Articles in 2017

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  • Well-mixed water around 500 m depth in the Southern Ocean has been warming. Now research reveals how strengthening wind increases the volume of the warm water.

    • Katsuro Katsumata
    News & Views
  • Climate change is predicted to increase soil carbon losses. However, manipulation experiments suggest detritivore feeding activity — a key driver of organic matter decomposition — will decline with warming and drying, reducing positive soil feedbacks.

    • Madhav P. Thakur
    • Peter B. Reich
    • Nico Eisenhauer
    Letter
  • Effective integration of climate knowledge into policy requires trust between climate science producers and users. This Perspective identifies risks associated with the dynamics of trust at the climate science–policy interface and how they may be overcome.

    • Justine Lacey
    • Mark Howden
    • R. M. Colvin
    Perspective
  • The thinning of floating ice shelves around Antarctica enhances upstream ice flow, contributing to sea-level rise. Ice-shelf thinning is now shown to influence glacial movement over much larger distances than previously thought.

    • Olivier Gagliardini
    News & Views
  • Ice loss from Antarctica is sensitive to changes in ice shelves. Finite-element modelling reveals that localized ice-shelf thinning, particularly in locations vulnerable to warm water intrusion, can have far-reaching impacts via tele-buttressing.

    • R. Reese
    • G. H. Gudmundsson
    • R. Winkelmann
    Letter
  • The cost of preserving ecosystem storage of carbon varies depending on local land-use and socio-political pressures. A survey of experts suggests a cost-minimizing distribution would be more effective for mitigation than equitable distribution.

    • Markku Larjavaara
    • Markku Kanninen
    • Sven Wunder
    Letter
  • Climate impact models have a limited ability to represent risks to the poor and vulnerable. Wider adoption of best practices and new model features that incorporate social heterogeneity and different policy mechanisms are needed to address this shortcoming.

    • Narasimha D. Rao
    • Bas J. van Ruijven
    • Valentina Bosetti
    Perspective
  • After years of working towards a climate accord, the Paris Agreement of 2015 marked the shift from negotiating to reach consensus on climate action to implementation of such action. The challenge now is to ensure transparency in the processes and identify the details of what is required.

    Editorial
  • Debate over effective climate change communication must be grounded in rigorous affective science. Rather than treating emotions as simple levers to be pulled to promote desired outcomes, emotions should be viewed as one integral component of a cognitive feedback system guiding responses to challenging decision-making problems.

    • Daniel A. Chapman
    • Brian Lickel
    • Ezra M. Markowitz
    Comment
  • Stable layering in the ocean limits the rate that human-derived carbon dioxide can acidify the deep ocean. Now observations show that ocean warming, however, can enhance deep-ocean acidification through increased organic matter decomposition.

    • Christopher L. Sabine
    News & Views
  • Changes in deep-water ventilation could potentially cause acidification from organic matter breakdown. The Sea of Japan has an acidification rate 27% higher at depth than at the surface, showing how reduced ventilation from warming could impact the deep ocean.

    • Chen-Tung Arthur Chen
    • Hon-Kit Lui
    • Gwo-Ching Gong
    Letter