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A new business plan that enables policy transformation and resource mobilization at the national and international level, while improving access to resources, will allow the Green Climate Fund to integrate development goals and action on climate change.
If research on attribution of extreme weather events is to inform emerging climate change policies, it needs to diagnose all of the components of risk.
Andrew Weaver has held a prestigious Canada Research Chair, worked on four IPCC assessments and written two popular science books. This May, he was elected as the first Green Party Member of the Legislative Assembly in British Columbia. He talks to Nature Climate Change about what he hopes to achieve.
Mexico City is unique among developing megacities for having a 27-year time series of detailed air-quality data. Anna Petherick asks what other cities can learn from its example.
A large share of China's carbon emissions is linked to consumption that takes place in its most developed provinces and overseas. A study highlights the implications of considering those emissions in the country's climate policy.
Accurately determining the warming associated with scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions remains an overarching aim of climate modelling. Research now shows that contemporary measurements significantly reduce uncertainty bounds and indicate that some more extreme warming predictions may be less likely.
China, already the largest generator of hydroelectricity, plans to accelerate dam construction. This has led to warnings that increased emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly methane, from Chinese reservoirs could constitute a 'global warming time-bomb'. A review of evidence on emissions from the Three Gorges Reservoir — the world's largest — indicates that such fears are probably misplaced.
Much climate change education research is now being funded in the USA. This Perspective argues that university-level climate change education may promote interdisciplinary, keep talented young people in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics pipeline, and help all students enhance their scientific, quantitative and climate literacies.
Rising temperatures may alter the proportions of both heat- and cold-related deaths, leaving the net impact on annual mortality uncertain. Current and future seasonal patterns of temperature-related mortality in Manhattan, New York, are estimated, showing warm season increases and cold season decreases in temperature-related mortality, with positive net annual deaths in all cases.
Climate change mitigation has slowed down as major emitters face economic stagnation. Research now shows that the average cost to society of an additional tonne of carbon dioxide emissions tends to increase during recessions as the impact occurs in a poorer world. This suggests that climate change mitigation should be a priority in a low-growth situation.
The response of the carbon cycle to climate change, including carbon fluxes, is now shown to be the second largest source of uncertainty in projections of temperature. A simplified climate model using temperature records and historical estimates of CO2 concentrations demonstrates that considering these two factors together reduces uncertainty further than treating them as individual parameters.
Short-lived climate pollutants are known to contribute to global warming, but the impact of this increased temperature on sea-level rise due to thermal expansion is not known. Curbing emissions of these pollutants is shown to significantly reduce the rate of sea-level rise by 24–50% by 2100; however, delaying mitigation by 25 years reduces the impact on sea-level rise by about a third.
Two dynamical methods are used at present to project sea-level changes during the next century—process-based and semi-empirical. However, semi-empirical projections can exceed process-based projections three-fold. This work tests the robustness of semi-empirical projections to the underlying assumptions, and finds these projections are sensitive to the dynamics considered and the terrestrial-water corrections applied.
This study looks at the pace of change in climate zones as a function of global warming. Using the RCP8.5 scenario, the rate nearly doubles by the end of this century, and about 20% of all land area undergoes a change. In the future, species will have less time to adapt, therefore increasing the risk of extinction.
The causes of interannual variability in Arctic sea-ice extent are not well understood. This study looks at the impact of the greenhouse effect, associated with clouds and water vapour, on sea-ice formation and melt. Enhancement of the greenhouse effect, due to increased cloudiness and humidity, results in increased ice melt.
Future tropical cyclone activity is investigated around the Hawaiian Islands. Projections show a consistent and robust increase in the frequency of tropical cyclones by the end of the century. This increase is attributed to changes in large-scale circulation, which alters the cyclone tracks.
Climatic warming is intensifying the global water cycle, and is projected to increase rainfall variability. Higher interannual variability in rainfall is shown to reduce tree cover in the wet tropics, but may promote expansion of cover in tropical dry lands.
Climate-induced changes in phenology have the potential to push trophic relationships out of synchrony, but evidence of this phenomenon is scant, particularly in the Arctic. A long-term (1996–2009), spatially replicated data set from high-Arctic Greenland now indicates a climate-associated shortening of the flowering season, and a concomitant decline in flower visitor abundance.
