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Secondary Students' Ideas About Scientific Concepts Underlying Climate Change, Lorna E. Jarrett, George J. Takacs
Secondary Students' Ideas About Scientific Concepts Underlying Climate Change, Lorna E. Jarrett, George J. Takacs
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B
We present ideas about concepts underlying climate change, held by students in years 9 and 10. Misconceptions about climate change are common among students, and may be due to misconceptions about underlying concepts. To investigate this, we developed the Climate Change Concept Inventory (CCCI), and trialed it with 229 students; corroborating findings through focus group interviews. Our interview method and data analysis methods are described. Findings included overestimation of human contributions to atmospheric carbon inputs, ultra violet radiation in sunlight, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Students were unaware that CO2 dissolves in water, and of the role of oceans …
Performance Simulation And Evaluation Of Net Zero Energy Buildings In An Australian Coastal Climate, Joel Anderson, Duane A. Robinson, Zhenjun Ma
Performance Simulation And Evaluation Of Net Zero Energy Buildings In An Australian Coastal Climate, Joel Anderson, Duane A. Robinson, Zhenjun Ma
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B
Net zero energy buildings (NZEB) are becoming more common, and as new energy saving designs and technologies become available, the ability to estimate overall energy use and understand the impact on operation of building appliances will become important. This paper outlines simulation results of performance improvements achieved by modifying various components (glazing, lighting, thermal comfort settings) of two tertiary education NZEBs and a typical modern commercial building. The DesignBuilder models' thermal performance and energy consumption were validated using real data from case study buildings. The work shows validating models of smaller, less conven-tional, buildings is more difficult than for larger …
A Combined Experimental And Simulation Method For Appraising The Energy Performance Of Green Roofs In Ningbo's Chinese Climate, Georgios Kokogiannakis, Jo Darkwa, Kate Yuan
A Combined Experimental And Simulation Method For Appraising The Energy Performance Of Green Roofs In Ningbo's Chinese Climate, Georgios Kokogiannakis, Jo Darkwa, Kate Yuan
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
A passive means of lowering the energy demand of buildings is the application of green roofs. The complexity between heat and moisture exchanges in green roof layers and the large variations of green roof types make the need for experimental or simulation assessments necessary for quantifying the energy benefits from green roofs. The current treatment of green roofs in simulation programs is either over-simplistic, for example by ignoring heat and moisture exchanges such as evapotranspiration, or the more advanced models have limitations and require inputs that are rarely available in practice. In this paper a combination of experimental and modelling …
Integrated Dehumidification And Downdraft Evaporative Cooling System For A Hot-Humid Climate, Sriraj Gokarakonda, Georgios Kokogiannakis
Integrated Dehumidification And Downdraft Evaporative Cooling System For A Hot-Humid Climate, Sriraj Gokarakonda, Georgios Kokogiannakis
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
Unlike in hot-dry climates, in hot-humid climates evaporative cooling techniques are not readily suitable for space cooling. In order to effectively use evaporative cooling in hot-humid climates, dehumidification of ambient air is necessary before it passes over an evaporative medium for cooling. The present study explores the combined process of dehumidification and evaporation and its effect on thermal comfort in a typical small residential building located in a hot humid climate. A novel system has been investigated with the combination of an Earth Tube Ventilation (ETV) (for pre-cooling of air), a rotary wheel desiccant dehumidifier (for dehumidification) along with a …
Climate Change Mitigation With Integration Of Renewable Energy Resources In The Electricity Grid Of New South Wales, Australia, Md Abu Abdullah, Ashish Agalgaonkar, Kashem M. Muttaqi
Climate Change Mitigation With Integration Of Renewable Energy Resources In The Electricity Grid Of New South Wales, Australia, Md Abu Abdullah, Ashish Agalgaonkar, Kashem M. Muttaqi
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
The implementation of climate change mitigation strategies may significantly affect the current practices for electricity network operation. Increasing penetration of renewable energy generation technologies into electricity networks is one of the key mitigation strategies to achieve greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. Additional climate change mitigation strategies can also contribute to emission reduction thereby supplementing the renewable energy generation participation, which may be limited due to technical constraints of the network. In this paper, the penetration requirements for different renewable energy generation resources are assessed while concurrently examining other mitigation strategies to reduce overall emissions from electricity networks and meet requisite …
Evolutionary Algorithm For Water Storage Forecasting Response To Climate Change With Small Data Sets: The Wolonghu Wetland, China, Qingwei Ni, Li Wang, Binghui Zheng, Muttucumaru Sivakumar
Evolutionary Algorithm For Water Storage Forecasting Response To Climate Change With Small Data Sets: The Wolonghu Wetland, China, Qingwei Ni, Li Wang, Binghui Zheng, Muttucumaru Sivakumar
Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)
"A novel genetic programming (GP) technique, a new method of evolutionary algorithms, was applied to a small data set to predict the water storage of Wolonghu wetland in response to the climate change in the northeastern part of China. Fourteen years (1993-2006) of annual water storage and climatic data of the wetland were used for model training and testing. Results of simulations and predictions illustrate a good fit between calculated water storage and observed values (mean absolute percent error = 9.47, r = 0.99). By comparison, a multilayer perceptron method (a popular artificial neural network model) and Grey theory model …
Development And Validation Of A Concept Inventory For Introductory-Level Climate Change Science, Lorna Jarrett, Brian Ferry, George Takacs
Development And Validation Of A Concept Inventory For Introductory-Level Climate Change Science, Lorna Jarrett, Brian Ferry, George Takacs
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
This paper follows on from Jarrett, Takacs and Ferry (2011) which reported the first stage in development of a high school level concept inventory (CI) for the science of climate change: the climate change concept inventory (CCCI). In order to develop a reliable and valid instrument, it is necessary to follow appropriate procedures. This paper details the process of CI item development; reports statistical results of initial field trials and outlines how these will be used to further refine the CCCI. Item difficulty, discrimination, and point biserial coefficient were calculated for each item. Cronbach's alpha and test-retest data were used …
A Spatial Agent-Based Model To Explore Scenarios Of Adaptation To Climate Change In An Alpine Tourism Destination, Stefano Balbi, Pascal Perez, Carlo Giupponi
A Spatial Agent-Based Model To Explore Scenarios Of Adaptation To Climate Change In An Alpine Tourism Destination, Stefano Balbi, Pascal Perez, Carlo Giupponi
SMART Infrastructure Facility - Papers
A vast body of literature suggests that the European Alpine region may be one of the most sensitive to climate change impacts. Adaptation to climate change of Alpine socioecosystems is increasingly becoming an issue of interest for the scientific community while the people of the Alps are often unaware of or simply ignore the problem. ClimAlpTour is a European research project of the Alpine Space Programme, bringing together institutions and scholars from all countries of the Alpine arch, in view of dealing with the expected decrease in snow and ice cover, which may lead to a rethinking of tourism development …
New Policies Create A New Politics: Issues Of Institutional Design In Climate Change Policy, Henry Ergas
New Policies Create A New Politics: Issues Of Institutional Design In Climate Change Policy, Henry Ergas
SMART Infrastructure Facility - Papers
Institutional design focuses on the task of providing accountability and effective monitoring of decision-making by bodies vested with the coercive powers of the state in a context where information is inherently limited, costly to acquire and asymmetrically distributed. This paper focuses on issues of institutional design in the context of climate change policy. It examines proposals advanced in the June 2008 Draft and Final Reports of the Garnaut Climate Change Review (‘Garnaut Reports’), and in the Government’s July 2008 Green Paper and December 2008 White Paper on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (‘Green and White Papers’) with respect to how …
Dynamics Of A Salinity-Prone Agricultural Catchment Driven By Markets, Farmers' Attitudes And Climate Change, S Asseng, A Dray, Pascal Perez, X Su, J P. Muller
Dynamics Of A Salinity-Prone Agricultural Catchment Driven By Markets, Farmers' Attitudes And Climate Change, S Asseng, A Dray, Pascal Perez, X Su, J P. Muller
SMART Infrastructure Facility - Papers
An agent-based simulation model has been developed with CORMAS combining simplified bio-physical processes of land cover, dry-land salinity changes, rainfall, farm profitability and farmer decisions on land uses in a dry-land agricultural catchment (no irrigation). Simulated farmers formulate individual decisions dealing with land use changes based on the combined performance of their past land cover productivity and market returns. The willingness to adapt to market drivers and the ability to maximize returns varies across farmers. In addition, farmers in the model can demonstrate various attitudes towards salinity mitigation as a consequence of experiencing and perceiving salinity on their farm, in …