Articles in 2018

Global net ecosystem production (NEP) from a number of atmospheric inversions and dynamic global vegetation models is analysed to attribute trends to potential drivers. CO₂ is found to have a positive effect on NEP that is constrained by climate warming.

Consumer adoption of more plant-based diets has high technical potential to reduce global GHG emissions. This study shows that consumers underestimate the GHG emissions associated with foods, but carbon labels that provide this information promote the purchase of lower-emitting options.

Agricultural CH₄ and N₂O emissions represent around 11% of total anthropogenic GHGs. Here agriculture mitigation potentials are quantified, in the context of the 1.5 °C target, and decomposed by emission source, region and mitigation mechanism.

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.

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.

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.

Urban expansion and climate change interact to produce less night-time warming than their sum. Combined implementation of adaptation strategies can offset projected daytime urban warming when applied with GHG emissions reductions, but cannot offset projected nocturnal warming.

The sinking of dense waters drives the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. As the climate warms, changes in ocean circulation, stratification and mixed-layer depth alter the regions in which this sinking occurs, with implications for global climate.

A combination of consumption-based emissions modelling and deliberative public workshops suggests that developing resource-efficient products will be an effective climate change mitigation strategy because it has both high emissions-reduction potential and wide-scale public approval.

The model–inventory discrepancy in net land-use carbon emissions mainly results from conceptual differences in estimating anthropogenic forest sinks. A revised disaggregation of global land model results allows greater comparability with inventories.

Global estimates of the economic impacts of CO₂ emissions may obscure regional heterogeneities. A modular framework for estimating the country-level social cost of carbon shows consistently unequal country-level costs.

The connections between global mean temperature and precipitation responses to CO₂ doubling (equilibrium climate and hydrological sensitivity) are driven through low-cloud responses to surface warming, according to MIROC5 perturbation experiments.

Analysis of peatland carbon accumulation over the last millennium and its association with global-scale climate space indicates an ongoing carbon sink into the future, but with decreasing strength as conditions warm.

In economic games, players shift to riskier contributions when targets that prevent catastrophic losses cannot be met otherwise, suggesting people are willing to invest in riskier technology when more certain options will not be sufficient to mitigate climate change.

Elevated atmospheric CO₂ (550 ppm) could cause an additional 175 million people to be zinc deficient and 122 million protein deficient (assuming 2050 population and CO₂ projections) due to the reduced nutritional value of staple food crops.

Climate issues are increasingly being presented before the courts, with both pro- and anti-regulation litigants aiming to affect policy outcomes. Analysis of domestic US climate lawsuits and interview data reveals the type of case and the strategies that succeed.

A 1 °C increase in monthly average temperature is associated with higher suicide rates in the United States and Mexico. Combined with comparable analysis of depressive language in US Twitter updates, these results suggest a link between higher temperatures and mental well-being.

Marine fishes exposed to elevated CO₂ levels can have altered responses to sensory cues. Research now reveals a physiological and molecular mechanism in the olfactory system that helps to explain this altered behaviour under elevated CO₂.

It has been suggested that tropical cyclones have migrated polewards in recent decades. Analysis of observational and reanalysis data suggests that this migration may be linked to an expansion of the Hadley cell and the changes in vertical atmospheric stability.

Biodiversity is positively associated with carbon density in highly disturbed tropical forests, but this relationship breaks down in relatively undisturbed areas. Consequently, carbon conservation schemes can fail to protect the most ecologically valuable forests.