Research Briefing

Natural climate solutions (NCS) could counterbalance 6% of industrial CO₂ emissions in China throughout 2020–2030, by trapping carbon within ecosystems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Implementing 62% of these NCS would cost ≤US$50 per megagram of CO₂ equivalent. NCS can contribute substantially to climate mitigation if appropriate planning strategies are employed.

Terrestrial water storage over the Tibetan Plateau is projected to sustain large net declines by 2060. Excess water losses in the Amu Darya and Indus basins present the most critical threats of water supply shortage in this region. These results could inform adaptation strategies under future climate change.

A comprehensive and systematic literature review reveals that over 58% of human pathogenic diseases are aggravated by climatic hazards that are sensitive to greenhouse gas emissions.

Hydropower will have an essential role in meeting the growing energy needs in Africa. Fully interconnecting the African power pools could reduce climate-induced changes in usable hydropower capacity and decrease variability in the electricity supply. Integrating renewables could further increase the adaptability of the power pools to climate change.

Falling raindrops have an essential but as yet unquantified role in planetary climate change. An approach to quantifying precipitation efficiency establishes that the way raindrops reach the surface plays an important part in persistent uncertainties over future tropical atmospheric circulation and extreme precipitation.

Climate change affects sea surface density via changes in the sea surface temperature and salinity. These projected sea surface density changes are likely to affect the dispersal patterns of widely distributed mangrove species and are expected to be largest in the Indo West Pacific, the primary hotspot of mangrove diversity.

A projected change in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is found to induce a change in high-latitude winds, thereby affecting future Southern Ocean warming. A greater projected increase in ENSO amplitude in response to transient greenhouse forcing weakens high-latitude westerly poleward intensification and slows future Southern Ocean warming.

We tracked the annual extent of rivers on the Greenland ice sheet, revealing that the ice sheet's runoff area expanded by 29% between 1985 and 2020. Strong melting and refreezing has transformed the upper snow and firn layers into thick ice, enabling runoff from higher elevations even during cooler summers.

A study involving over 12,000 observations shows that high-quality cropland soils not only lead to a higher yield, but also to a smaller yield reduction and variability in response to warmer climates. Appropriate efforts to improve soil quality may reduce the decline in crop production induced by climate change in China by 20%.

Following a complete cessation of anthropogenic emissions, global warming will continue before cooling. We modelled this zero-emissions scenario in the context of realistic emissions pathways and revealed an existing commitment to temporarily exceeding 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C global warming thresholds half a decade before these targets would have otherwise been reached.

A model based on plausible changes in expectations of future oil and gas demand identifies the ultimate financial owners of potential stranded assets to be predominantly OECD-based individual investors (through pension funds and shareholdings) and governments of non-OECD countries.

Using a cryosphere–hydrology–crop model, future changes in the amount and sources of water withdrawals for irrigation are investigated for South Asia under different climate change and socioeconomic scenarios. The model reveals that meltwater and groundwater will become increasingly important to complement rainfall runoff to provide food for millions.

Climate change can affect marine ecosystems in various ways, including modulation of seasonality, with consequences for the entire marine food web. Projections from a state-of-the-art Earth system model suggest that marine phytoplankton bloom timing could be shortened in high-latitude, high-productivity oceans.

Climate change is causing more frequent and intense precipitation extremes; however, these changes are difficult to project. This paper shows that observations of the increased frequency of extreme precipitation events over the past four decades can be used to reduce uncertainty in future climate model projections by 20–40%.

This novel, three-dimensional approach to marine conservation identifies vertically coherent locations for global marine protected areas in the high seas. Taking a climate-smart approach, this work prioritized the protection of regions with increased biodiversity and reduced climate exposure across different depth domains, to identify sites that deserve protection now and into the future.

Vast areas of carbon-dense, permafrost peatlands are known to be at risk from warming climates, but models indicate that they are closer to widespread climatic degradation than previously believed. All but the most aggressive climate mitigation scenarios will render these carbon hotspots climatically unsustainable across Europe and Western Siberia within decades.

A meta-analytic approach based on 89 datasets across 33 countries was used to assess the relative strength of 15 determinants of public opinion about climate change taxes and laws. The results showed that fairness was the most important determinant of public opinion, whereas knowledge about climate change, self-enhancement values and demographic factors showed weak effects.