Estimating the carbon footprint of the GRAND project, a multi-decade astrophysics experiment

Aujoux, Clarisse; Kotera, Kumiko; Blanchard, Odile

doi:10.1016/j.astropartphys.2021.102587

Cited by 30 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…impacts related to experiments and the way we advance research in our field [21,22,23,24,25]. In the Snowmass 2021 survey, we have asked three questions related to this topic (see Figure 20).…”

Section: Climate Emergency and Hepamentioning

confidence: 99%

Snowmass 2021 Community Survey Report

Agarwal¹,

Barrow²,

Carneiro³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Snowmass Community Survey was designed by the Snowmass Early Career (SEC) Survey Core Initiative team between April 2020 and June 2021, and released to the community on June 28, 2021. It aims to be a comprehensive assessment of the state of the high-energy particle and astrophysics (HEPA) community, if not the field, though the Snowmass process is largely based within the United States. Among other topics, some of the central foci of the Survey were to gather demographic, career, physics outlook, and workplace culture data on a large segment of the Snowmass community. With nearly 1500 total interactions with the Survey, the SEC Survey team hopes the findings and discussions within this report will be of service to the community over the next decade. Some conclusions should reinforce the aspects of HEPA which are already functional and productive, while others should strengthen arguments for cultural and policy changes within the field.

show abstract

Section: Climate Emergency and Hepamentioning

confidence: 99%

Snowmass 2021 Community Survey Report

Agarwal¹,

Barrow²,

Carneiro³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is thus of no surprise that travel-related emission is one of the major contributions to the CO 2 budget of astrophysical research, reaching up to ∼45% of the total emission of an individual institutes and/or communities, depending on their location and scientific focus [4,5,12], with similar estimates for whole collaborations such as GRAND [10]. Addressing academic travel is thus paramount when addressing the academic CO 2 footprint.…”

Section: Conferences and Travel (Victoria Grinberg)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Until recently we did not have good data about this. This changed in the past years for the field of astronomy, where assessments have calculated the total and per-scientist CO 2 -emissions for the Australian astronomy community [4], the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) [5], the CFHT telescope [6,7], in-person vs. online conferencing [8], and more recently the European Southern Observatory [9], as well as planning for the GRAND experiment in China [10]. This ties in with the wider-context Labos1point5 initiative of research labs in France [11].…”

Section: Introduction: Doing Science In a Developing Climate Crisis (Knud Jahnke)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability in Astroparticle Physics

Funk¹,

Grinberg²,

Jahnke³

et al. 2021

Proceedings of 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference — PoS(ICRC2021)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the field of astronomy and astrophysics, several quantitative assessments and discussions about our impact on the environment -mostly focussing on GHG emissions -have recently been published. These studies have addressed several different facets of the community and its activities: a single research institute [18], a national community [32,37], existing or planned research infrastructures [14,6], high-performance computing [29], large astronomy meetings [10], and possible mitigating solutions [26,11]. Despite their differences, these studies all find that significant efforts must be made to align our research practices with IPCC-recommended trajectories for the next decades.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The carbon footprint of IRAP

Martin¹,

Brau-Nogué²,

Coriat³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

With ∼ 260 staff members employed at our institute, our results imply that performing research in astronomy and astrophysics at IRAP according to the standards of 2019 produces average GHG emissions of 28 t CO 2 e/yr per person involved in that activity. This figure lies well above the target global average budget of 2 t CO 2 e/yr per capita by 2050. However, the footprint is spread across a variety of social and economic sectors, and so are the benefits of the research activity. As a consequence, the emission reduction to be achieved by scientific research should be made on open and democratic grounds, in a debate reaching beyond scientific communities and informed by facts and figures such as those presented here.Regardless of the exact reduction goals for our community, the magnitude of the challenge and the necessity to quickly engage into an effective transition calls for acting on all aspects of the problem: lowering the carbon intensity of our activities, reducing their pace, and shifting our work practices towards less emission-intensive options. At the level of our own institute, we show that emissions in the restricted perimeter can be reduced by up to 30%, by changing our traveling habits and adopting different practices for commuting. Revising the criteria for the purchase of goods and services could provide an additional significant reduction. At the community level, the most urgent objective should be to lower the carbon footprint of research infrastructures and avoid that it keeps growing with the deployment of new facilities.

show abstract

Estimating the carbon footprint of the GRAND project, a multi-decade astrophysics experiment

Cited by 30 publications

References 29 publications

Snowmass 2021 Community Survey Report

Snowmass 2021 Community Survey Report

Sustainability in Astroparticle Physics

The carbon footprint of IRAP

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About