Articles in 2015

Choosing and implementing adaptation measures to protect coastal populations and infrastructure from sea-level rise and storm surges is no easy matter.

The inner workings of Integrated Assessment Models need to be made more transparent.

Investors are increasingly aware of climate risk to their investments, but can science drive a broader shift to green investments? Green bonds are an example of a financial market that could be better informed by climate science.

Often viewed as the fossil-fuel industry's spotless neighbour, renewable energy's association with a 'dirty' activity is intensifying. Renewable energy companies need to disclose more about their heavy reliance on mining.

Climate change can affect well-being in poor economies more than previously shown if its effect on economic growth, and not only on current production, is considered. But this result does not necessarily suggest greater mitigation efforts are required.

As atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rise, some regions are expected to warm more than others. Now research suggests that whether warming will intensify or slow down over time also depends on location.

Knowledge could represent both a powerful determinant and indicator of adaptive capacity.

Evolutionary adaptation will help some animals cope with future climate change, but for juvenile salmon there may be limits to how far the thermal tolerance of cardiac function can adapt.

Calls to curtail exploitation of coal reserves are rife, but the industry has other ideas — Sonja van Renssen explores the issues.

Asia's mega-deltas are densely populated and face multiple stressors including upstream development and sea-level rise. Adapting to these challenges requires difficult choices between hard and soft responses set within a strongly political context.

Internal climate variability can mask or enhance human-induced sea-ice loss on timescales ranging from years to decades. It must be properly accounted for when considering observations, understanding projections and evaluating models.

Lack of progress in global climate change negotiations has revamped interest in polycentric approaches – sub-global mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is still unclear why these mechanisms might achieve better outcomes than global negotiations. This Perspective outlines themain advantages of polycentric approaches over a global one by reviewing significant theoretical, empirical, and experimental evidence.

The Nordic Seas are highly sensitive to environmental change and have been extensively monitored and studied across a broad range of marine disciplines. For these reasons, the Nordic seas may serve as a pilot area for integrated policy development in response to ongoing climate change.

Projections and predictions of future climate today generally rely on ensembles of climate model simulations. This Perspective advocates a radically different approach, using numerical weather predictions and knowledge of past weather events.

How climate change will impact the natural phenomenon La Niña, the counterpart of El Niño, has been unclear. In spite of uncertainty, now a study shows a large model consensus for an increasing frequency of extreme La Niña events.