| 1. |
- Arndt, D. S., et al.
(author)
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STATE OF THE CLIMATE IN 2017
- 2018
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In: Bulletin of The American Meteorological Society - (BAMS). - : American Meteorological Society. - 0003-0007 .- 1520-0477. ; 99:8, s. S1-S310
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Research review (peer-reviewed)
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| 2. |
- Arndt, D. S., et al.
(author)
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State of the Climate in 2016
- 2017
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In: Bulletin of The American Meteorological Society - (BAMS). - 0003-0007 .- 1520-0477. ; 98:8, s. S1-S280
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In 2016, the dominant greenhouse gases released into Earth's atmosphere-carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide-continued to increase and reach new record highs. The 3.5 +/- 0.1 ppm rise in global annual mean carbon dioxide from 2015 to 2016 was the largest annual increase observed in the 58-year measurement record. The annual global average carbon dioxide concentration at Earth's surface surpassed 400 ppm (402.9 +/- 0.1 ppm) for the first time in the modern atmospheric measurement record and in ice core records dating back as far as 800000 years. One of the strongest El Nino events since at least 1950 dissipated in spring, and a weak La Nina evolved later in the year. Owing at least in part to the combination of El Nino conditions early in the year and a long-term upward trend, Earth's surface observed record warmth for a third consecutive year, albeit by a much slimmer margin than by which that record was set in 2015. Above Earth's surface, the annual lower troposphere temperature was record high according to all datasets analyzed, while the lower stratospheric temperature was record low according to most of the in situ and satellite datasets. Several countries, including Mexico and India, reported record high annual temperatures while many others observed near-record highs. A week-long heat wave at the end of April over the northern and eastern Indian peninsula, with temperatures surpassing 44 degrees C, contributed to a water crisis for 330 million people and to 300 fatalities. In the Arctic the 2016 land surface temperature was 2.0 degrees C above the 1981-2010 average, breaking the previous record of 2007, 2011, and 2015 by 0.8 degrees C, representing a 3.5 degrees C increase since the record began in 1900. The increasing temperatures have led to decreasing Arctic sea ice extent and thickness. On 24 March, the sea ice extent at the end of the growth season saw its lowest maximum in the 37-year satellite record, tying with 2015 at 7.2% below the 1981-2010 average. The September 2016 Arctic sea ice minimum extent tied with 2007 for the second lowest value on record, 33% lower than the 1981-2010 average. Arctic sea ice cover remains relatively young and thin, making it vulnerable to continued extensive melt. The mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which has the capacity to contribute similar to 7 m to sea level rise, reached a record low value. The onset of its surface melt was the second earliest, after 2012, in the 37-year satellite record. Sea surface temperature was record high at the global scale, surpassing the previous record of 2015 by about 0.01 degrees C. The global sea surface temperature trend for the 21st century-to-date of +0.162 degrees C decade(-1) is much higher than the longer term 1950-2016 trend of +0.100 degrees C decade(-1). Global annual mean sea level also reached a new record high, marking the sixth consecutive year of increase. Global annual ocean heat content saw a slight drop compared to the record high in 2015. Alpine glacier retreat continued around the globe, and preliminary data indicate that 2016 is the 37th consecutive year of negative annual mass balance. Across the Northern Hemisphere, snow cover for each month from February to June was among its four least extensive in the 47-year satellite record. Continuing a pattern below the surface, record high temperatures at 20-m depth were measured at all permafrost observatories on the North Slope of Alaska and at the Canadian observatory on northernmost Ellesmere Island. In the Antarctic, record low monthly surface pressures were broken at many stations, with the southern annular mode setting record high index values in March and June. Monthly high surface pressure records for August and November were set at several stations. During this period, record low daily and monthly sea ice extents were observed, with the November mean sea ice extent more than 5 standard deviations below the 1981-2010 average. These record low sea ice values contrast sharply with the record high values observed during 2012-14. Over the region, springtime Antarctic stratospheric ozone depletion was less severe relative to the 1991-2006 average, but ozone levels were still low compared to pre-1990 levels. Closer to the equator, 93 named tropical storms were observed during 2016, above the 1981-2010 average of 82, but fewer than the 101 storms recorded in 2015. Three basins-the North Atlantic, and eastern and western North Pacific-experienced above-normal activity in 2016. The Australian basin recorded its least active season since the beginning of the satellite era in 1970. Overall, four tropical cyclones reached the Saffir-Simpson category 5 intensity level. The strong El Nino at the beginning of the year that transitioned to a weak La Nina contributed to enhanced precipitation variability around the world. Wet conditions were observed throughout the year across southern South America, causing repeated heavy flooding in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Wetter-than-usual conditions were also observed for eastern Europe and central Asia, alleviating the drought conditions of 2014 and 2015 in southern Russia. In the United States, California had its first wetter-than-average year since 2012, after being plagued by drought for several years. Even so, the area covered by drought in 2016 at the global scale was among the largest in the post-1950 record. For each month, at least 12% of land surfaces experienced severe drought conditions or worse, the longest such stretch in the record. In northeastern Brazil, drought conditions were observed for the fifth consecutive year, making this the longest drought on record in the region. Dry conditions were also observed in western Bolivia and Peru; it was Bolivia's worst drought in the past 25 years. In May, with abnormally warm and dry conditions already prevailing over western Canada for about a year, the human-induced Fort McMurray wildfire burned nearly 590000 hectares and became the costliest disaster in Canadian history, with $3 billion (U.S. dollars) in insured losses.
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| 3. |
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- 2019
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Wang, Anqi, et al.
(author)
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Characterizing prostate cancer risk through multi-ancestry genome-wide discovery of 187 novel risk variants
- 2023
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In: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Nature. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 55:12, s. 2065-2074
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The transferability and clinical value of genetic risk scores (GRSs) across populations remain limited due to an imbalance in genetic studies across ancestrally diverse populations. Here we conducted a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of 156,319 prostate cancer cases and 788,443 controls of European, African, Asian and Hispanic men, reflecting a 57% increase in the number of non-European cases over previous prostate cancer genome-wide association studies. We identified 187 novel risk variants for prostate cancer, increasing the total number of risk variants to 451. An externally replicated multi-ancestry GRS was associated with risk that ranged from 1.8 (per standard deviation) in African ancestry men to 2.2 in European ancestry men. The GRS was associated with a greater risk of aggressive versus non-aggressive disease in men of African ancestry (P = 0.03). Our study presents novel prostate cancer susceptibility loci and a GRS with effective risk stratification across ancestry groups.
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| 6. |
- Ade, Peter, et al.
(author)
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The Simons Observatory : science goals and forecasts
- 2019
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In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. - : IOP Publishing. - 1475-7516. ; :2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Simons Observatory (SO) is a new cosmic microwave background experiment being built on Cerro Toco in Chile, due to begin observations in the early 2020s. We describe the scientific goals of the experiment, motivate the design, and forecast its performance. SO will measure the temperature and polarization anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background in six frequency bands centered at: 27, 39, 93, 145, 225 and 280 GHz. The initial con figuration of SO will have three small-aperture 0.5-m telescopes and one large-aperture 6-m telescope, with a total of 60,000 cryogenic bolometers. Our key science goals are to characterize the primordial perturbations, measure the number of relativistic species and the mass of neutrinos, test for deviations from a cosmological constant, improve our understanding of galaxy evolution, and constrain the duration of reionization. The small aperture telescopes will target the largest angular scales observable from Chile, mapping approximate to 10% of the sky to a white noise level of 2 mu K-arcmin in combined 93 and 145 GHz bands, to measure the primordial tensor-to-scalar ratio, r, at a target level of sigma(r) = 0.003. The large aperture telescope will map approximate to 40% of the sky at arcminute angular resolution to an expected white noise level of 6 mu K-arcmin in combined 93 and 145 GHz bands, overlapping with the majority of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope sky region and partially with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. With up to an order of magnitude lower polarization noise than maps from the Planck satellite, the high-resolution sky maps will constrain cosmological parameters derived from the damping tail, gravitational lensing of the microwave background, the primordial bispectrum, and the thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects, and will aid in delensing the large-angle polarization signal to measure the tensor-to-scalar ratio. The survey will also provide a legacy catalog of 16,000 galaxy clusters and more than 20,000 extragalactic sources.
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| 7. |
- Uglebjerg, Nicoline, et al.
(author)
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Four missense genetic variants in CUBN are associated with higher levels of eGFR in non-diabetes but not in diabetes mellitus or its subtypes : A genetic association study in Europeans
- 2023
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In: Frontiers in Endocrinology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-2392. ; 14
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Aim: Rare genetic variants in the CUBN gene encoding the main albumin-transporter in the proximal tubule of the kidneys have previously been associated with microalbuminuria and higher urine albumin levels, also in diabetes. Sequencing studies in isolated proteinuria suggest that these variants might not affect kidney function, despite proteinuria. However, the relation of these CUBN missense variants to the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is largely unexplored. We hereby broadly examine the associations between four CUBN missense variants and eGFRcreatinine in Europeans with Type 1 (T1D) and Type 2 Diabetes (T2D). Furthermore, we sought to deepen our understanding of these variants in a range of single- and aggregate- variant analyses of other kidney-related traits in individuals with and without diabetes mellitus. Methods: We carried out a genetic association-based linear regression analysis between four CUBN missense variants (rs141640975, rs144360241, rs45551835, rs1801239) and eGFRcreatinine (ml/min/1.73 m2, CKD-EPIcreatinine(2012), natural log-transformed) in populations with T1D (n ~ 3,588) or T2D (n ~ 31,155) from multiple European studies and in individuals without diabetes from UK Biobank (UKBB, n ~ 370,061) with replication in deCODE (n = 127,090). Summary results of the diabetes-group were meta-analyzed using the fixed-effect inverse-variance method. Results: Albeit we did not observe associations between eGFRcreatinine and CUBN in the diabetes-group, we found significant positive associations between the minor alleles of all four variants and eGFRcreatinine in the UKBB individuals without diabetes with rs141640975 being the strongest (Effect=0.02, PeGFR_creatinine=2.2 × 10-9). We replicated the findings for rs141640975 in the Icelandic non-diabetes population (Effect=0.026, PeGFR_creatinine=7.7 × 10-4). For rs141640975, the eGFRcreatinine-association showed significant interaction with albuminuria levels (normo-, micro-, and macroalbuminuria; p = 0.03). An aggregated genetic risk score (GRS) was associated with higher urine albumin levels and eGFRcreatinine. The rs141640975 variant was also associated with higher levels of eGFRcreatinine-cystatin C (ml/min/1.73 m2, CKD-EPI2021, natural log-transformed) and lower circulating cystatin C levels. Conclusions: The positive associations between the four CUBN missense variants and eGFR in a large population without diabetes suggests a pleiotropic role of CUBN as a novel eGFR-locus in addition to it being a known albuminuria-locus. Additional associations with diverse renal function measures (lower cystatin C and higher eGFRcreatinine-cystatin C levels) and a CUBN-focused GRS further suggests an important role of CUBN in the future personalization of chronic kidney disease management in people without diabetes.
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| 8. |
- Yang, W., et al.
(author)
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Dawn of the dark : Unified dark sectors and the EDGES Cosmic Dawn 21-cm signal
- 2019
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In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. - : Institute of Physics Publishing. - 1475-7516. ; 2019:11
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- While the origin and composition of dark matter and dark energy remains unknown, it is possible that they might represent two manifestations of a single entity, as occurring in unified dark sector models. On the other hand, advances in our understanding of the dark sector of the Universe might arise from Cosmic Dawn, the epoch when the first stars formed. In particular, the first detection of the global 21-cm absorption signal at Cosmic Dawn from the EDGES experiment opens up a new arena wherein to test models of dark matter and dark energy. Here, we consider generalized and modified Chaplygin gas models as candidate unified dark sector models. We first constrain these models against Cosmic Microwave Background data from the Planck satellite, before exploring how the inclusion of the global 21-cm signal measured by EDGES can improve limits on the model parameters, finding that the uncertainties on the parameters of the Chaplygin gas models can be reduced by a factor between 1.5 and 10. We also find that within the generalized Chaplygin gas model, the tension between the CMB and local determinations of the Hubble constant H0 is reduced from ≈ 4σ to ≈ 1.3σ. In conclusion, we find that the global 21-cm signal at Cosmic Dawn can provide an extraordinary window onto the physics of unified dark sectors.
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| 9. |
- Harner, Tom, et al.
(author)
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Air synthesis review : polycyclic aromatic compounds in the oil sands region
- 2018
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In: Environmental Reviews. - : Canadian Science Publishing. - 1181-8700 .- 1208-6053. ; 26:4, s. 430-468
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This air synthesis review presents the current state of knowledge on the sources, fates, and effects for polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) and related chemicals released to air in the oil sands region (OSR) in Alberta, Canada. Through the implementation of the Joint Canada-Alberta Oil Sands Monitoring Program in 2012 a vast amount of new information on PACs has been acquired through directed monitoring and research projects and reported to the scientific community and public. This new knowledge addresses questions related to cumulative effects and informs the sustainable management of the oil sands resource while helping to identify gaps in understanding and priorities for future work. As a result of this air synthesis review on PACs, the following topics have been identified as new science priorities: (i) improving emissions reporting to better account for fugitive mining emissions of PACs that includes a broader range of PACs beyond the conventional polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) including, inter alia, alkylated-PAHs (alk-PAHs), dibenzothiophene (DBT), alk-DBTs, nitro-PAHs, oxy-PAHs including quinones and thia-and aza-arenes; (ii) improving information on the ambient concentrations, long-range transport, and atmospheric deposition of these broader classes of PACs and their release (with co-contaminants) from different types of mining activities; (iii) further optimizing electricity-free and cost-effective approaches for assessing PAC deposition (e.g., snow sampling, lichens, passive ambient sampling) spatially across the OSR and downwind regions; (iv) designing projects that integrate monitoring efforts with source attribution models and ecosystem health studies to improve understanding of sources, receptors, and effects; (v) further optimizing natural deposition archives (e.g., sediment, peat, tree rings) and advanced forensic techniques (e.g., isotope analysis, marker compounds) to provide better understanding of sources of PACs in the OSR over space and time; (vi) conducting process research to improve model capabilities for simulating atmospheric chemistry of PACs and assessing exposure to wildlife and humans; and (vii) developing tools and integrated strategies for assessing cumulative risk to wildlife and humans by accounting for the toxicity of the mixture of chemicals in air rather than on a single compound basis.
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| 10. |
- Imboden, Medea, et al.
(author)
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Epigenome-wide association study of lung function level and its change
- 2019
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In: European Respiratory Journal. - : European Respiratory Society. - 0903-1936 .- 1399-3003. ; 54:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Previous reports link differential DNA methylation (DNAme) to environmental exposures that are associated with lung function. Direct evidence on lung function DNAme is, however, limited. We undertook an agnostic epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) on pre-bronchodilation lung function and its change in adults.In a discovery-replication EWAS design, DNAme in blood and spirometry were measured twice, 6-15 years apart, in the same participants of three adult population-based discovery cohorts (n=2043). Associated DNAme markers (p<5×10-7) were tested in seven replication cohorts (adult: n=3327; childhood: n=420). Technical bias-adjusted residuals of a regression of the normalised absolute β-values on control probe-derived principle components were regressed on level and change of forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC) and their ratio (FEV1/FVC) in the covariate-adjusted discovery EWAS. Inverse-variance-weighted meta-analyses were performed on results from discovery and replication samples in all participants and never-smokers.EWAS signals were enriched for smoking-related DNAme. We replicated 57 lung function DNAme markers in adult, but not childhood samples, all previously associated with smoking. Markers not previously associated with smoking failed replication. cg05575921 (AHRR (aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor)) showed the statistically most significant association with cross-sectional lung function (FEV1/FVC: pdiscovery=3.96×10-21 and pcombined=7.22×10-50). A score combining 10 DNAme markers previously reported to mediate the effect of smoking on lung function was associated with lung function (FEV1/FVC: p=2.65×10-20).Our results reveal that lung function-associated methylation signals in adults are predominantly smoking related, and possibly of clinical utility in identifying poor lung function and accelerated decline. Larger studies with more repeat time-points are needed to identify lung function DNAme in never-smokers and in children.
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