Articles in 2012

Peatlands are important sinks for carbon dioxide, but how their biogeochemistry will be affected by climate warming is poorly understood. This study compares sites along an altitudinal gradient, simulating a natural gradient in soil temperature to elucidate plant–soil microbe feedback in response to a climate-induced change in vegetation.

Under global warming, arid subtropical regions are expected to get drier and expand polewards. This study uses model simulations to examine changes in hydrological parameters for the southwestern United States. The predictions for 2021–2040 show declines in surface-water availability, resulting in reduced soil moisture and runoff.

A survey shows that variation in responses to ocean acidification among ecotypes of a widely distributed picoplankton species is similar to that found between different genera. The findings should also help to predict evolutionary change within species and how the composition of phytoplankton communities will change in a high-CO₂ world.

Streamflow from northern Eurasia into the Arctic Ocean has been increasing since the 1930s. Research shows that increased poleward moisture transport is responsible for additional water in the region.

A reformed carbon market is the only agreed priority among European policymakers for 2030, but the transport sector will need to change as well, explains Sonja van Renssen

Brazil has been a voice for, and a green influence on, developing countries in the past, but will that continue?

Policymakers struggle to agree on new binding climate commitments and science warns time is already short if we are to avoid dangerous global warming.

Research based on a survey across 89 countries demonstrates that individuals who live in places with rising average temperatures are more likely than others to perceive local warming. The study also suggests that personal experience of the impacts of climate change may shift public opinion about the reality of global warming.

A relatively wide range of emissions in 2020 could keep open the option of limiting long-term temperature increase to below 2 °C; however, a shortfall in critical technologies would narrow that range or eliminate it altogether. Reduced emissions in 2020 would hedge against this uncertainty.

Carbon capture and storage is a climate mitigation technology designed to reduce emissions from fossil-fuel power plants and industrial sources. This Perspective argues that the very limited implementation of carbon capture and storage technology so far is largely the result of political, economic and social factors, rather than a technological inability to deliver.

In 1990 the First Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was produced. It contained a prediction of the global-mean-temperature trend for 1990–2030 which, halfway through that period, appears accurate. This is remarkable in hindsight, considering a number of important external forcings were not included. This study concludes the greenhouse-gas-induced warming is largely overwhelming the other forcings.

Environmental campaigns often promote energy conservation by appealing to economic rather than environmental concerns, assuming self-interest drives people’s behaviour. New research discredits such conventional wisdom and shows that, at least in some cases, it is more effective to call on people’s interest in protecting the biosphere to encourage behavioural changes.