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Deforestation contributes 6–17% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. However, much uncertainty in the calculation of deforestation emissions stems from the inadequacy of forest carbon-density and deforestation data. Now an analysis provides the most-detailed estimate so far of the carbon density of vegetation and the associated carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation for ecosystems across the tropics.
One difficulty in anticipating the effects of climate change on agriculture is accounting for crop responses to extremely high temperatures. Now a remote-sensing study demonstrates accelerated ageing of wheat in northern India in response to extreme heat (>34 °C); an effect that reduces crop yields but is underestimated in most crop models.
A study shows that soil food webs directly help mitigate the effects of drought on soil nutrients. The fungal-based food webs of grassland were more resistant to bouts of drought than the bacterial-based food webs of intensively managed wheat, and retained more carbon and nitrogen in the soil.
An analysis indicates that the warm, powerful currents that flow along the western edges of ocean basins warmed more than twice as quickly than the global ocean as a whole over the past century. This enhanced warming could have important effects on climate because these currents affect the air–sea exchange of heat, moisture and carbon dioxide.
A European-wide analysis of changing species distributions shows that butterflies outrun birds in the race to move northwards in response to climate change, but that neither group keeps up with increasing temperatures.
University of Colorado energy-use researcher Karen Ehrhardt-Martinez, who in June 2011 became director of the Climate, Mind and Behavior Program at the Garrison Institute in New York, believes that society can cut its energy use by up to 30% through behavioural changes alone. She talks to Nature Climate Change.
Developing countries can reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions through voluntary actions, but they need the full support of developed nations, says Sonja van Renssen.
Joseph Holden, director of water@leeds — an international climate and water research centre based at the University of Leeds — and colleague Dabo Guan talk to Nature Climate Change about the project.
