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A comprehensive stability analysis shows that the critical global temperature rise that leads to collapse of the Greenland ice sheet is only 1–2 °C above the pre-industrial climate state, which is significantly lower than previously believed.
Feedbacks between the living and non-living components of the terrestrial carbon cycle present a major source of uncertainty in climate predictions. Now research using materially closed soil-vegetation-atmosphere chamber experiments with carbon amounts proportional to the main terrestrial carbon pools suggests that short-term biotic responses could potentially buffer a temperature increase of 2.3 °C without significant positive feedbacks to atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Kate Raworth, a senior researcher at the aid charity Oxfam, has created a doughnut-shaped concept for achieving 11 societal goals within the framework of 9 planetary boundaries. She talks to Nature Climate Change about a safe and just operating space for humanity.
This paper reports results from a laboratory experiment designed to quantify the reduction of snow albedo by black carbon. The study aims to test models of radiative transfer in snow and the parameterizations from them that are used in climate models.
A modelling study shows how global temperatures would change if all greenhouse-gas and aerosol emissions were eliminated. The researchers estimate the committed future climate warming associated with past anthropogenic emissions, and provide a critical baseline against which to measure the effect of future emissions.
Urban climate policies interact with socio–economic policy goals. These interactions can lead to trade-offs or synergies, but have been rarely analysed. Now research provides a quantification of these trade-offs and synergies, and suggests that stand-alone adaptation and mitigation policies are unlikely to be politically acceptable, emphasizing the need to mainstream climate policy within urban planning.
This study documents the effects of warming on cyanobacterial mats from the Arctic and Antarctica. It describes toxin production in such mats and provides experimental evidence that increased temperatures could shift mat cyanobacterial species diversity from cold-loving species towards predominance of cold-tolerant and toxin-producing species.
Trends in phenological phases associated with climate change are widely reported, yet attribution remains rare. Attribution analysis of trends in wine-grape maturity in Australia indicates that two climate variables—warming and declines in soil water content—are driving a major portion of the earlier-ripening trend. Crop-yield reductions and evolving management practices have also contributed.
This modelling study shows that chemical weathering of continental surfaces—which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—is highly sensitive to a carbon dioxide doubling for the Mackenzie River Basin, the most important Arctic watershed. The findings highlight the potential role of chemical weathering processes in mitigating global warming.
