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Our ability to predict El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) activity is hampered by the relatively short length of the instrumental record. An annually resolved record of ENSO variability over the past millennium based on tree rings indicates that ENSO amplitude varies on a 50–90 year cycle, providing an important constraint for improving predictions.
Thaw-lake expansion is enhanced by climate warming, potentially feeding back to boost warming further. A new landscape-scale modelling study of the life cycle of Siberian thaw lakes indicates that drainage strongly limits lake expansion. This results in methane-emission estimates that are substantially lower than previously suggested.
Expanding biofuel production into agricultural land reduces the need to clear natural ecosystems and can benefit the global climate through reduced greenhouse-gas emissions. A remote-sensing study of the Brazilian cerrado now provides empirical evidence that sugar-cane expansion also cools local climate directly by altering surface reflectivity and evapotranspiration.
Small temperature increases will benefit the growth of many cold-blooded animals, but laboratory studies indicate that warming can eventually exceed physiological limits, resulting in reduced growth. Evidence shows that this may have already happened for a fish species—the banded morwong—in the Tasman Sea.
Nitrogen availability is frequently a key factor limiting plant growth, even when other conditions are favourable. Research demonstrates that via a short circuit in the terrestrial nitrogen cycle, Antarctic hair grass acquires soil nitrogen more efficiently than competing mosses, which may explain its success in a warming maritime Antarctic.
Aviation is known to affect climate by changing cloudiness, but the magnitude of this effect remains uncertain. A modelling study indicates that changes in cloudiness associated with spreading of the line-shaped contrails that form behind aircraft may cause almost an order of magnitude more warming than the contrails alone.
Vehicle-emission standards for non-carbon-dioxide pollutants have recognized benefits for air quality. An interdisciplinary analysis now shows that adopting tight on-road emission standards for these pollutants would also mitigate short-term climate change and provide large benefits for human health and food security in a number of developing countries.
Direct experience of climate impacts is thought to increase concern about climate change. New survey data provide empirical evidence that those who have experienced flooding tend to feel more concern and perceive less uncertainty about climate change, and have greater willingness to change behaviour to save energy.
An analysis of over 20,000 historical African maize trials suggests the crop will better cope with climate change under rain-fed management. For a 1 °C temperature rise, optimal rain-fed conditions would mean 65% of maize-growing areas in Africa would be likely to experience yield losses, compared with 100% under drought conditions.