Volume 1 Issue 12, December 2020

Wind energy production has increased in recent years to mitigate climate change. However, climate change may itself modify wind energy resources. This Review discusses the climatic mechanisms influencing current and future wind energy production, finding spatial variability in projected responses and a dominance of internal variability.

The 2011 nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, released large amounts of radionuclides, including 10 PBq of relatively long-lived radiocaesium, into the atmosphere. This Review details the distribution, migration and impact of fallout radionuclides in the terrestrial environment in the subsequent years.

The morphology of erosional landscapes is often considered to be set by climate and/or tectonics; however, similar topographic features can arise through internal processes and feedbacks. This Review considers how the internal and external processes drive landscapes evolution, and how such processes can be differentiated in topographic and stratigraphic records.

Large changes in Greenland and North Atlantic temperature — termed Dansgaard–Oeschger cycles — have been linked to variations in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. However, the mechanisms are debated. This Review proposes an oscillatory framework to explain Dansgaard–Oeschger cyclicity, involving atmosphere–ocean–ice interactions.