Research articles

The planet is warming; however, this includes periods of accelerated and slowed warming. Although the tropical Pacific played a role in the recent slowdown, this study shows sea surface temperatures across multiple basins influence the rate of warming.

Significant feedbacks in energy, agriculture, land use and the carbon cycle are identified for the twenty-first century when climate impacts on land are factored into climate projections so as to allow for two-way interactions between human and Earth systems.

Quantification of the economic costs of the urban heat island effect for the main cities around the world. The cost–benefit analyses for some mitigation options are presented and their contribution to the global mitigation efforts is discussed.

The signal to noise ratio of temperature change can be used to determine exposure to unusual, unfamiliar and unknown climates. For large groups of the world’s population, mitigation can delay the onset of unfamiliar or unknown climates by several decades.

Greening—increasing leaf area index—affects regional climate in a number of contradictory ways. The net global effect is now revealed to be cooling that has offset the equivalent of 12% of global land-surface warming over the past 30 years.

Limiting warming to 1.5 °C is expected to lessen the risk of extreme events, relative to 2 °C. Considering Australia, this work shows a decrease of about 25% in the likelihood of record heat, both air and sea surface, if warming is limited to 1.5 °C.

Regional projections of daily extreme precipitation are uncertain, but can be decomposed into thermodynamic and dynamic contributions to improve understanding. While thermodynamics alone uniformly increase extreme precipitation, dynamical processes introduce regional variations.

Predictions of fire-burnt areas are typically based on climate data. Including hydrological processes in models improves projections of burnt area in Borneo, with large wildfires clustered in years of hydrological drought associated with strong El Niño events.

Nile basin countries are expected to double their population by 2050. Observations and climate model projections now suggest water resources may be additionally stretched by a 50% (±35%) increase in interannual Nile flow variability in the twenty-first century.

Limiting average global warming to 2 °C will not limit regional warming to the same levels. This study shows drylands have warmed, and will continue to warm, more than the humid lands that are primarily responsible for emissions.

Atmospheric CO₂ concentration measurements at Barrow, Alaska, together with coupled atmospheric transport and terrestrial ecosystem models show a declining spring net primary productivity response to temperature at high latitudes.

Sea-level rise will impact heavily populated coastal areas, necessitating adaptation or migration. This study considers how potential migration away from affected areas will have a broader effect on the US population landscape.

Using an energy budget approach to understanding decadal temperature trends, this study highlights that observational uncertainty exceeds energy–flux deviations that affect such trends. Thus the origin of recent warming slowdown is unidentifiable.

Estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity differ depending on the method of calculation. This study shows estimates based on the historical energy budget are low as climate feedbacks vary with time and the bias depends on the sensitivity of the system.

Erosion of agricultural land is estimated to have resulted in a cumulative net uptake of 78 ± 22 Pg C on land (6000 bc–2015 ad), offsetting 37 ± 10% of generally recognized C emissions resulting from anthropogenic land cover change.

Emergent constraints on tropical marine primary production increase confidence in a long-term decrease in primary productivity in response to rising sea surface temperatures. The most extreme projected declines in productivity are, however, unlikely.

Permafrost loss can be projected by considering its distribution against warming air temperatures. Using observations to constrain loss estimates, this study investigates loss under different levels of warming.

It is unclear when the risk reduction benefits of mitigation will be detectable. This study shows for many regions a 50% reduction in the probability of extreme warm periods could be seen in 20 years, indicating near-term benefits of early mitigation.

Severe winter air pollution events, attributed to emissions from development, have increased in Beijing in recent decades. This study looks at how atmospheric conditions contribute and projects climate change will increase conditions favourable to such events.

Arctic precipitation is projected to increase and this study shows that rainfall will become the dominant phase of precipitation, with a decrease in snowfall across all seasons.