Articles in 2019

Warming in the Arctic is causing soils to decompose more rapidly, even during winter. Now, estimates of winter carbon dioxide loss indicate that it can offset carbon gains during the growing season, meaning that the region is a source of carbon.

Transformation of the land sector is required to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C. Here, modelled emission pathways and mitigation strategies are reviewed. A land-sector roadmap of priority measures and key regions is presented.

The resilience of a marine food web to climate change is investigated through a combination of multiple and nested species interactions. The Kongsfjorden food web adapts and maintains core ecological processes during change, with increasing dominance of Atlantic species boosting resilience.

Winter warming in the Arctic will increase the CO₂ flux from soils. A pan-Arctic analysis shows a current loss of 1,662 TgC per year over the winter, exceeding estimated carbon uptake in the growing season; projections suggest a 17% increase under RCP 4.5 and a 41% increase under RCP 8.5 by 2100.

Global warming projections exhibit a contracted intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and an expanded Hadley cell. Here, equatorial Pacific warming is shown to contract seasonal ITCZ migration and counteract Hadley cell expansion, leading to an equatorward shift in the Asian subtropical monsoon.

Climate change is expected to impact river flows. Here, it is shown that plant physiological responses to increased CO₂, rather than atmospheric changes, are the primary drivers of mean, peak and low flows throughout the tropics.

The consequences of global warming will be dire, but the full extent of these effects on society is unknown and includes uncertainties. Research now suggests that how scientists communicate about the uncertainty over such climate change impacts can influence the public’s trust and acceptance of this information.

This study shows that expressing uncertainty about best- and worst-case effects of climate change on sea-level rise increases trust in climate scientists and message acceptance but not when the full extent of inevitable uncertainty due to unpredictable storm surges is also acknowledged.

The subnivium—the space between snowpack and the ground—is an insulating refuge from winter cold. This study predicts that climate warming decreases the subnivium’s seasonal duration yet increases snow-free days with frozen ground, making winter functionally colder for subnivium-dependent life.

Predicting mortality in forests is challenging because its underlying causes are spatially varied and not well known. Reduced resilience detected from remotely sensed time series of vegetation dynamics can serve as an effective early warning signal to indicate the potential for forest mortality.

Ocean warming and acidification will affect the structure and bioavailability of biomolecules. The toxic form of two neurotoxins will increase with climate change, presenting an ecotoxicology risk with global hotspots as exemplified by saxitoxin toxicity in Alaskan butter clam.

Predicting coral bleaching is critical to better manage and preserve coral reefs from global warming. An impressive coordination of surveys across oceans now offers new metrics to help to predict coral bleaching events on a global scale.

Improved predictions of coral bleaching are critical. In a coordinated global survey effort during the 2016 El Niño, time-series patterns of peak hot temperatures, cool period durations and temperature bimodality were found to be better predictors of coral bleaching than common threshold metrics.

CMIP6 output is growing rapidly and will afford a re-examination of important aspects of the climate system.

Climate change is expected to severely impact farming in sub-Saharan Africa. Now research shows that crop wild relatives might be able to secure Africa’s existing cropping practices by providing the genetic diversity needed to adapt crops to climates that they have never seen before.