Review Articles

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.

A review of the phenomenon of low-lying ‘ghost forests’, and the physical and ecological mechanisms that control their occurrence in the context of sea level rise, with a focus on the Atlantic Coast of North America.

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, launched in 2002, allows monitoring of changes in hydrology and the cryosphere with terrestrial and ocean applications. This Review Article focuses on its contribution to the detection and quantification of climate change signals.

Cities around the world are at the forefront of enacting climate mitigation policies, but effective action requires a better understanding of potential solutions. This Review offers a systematic exploration of the urban case study literature and discusses ways to best make use of the growing body of cases.

In this Review, a Bayesian framework is used to explain climate change belief updating, and the evidence required to support claims of directional motivated reasoning versus a model in which people aim for accurate beliefs, but vary in how they assess information credibility.

This Review examines the pathways through which humans are impacted by climate change and shows that by 2100 the world’s population will be simultaneously exposed to at least three hazards, and in some locations as many as six, under an RCP 8.5 scenario.

This Review synthesizes knowledge on projections of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets at 1.5 °C and 2 °C of warming, discussing possible nonlinear responses, and outlining the need for more insight into future atmospheric and oceanic forcings.

Snow albedo is impacted by the presence of light-absorbing particles, including black carbon and dust. This Review collates knowledge on the associated radiative forcing, discussing geographic variability, future impacts and challenges for reducing uncertainty.

Using the ‘Can it? Has it? Will it?’ framework, this Review synthesizes current understanding on Eurasian snow–atmosphere coupling, outlining observational and modelling evidence for their dynamical connection and discussing possible changes in the future.

Climate change, in combination with existing environmental issues, threatens the Mediterranean region. This Review highlights how climate change will interact with other factors to exacerbate five areas of risk unless there is mitigation and adaptation.

Research suggests the tropics have widened in recent decades. This Review assesses the rates and drivers of observed and projected tropical expansion, surmising that it is too early to detect anthropogenic signals from natural variability.

This Review assesses climate change damage functions, which relate climate variables to economic losses, and how integrated information from impacts, adaptation and vulnerability research could be used to improve estimates of economic risk.

Changes in forest disturbance are likely to be greatest in coniferous forests and the boreal biome, according to a review of global climate change effects on biotic and abiotic forest disturbance agents and their interactions.

Forty-five years after it was first proposed, climate change has revived debates around the concept of limits to growth. This Review reflects on economic perspectives on limits to growth, and proposes a third option to reduce resistance to climate policies.

This Review assesses the reasons for concern framework, a key component of IPCC assessments which communicates risk associated with climate change. The study identifies limitations as well as points to extensions which would offer additional metrics.

Climate change communication often relies on visualization of climate data. This Review highlights research from the cognitive and psychological sciences that can inform practices for increasing accessibility of graphics to non-experts.

Antarctic climate trends observed in the satellite record are compared with a two hundred year paleoclimate record. The satellite record is found to be too short to attribute changes to anthropogenic forcing, with natural variability overwhelming the forced signal.

In this Review the cumulative effects of anthropogenic nitrogen and climate change are considered. Including how climate alters nitrogen cycling and availability, and the impact of nitrogen addition on carbon cycling, acidification and biodiversity.

Climate change may accelerate decomposition of soil carbon leading to a reinforcing cycle of further warming and soil carbon loss. This Review considers the uncertainties and modelling challenges involved in projecting soil responses to warming.

A review of climatic changes reported by subsistence-oriented communities around the world highlights the contribution that such local observations can make to our understanding of the impact of climate change on ecosystems and societies.