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Sea-ice expansion around Antarctica, and related surface cooling, is shown to be linked to natural long-term variability of Southern Ocean convection. Model simulations reproduce the observed trends, if they start from an active phase of convection.
The impacts of climate change were again increasingly apparent and the future was emphasized in the IPCC Special Report, yet political change is still lagging.
The tendency of modern science to reduce complex phenomena into their component parts has many advantages for advancing knowledge. However, such reductionism in climate science is also a problem because it narrows the evidence base, limiting visions of possible futures and the ways they might be achieved.
Reactive mineral retention of carbon accounts for 3–72% of organic carbon found in mineral soil. In many biomes, the size of this fraction is determined by modest shifts in effective moisture, suggesting high sensitivity to climate change.
Rising pre-season daytime and night-time temperatures have contrasting effects on the timing of autumn-leaf senescence date in the Northern Hemisphere. Diurnal differences in drought stress may be the underlying mechanism.
Climate policy is heavily focused on reducing demand for fossil fuels, but supply-side polices represent a potentially powerful tool to reduce CO2 emissions. This Perspective uses the US state of California as a case study to explore the rationale and possible impacts of limiting oil production.
A global experiment using model caterpillars shows that climate explains patterns of predation better than latitude or elevation alone. Predation pressure is found to be greater under higher temperatures and more stable climatic conditions.
Recent, rapid and (in many cases) unprecedented climate changes in the Arctic continue to outpace all other regions. New research argues that local, not remote, mechanisms are responsible for amplifying polar climate change.
Corporations are an important source of GHG emissions and an important climate-mitigation actor. An assessment of corporate climate action and systematic benchmarking against international targets is conducted for 138 companies in high-emitting sectors.
Model simulations with CO2 forcing prescribed in discrete geographical regions reveal that polar amplification arises primarily due to local lapse-rate feedback, with ice-albedo and Planck feedbacks playing subsidiary roles.
Ocean acidification will result in biological winners and losers. A mesocosm experiment shows that a toxic algal species is a winner under ocean acidification, with implications for the marine food web and, more generally, ecosystem services.
With warming, meltwater will play an increasingly important role in driving ice loss from Antarctica, raising global sea levels. This Perspective discusses the key process through which Antarctic surface hydrology impacts mass balance.
Managed coastal wetlands have been included for the first time in the US Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Intact vegetated coastal wetlands are shown to represent a net greenhouse gas sink, but these are being lost to development, despite robust regulation, causing emissions.