In the Alberta oil sands region, insufficient knowledge of pre-disturbance reference conditions has undermined the ability of the Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP) to detect pollution of the Athabasca River, because sampling began three decades after the industry started and the river naturally erodes oil-bearing strata.

We introduce a simplified version of the soccer ball model (SBM) developed by Niedermeier et al (2014 Geophys. Res. Lett. 41 736–741) into the Community Atmospheric Model version 5 (CAM5). It is the first time that SBM is used in an atmospheric model to parameterize the heterogeneous ice nucleation. The SBM, which was simplified for its suitable application in atmospheric models, uses the classical nucleation theory to describe the immersion/condensation freezing by dust in the mixed-phase cloud regime.

Transparent, consistent, and accurate national forest monitoring is required for successful implementation of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) programs. Collecting baseline information on forest extent and rates of forest loss is a first step for national forest monitoring in support of REDD+. Peru, with the second largest extent of Amazon basin rainforest, has made significant progress in advancing its forest monitoring capabilities.

The present study reports on the abundance of reactive nitrogen (NH3 and NO2) at two sites, i.e. Okhla (urban site) in Delhi and Mai (rural site), located in the nearby state: Uttar Pradesh. The measurements were carried out during the period from October, 2012 to September, 2013 on a monthly basis.

Unprecedented wet conditions are reported in the 2014 summer (December–March) in South-western Amazon, with rainfall about 100% above normal. Discharge in the Madeira River (the main southern Amazon tributary) has been 74% higher than normal (58 000 m3 s−1) at Porto Velho and 380% (25 000 m3 s−1) at Rurrenabaque, at the exit of the Andes in summer, while levels of the Rio Negro at Manaus were 29.47 m in June 2014, corresponding to the fifth highest record during the 113 years record of the Rio Negro.

The IPCC Guidelines propose 3 Tier levels for greenhouse gas monitoring within the forest land category with a hierarchical order in terms of accuracy, data requirements and complexity. Due to missing data and/or capacities, many developing countries, potentially interested in the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation scheme, have to rely on Tier 1 default values with highest uncertainties. A possible way to increase the credibility of uncertain estimates is to apply a conservative approach, for which standard statistical information is needed.

It is known that carbon dioxide emissions cause the Earth to warm, but no previous study has focused on examining how long it takes to reach maximum warming following a particular CO2 emission. Using conjoined results of carbon-cycle and physical-climate model intercomparison projects, we find the median time between an emission and maximum warming is 10.1 years, with a 90% probability range of 6.6–30.7 years.

A nitrogen (N) budget for Denmark has been developed for the years 1990 to 2010, describing the inputs and outputs at the national scale and the internal flows between relevant sectors of the economy. Satisfactorily closing the N budgets for some sectors of the economy was not possible, due to missing or contradictory information. The budgets were nevertheless considered sufficiently reliable to quantify the major flows. Agriculture was responsible for the majority of inputs, though fisheries and energy generation also made significant contributions.

Humans increase the amount of reactive nitrogen (all N species except N2) in the environment through a number of processes, primarily food and energy production. Once in the environment, excess reactive nitrogen may cause a host of various environmental problems. Understanding and controlling individual nitrogen footprints is important for preserving environmental and human health. In this paper we present the per capita nitrogen footprint of Japan.

Assessing potential climate effects of natural gas versus coal electricity generation is complicated by the large number of factors reported in life cycle assessment studies, compounded by the large number of proposed climate metrics. Thus, there is a need to identify the key factors affecting the climate effects of natural gas versus coal electricity production, and to present these climate effects in as clear and transparent a way as possible.