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Nature Climate Change spoke to Kostas Stasinopoulos, Assistant Curator at Serpentine Galleries, London, about the Back to Earth project and recent book 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth, and how its mission of connection, representation and action reflects the needs of the climate crisis response.
While earlier reproduction in a great tit population is expected to help with warmer springs, oak tree health seems to influence their ability to modulate their breeding period.
Forests take up carbon from the atmosphere but also change Earth’s surface energy balance through biophysical effects. Accounting for these shows that tropical forests have the highest mitigation potential; the climate benefit of higher-latitude forests is offset by their warming effects in winter.
Climate change–induced shifts in seasonal events are often studied at population levels, which can neglect the scale at which selection operates. Here, the authors show marked small-scale spatial variation for egg-laying timing of great tits and further link these changes to the health of nearby oaks.
Tropical cyclone winds intensify with warming but the impacts depend on global population, which is likely to peak by mid-century and then decline. Impact modelling suggests that stronger mitigation, under which warming would peak after the population begins to decline, may spare 1.8 billion people from impacts by 2100.
Increased flood risk from climate change requires adaptation, but future protection may leave communities with residual risk that is overlooked. Research now quantifies residual flood damage globally, highlighting the need to lower costs and time to deploy flood management infrastructure, particularly in vulnerable regions.
Residual flood damage (RFD), the remaining damage from floods after adaptation measures have been implemented, is estimated across the globe under various adaptation scenarios and climate projections. RFD remains high in some Asian and African regions, suggesting a limit to flood adaptation there.
The coastal northeastern United States is a warming hotspot, and observations identify a slower Atlantic overturning circulation and a positive North Atlantic Oscillation phase as drivers. Analysis suggests that low horizontal resolution probably hampers models’ ability to capture the spatial pattern of enhanced warming.
A climate model shows that hydrological cycle change drives ocean salinity increases, enhancing heat transport into the ocean and modulating near-term climate warming. This suggests that model spread in near-term climate sensitivity may be due in part to hydrological cycle and salinity differences.
Current pledges for emissions cuts are insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement temperature goal. The wave of net zero targets being discussed and adopted could make the Paris goal possible if further countries follow suit.
The North Pacific Meridional Mode (NPMM) can trigger El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. Climate simulations suggest that with warming ocean temperatures, the NPMM’s impact on future ENSO strengthens, contributing to increased frequency of future extreme ENSO events and their predictability.
Improved management of water has been shown to have important benefits in both climate adaptation and mitigation. Water must be explicitly considered in climate policy, on par with its energy and land siblings.
Water management in the western United States is rooted in an adversarial system that is highly sensitive to climate change. Reforms are needed to ensure water management is efficient, resilient and equitable moving forward.
Ocean heat content is increasing, yet projections have not been constrained by observations. Using Argo data and CMIP6 models shows high climate sensitivity models overestimate increases; constrained projections estimate sea-level rise, from 0 to 2,000 m thermal expansion, of 17–26 cm by 2081–2100.
Climate mitigation will require allocations of emission allowances to nations. This study proposes a utilitarian benchmark to ensure equitable allocations whilst mitigating climate change.
