Articles in 2012

The advancement of trees into Arctic tundra can increase total aboveground carbon storage. A study now shows, however, that greater plant growth also enhances belowground decomposition, resulting in a net loss of carbon from the ecosystem.

Historical evidence provides a valuable context for models that predict the biological impacts of climate change, but such long-term data sets are sparse for aquatic systems. This Review outlines the potential of aquatic biochronologies — generated from the hard parts of fish, molluscs and corals — to provide long-term ecological insights into marine and freshwater environments.

Climate and water expert Pavel Kabat — director and CEO of the International Institute for Applied System Analysis in Austria — calls for a long-term system approach to water research, new partnerships with the developing world and a change in donor practices, to tackle water-climate issues. He talks to Nature Climate Change.

A survey conducted in England and Ireland after a major flooding event shows that perceptions of individual responsibility for protection depend on the specific social and policy context. Perception of future risk, in the case of people directly affected by the flooding, also depends on the context. Expectations about the state’s responsibility for climate protection are critical in promoting longer-term adaptation to the changing climate.

The high levels of water extraction from the Colorado, Murray, Orange and Yellow rivers are shown to be the main cause of reduced flows in these systems. Changes in governance are urgently required to preserve the health of these rivers, especially in light of the present and future impacts of climate change.

Groundwater is of crucial importance for water and food security and for sustaining ecosystems. This Review assesses the likely impacts of climate change on groundwater and groundwater-driven feedbacks to the climate system.

Current United Nations structures are highly inequitable and obstruct progress towards international climate policy co-operation.

Doha marks the first stop on a roadmap to a post-2020 climate regime. The European Union could pave the way by building bridges with partners in key areas such as mitigation ambition, adaptation finance and deforestation.

Most lakes are net sources of CO₂; conventionally the CO₂ in lake waters is attributed to in-lake oxidation of terrestrially-produced dissolved organic carbon. Now research indicates that CO₂ in lakes may be delivered directly via inflowing streams. These findings suggest that future CO₂ emissions from lakes will be strongly related to productivity in the lake catchment.

Predictions of climate warming raise concerns about food security. However, the extent to which adaptation can offset heat-related yield losses remains unclear. Now research that used spatial adaptation of US maize crops as a surrogate for future adaptation finds that the yield reduction resulting from warming of 2 °C above pre-industrial levels can be approximately halved using existing management practices.

Snow accumulation is critical for water availability in the Northern Hemisphere. Model projections show a shift towards low snow years, with areas of western North America, northeastern Europe and the Greater Himalayas showing the strongest decline. Many snow-dependent regions are likely to experience increasing stress from low snow years if global warming exceeds 2° above the pre-industrial baseline.

Soybean hosts the symbiotic nitrogen-fixing soil bacterium Bradyrhizobium japonicum, that can produce the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. This study shows that nitrous oxide emissions from soybean ecosystems can be biologically mitigated at a field scale by inoculation with strains of B. japonicum that have increased nitrous oxide reductase activity.

Sea-level rise brings the risk of coastal flooding from marine waters. This study looks at how rising sea level will affect groundwater balance, which may also cause coastal plain flooding. Taking groundwater into consideration shows that sea-level rise may cause twice the flooding expected from marine waters alone.

Understorey plants perform an important role in forest ecosystems but their sensitivity to climate change remains largely unexplored. Now research points to a substantial climate-mediated reduction in the distributional ranges of three dominant bamboo species in the Qinling Mountains over the twenty-first century; plants that comprise almost the entire diet of the panda population in the region.

Recharge sustains groundwater resources that are depended on globally for drinking water and irrigated agriculture. A newly compiled 55-year record of groundwater-level observations in an aquifer in central Tanzania reveals the highly episodic occurrence of recharge resulting from anomalously intense seasonal rainfall. Model projections show a shift towards more intense monthly rainfall, which favours groundwater recharge, suggesting it may be a viable adaptation water source in the future.

Political and media debate on the existence and causes of climate change often rests on claims about what most citizens really think. New research demonstrates that people overestimate how common their own opinion is, and when they do they are less likely to change their view. People also overestimate how many reject the existence of climate change.

Society's response to climate change is inevitably mediated by culture. In a Review Article that analyses important new research from across the social sciences, climate change is shown to threaten important cultural dimensions of people's lives and livelihoods — including material and lived aspects of culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place.

There is a growing and urgent need to improve society's resilience to climate-related hazards and better manage the risks and opportunities arising from climate variability and climate change.

Updated models are being used for the new assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This study compares projections from the latest models with those from earlier versions. The spread of results has not changed significantly, and some of the spread will always remain due to the internal variability of the climate system. As models improve, they are able to represent more processes in greater detail, allowing for greater confidence in their projections, in spite of model spread.