Articles in 2020

Warming in the Arctic has been thought to cause mid-latitude weather and climate changes. Simulations show Arctic changes have small influence outside of high latitudes, with background global warming exerting more influence over mid-latitude winter precipitation and wind changes.

Climate change induced warming, hypoxia and acidification threaten marine species. Experimental work shows that the susceptibility of clades to climate-related stressors in the modern ocean is related to their extinction risk in the fossil record, which could allow prediction of future responses.

Anthropogenic aerosol emissions decreased over North America and Europe but increased over Asia since the 1970s. This caused jet stream winds to shift poleward over the Atlantic, decreasing planetary wave activity and partially inhibiting extreme winter weather over northern Eurasia.

The stability of climatic conditions since the Last Glacial Maximum has contributed to current global patterns of species richness. Changes in patterns of climate stability this century reveal areas where climate change could reduce biodiversity, with largest losses in past climatic safe havens.

In the upper atmosphere, ozone is essential to protect the planet through absorption of ultraviolet radiation; but at ground level, ozone is a pollutant, and increasing anthropogenic emissions are resulting in higher levels. Reducing emissions would mitigate the harmful effects of ozone as well as potentially increasing a natural carbon sink.

As tundra ecosystems respond to rapid Arctic warming, satellite records suggest a widespread greening. This Perspective highlights the challenges of interpreting complex Arctic greening trends and provides direction for future research by combining ecological and remote sensing approaches.

Ozone forms in the atmosphere when other anthropogenically emitted gases react with sunlight and negatively impacts terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP). Reducing emissions of ozone precursors by 50%, particularly in the road transportation and energy sectors, could increase GPP by 750 TgC yr^–1.

Ground-level ozone is an air pollutant that is harmful to human health, as well as to plants, trees and crops. New analyses based on Earth system modelling show that reducing ozone from the energy, industrial and transportation sectors could mitigate climate change by enhancing the ability of vegetation to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

The impacts of climate change on the ecohydrology of forested mountain regions are uncertain. New high-resolution modelling suggests that during a hot, dry summer in the Alps, stressed vegetation capitalizes on downslope water subsidies, amplifying runoff deficits and further depleting water resources.

The rapid growth of climate change research presents challenges for IPCC assessments and their stated aim of being comprehensive, objective and transparent. Here the authors use topic modelling to map the climate change literature, and assess how well it is represented in IPCC reports.

Mountain forest drought can paradoxically increase evapotranspiration (green water), helping vegetation at the expense of runoff (blue water). This is quantified for the 2003 event in the European Alps, highlighting underappreciated vulnerability of blue-water resources to future warmer summers.

For years, halogens have been known as destroyers of ‘good’ ozone, which acts as an upper-atmosphere shield from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Research now shows that natural halogen compounds emitted from the ocean help to control ‘bad’ ozone pollution at ground level and may continue to do so at a similar rate in future climate.

Changes in ocean temperature and pH will impact on species, as well as impacting on community interactions. Here warming and acidification cause a clam species to change their feeding mode, with cascading effects for the marine sedimentary food web.

Crustose coralline algae help build coral reef structures through calcification, a process threatened under ocean acidification. Juvenile algae were highly sensitive on initial exposure to ocean acidification, but continued exposure over six generations showed a gain of tolerance.