Volume 4 Issue 3, March 2014

The recent slowdown (or 'pause') in global surface temperature rise is a hot topic for climate scientists and the wider public. We discuss how climate scientists have tried to communicate the pause and suggest that 'many-to-many' communication offers a key opportunity to directly engage with the public.

We must not fall victim to decontextualized and ahistorical media accounting of climate trends.

Natural variability can explain fluctuations in surface temperatures but can it account for the current slowdown in warming?

Observational data show a continued increase of hot extremes over land during the so-called global warming hiatus. This tendency is greater for the most extreme events and thus more relevant for impacts than changes in global mean temperature.

It is time to acknowledge that global average temperatures are likely to rise above the 2 °C policy target and consider how that deeply troubling prospect should affect priorities for communicating and managing the risks of a dangerously warming climate.

Scientists have offered numerous explanations for the recent slowdown in global surface warming. Now, one study suggests that tropical trade winds may hold the answer.

The policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, Bob Ward, talks to Nature Climate Change about the need for climate scientists to actively engage with the public.

Surface global warming has stalled since around 2000 despite increasing atmospheric CO₂. A study finds that recent strengthening of Pacific trade winds has enhanced heat transport from the surface to ocean depths, explaining most of the slowed surface warming.

There has been much debate about whether winter warming due to climate change will substantially decrease mortality in that season. Research now finds that cold severity no longer predicts the number of excess winter deaths in England and Wales.

Climate change poses new challenges to the conservation of species, which at present requires data-hungry models to meaningfully anticipate future threats. Now a study suggests that species traits may offer a simpler way to help predict future extinction risks.

International trade is responsible for a large portion of carbon emissions transfers, mainly from developing to developed countries. Research now analyses different policies to address these transfers. The most promising option, both environmentally and economically, is for developed nations to offset trade-related emissions by financing clean development projects in developing countries.

Evidence on the relationship between human migration and climatic events is limited. Now research links information from a longitudinal survey in rural Pakistan to satellite-derived measures of climate variability. Results show that heat stress consistently increases the long-term migration of men owing to impacts on income.

Economic development improves the conditions of human life, but at a cost to the natural environment. Research now estimates the relationship between economic development and the carbon intensity of human well-being—the ratio of anthropogenic carbon emissions to average life expectancy at birth—globally, over 40 years. Most of the countries studied, including African nations over recent decades, followed unsustainable paths of development.

Recent reports suggest that anthropogenic climate change is likely to decrease winter mortality in temperature countries as winters warm. Research now finds that the link between winter temperatures and excess winter deaths in England and Wales, over the period 1951–2011, is significant only until the mid 1970s, other factors explaining any variation in excess winter mortality since then.

Damage from hurricanes is increasing in many coastal regions worldwide. Research now shows that large wind-turbine arrays can significantly diminish peak near-surface hurricane wind speeds and storm surge. The net cost of turbine arrays is less than that of today’s fossil-fuel electricity generation and also than that of sea walls used to avoid storm-surge damage.

The use of models for the prediction of future climate conditions is commonplace. This study investigates regional sea surface temperature biases across 22 climate models and finds that they are linked to the large circulation system in the Atlantic Ocean. Improvements to climate models will need to consider the impact of remote biases on regional processes.

Although many species-level responses to climate warming have been documented, understanding of ecosystem-level stability under warming remains low. Now, a study using meta-analyses of temperature effects on metabolic rates, reeding rates and population sizes along with a mechanistic predator–prey model finds that warming stabilizes predator–prey dynamics but risks predator starvation.

The future sustainability of global fisheries is unknown. Models of physical, biological and human responses to climate change are applied to 67 national exclusive economic zones, which cover 60% of global fishery catches. This allows prediction of climate change impacts on countries with different dependencies on fisheries.

Climate change could be a game-changer for biodiversity conservation, potentially invalidating many established methods including those employed in vulnerability assessments. Now, a simulation study finds that extinction risk due to climate change can be predicted using measurable spatial and demographic variables. Interestingly, most of those variables identified as important are already used in species conservation assessment.

The slowdown in global average surface warming has recently been linked to sea surface cooling in the eastern Pacific Ocean. This work shows that strengthening trade winds caused a reduction in the 2012 global average surface air temperature of 0.1–0.2 °C. This may account for much of the warming hiatus and is a result of increased subsurface ocean heat uptake.

From the industrial revolution onwards, greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities such as the burning of fossil fuel and changes in land use have caused the planet to warm. However, since 1998 – a year of record warmth – the rate of warming has been lower than in the late twentieth century. In this joint web focus, Nature Climate ChangeandNature Geosciencepresent original research and opinion pieces that discuss the causes of the slowdown in surface warming and examine how the science has been communicated by researchers and the media.