formation; 3) to investigate how important the biological climate feedback associated to BVOC emissions and SOA formation is from a global climate perspective. We find that global isoprene emissions decreased after 1800 A.D. by about 12% - 15%. This decrease was dominated by losses of natural vegetation, whereas monoterpene and sesquiterpene emissions increased by about 2% - 10%, driven mostly by rising surface air temperatures. From 1000 A.D. to 1800 A.D, isoprene, monoterpene and sesquiterpene emissions decline by 3% - 8% driven by both, natural vegetation losses, and the moderate global cooling between the medieval climate anomaly and the little ice age. The millennial reduction in BVOC emissions lead to a 0.5% to 2% reduction in climatically relevant aerosol particles (&gt; 80 nm) and cause a direct radiative forcing between +0.02 W/m² and +0.07 W/m², and an indirect radiative forcing between -0.02 W/m² and +0.02 W/m². The suggested biological climate feedback seems to be too small to have observable consequences on the global climate in the recent past.

I rådande klimatförändringar ses ett stort behov av långsiktiga och stabila lösningar för att både minska och för att binda kol. En kolsänkeprodukt är biokol som utöver sin förmåga att agera kolsänka även bidrar som jordförbättrare när den tillsätts i planteringar och till skogar. Biokol har även setts ha en tillväxthöjdande effekt på träd och växtlighet. I studien ses att biokol kan anses vara en kolsänka. Studiens resultat indikerar även att biokol har en effekt på trädens diametertillväxtoch jordens organiska halt. Studien indikerar på att en påverkan av biokol finns i Varvsparken i Malmö. Som en framtida klimatnyttig produkt ses biokol ha stor potential men där tillsättning av biokol behöver anpassas efter jordtyp, önskade effekter och långsiktig påverkan.

The increasing number of registrations and usage of private airplanes have an outside impact of aviation emissions. This paper describes a design intervention to reduce private aviation specifically, and business travel in general, by use of holographic video conferencing technologies that seek to address deficiencies in current videoconferencing technologies. With an open-source technology roadmap for an interoperable holoconferencing system in mind, a campaign object – the COPCube – was created that will be used to lobby policymakers at the upcoming COP28 conference in Dubai, UAE, to reduce private travel, by example and regulation, and to invest in development of alternative technologies such as described in the paper.

Bakgrund: Sedan dess tidiga start på 60-talet växer idag Artificiell Intelligens (AI) i revolutionerande fart och används idag i områden från sjukvård, digitala klockor, domstolar, offentliga toaletter, preventivmedel eller till energisystem. Den breda implementeringen och data växer storslaget fram på marknaden. Men AI-tekniken bidrar även till att bland annat kvinnor drabbas av stereotypa könsroller som programmeras in, trots att kvinnor är de som 1) använder tekniken minst och 2) är underrepresenterade inom tech-sektorn. Ur ett etiskt perspektiv finns även andra problematiska svårigheter med AI i förhållande till dess utsläpp och påverkan på klimatet. Syfte: Syftet med arbetet är att studera vilka föreställningar om AI personer som är verksamma inom sektorn i Sverige har, med särskild hänsyn till genus och klimat. Frågeställning: Vilka föreställningar har personer verksamma inom AI-sektorn i relation till genus och klimat? Metod och teori: En kvalitativ metod har använts där halvstrukturerade intervjuer har gjorts med fyra personer. En kvalitativ innehållsanalys har gjorts vid analyserandet av intervjutranskriberingarna. I Analysen tillämpas Yvonne Hirdmans genusteori. Slutsats: AI diskursen med dess mestadels positiva konnotationer har ett stadigt grepp inom sektorn. Inget av de aktuella projekten som informanterna är verksamma i nu tillämpar något specifikt etiskt regelverk, bortsett från de etiska riktlinjer som varje enskild organisation som är involverad i projektet har. Det finns en viss medvetenhet om etikrelaterade problem med AI kopplat till genus och klimatförändringar, men inget större engagemang i att hantera det eller att granska egna utsläpp. Huvudfokus är hur AI kan tillämpas för att hantera olika samhällsutmaningar.

Throughout earths history, the climate have always naturally varied due to both external forcings and internal mechanisms. With the outlook on future climate change, it is important to understand the climate system and this includes its natural variability. Depending on the driving mechanisms, the variability happens over different timescales. Among these is centennial variability, which still have unanswered questions. Studying centennial variability requires climate timeseries that are both long enough to encompass several cycles and detailed enough to resolve the variability signals. New data from long transient Holocene model simulations and recent efforts to compile large proxy databases now presents an opportunity to study centennial variability with better data foundation than earlier. To do so, this master thesis studies centennial variability in transient Holocene simulations from 9 models and 122 proxy records with a spectral analysis with the aim of finding the general signals related to cycle length, geographic dependencies and discuss the implications for the ongoing scientific discussion on the potential driver(s). The spectral analysis of the proxy records finds centennial variability significant from red noise in the majority of the records, with the highest concentration of cycle lengths around 120- 130 years, an average at 240-300 years, depending on the number of cycles included in the calculation, and no clear indication of it being dependent on which climate variable, although air temperature is the biggest group and influence the results the most. The analysis of the model global mean temperature (GMT) also finds centennial variability in all simulations with the highest concentration of cycle lengths around 120-150 years and an average just slightly above that. A good agreement between model and proxy data is thereby indicated, although the spread is slightly larger for the proxy data, but this is also a more diverse collection of data than the models. There is also a good agreement in the lack of latitudinal dependencies, where centennial variability is found at all latitudes of the model data (6 bands with a combined global coverage is analysed) and no clear differentiation is found between the proxy records at different latitudes. However, all the model data have most spectral density distributed over the 90N to 60N latitude band, which indicates either a particular variability sensitivity or potential driving mechanisms in this region. Four of the models also have differentiated/single forcings simulations and the spectral analysis of the GMT in all of these also reveals significant centennial variability with cycle lengths between 100-200 years. The simulations where only orbital forcing also show this and so the different forcings seem to induce some variability to the system, but none can be said to be the main driver based on the spectral analysis. This also includes solar irradiance, which long have been hypothesised to drive centennial variability, as all the simulations without this forcing, which includes some of the full forcing simulations as well, all have significant centennial variability. The results instead indicate that centennial variability is internally driven and that the Arctic is a region of interest for this aspect. The conclusions is not without uncertainties, as both proxies and model simulations have uncertainties, but when analysing with a largely uniform approach on a large data collection, there is good evidence of centennial variability with cycle lengths around 100-200 years across the entire range of available Holocene paleoclimate data