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Carbon emissions from cities represent the single largest human contribution to climate change. Here we present a vision, strategy and roadmap for an international framework to assess directly the carbon emission trends of the world's megacities.
Tools and methodologies for reducing uncertainties in climate change knowledge are now available, but it is disputed to what extent increased confidence in data will lead to increased action on carbon emissions.
Cynthia Rosenzweig heads the Climate Impacts Group at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Recently she has taken on another role co-leading the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project. She explains that task to Nature Climate Change.
Scientists often expect fear of climate change and its impacts to motivate public support of climate policies. A study suggests that climate change deniers don't respond to this, but that positive appeals can change their views.
The political deadlock around national renewable energy mandates in the US does not reflect the public's position. Research shows that people there would support a renewable energy standard even with a cost attached.
Tropical Atlantic storms impact the lives of many thousands of people each year. A study describes how different future anthropogenic emission pathways may change the frequency of these storms.
A modelling study shows that cutting greenhouse-gas emissions has the potential to stabilize global temperature increases, but predicts that sea level will continue to rise for centuries, and rapidly so, unless aggressive mitigation measures are set in place.
Human stress on the environment has long been debated and different views about the human drivers of greenhouse-gas emissions have emerged. Now research synthesizes the debate by looking at empirical evidence and offers new insights on the role of human population, affluence, urbanization, trade, culture and institutions on greenhouse-gas emissions trends.
More than one billion people live in regions affected by the South Asian summer monsoon. This Review provides an overview of our understanding of summer monsoon rainfall variability and its causes, and considers how the monsoon will change as a consequence of global warming.
In 2010 and 2011, Republicans and Democrats in the United States proposed mandating clean electricity generation. Research has now analysed public support for a national clean energy standard (NCES) and found that the average US citizen is willing to bear an annual 13% increase in electricity bills in support of a NCES that requires 80% clean energy by 2035.
Public denial of anthropogenic climate change is significant in Western democracies. Experts assume that deniers would only act pro-environmentally if they were convinced that climate change is real, and therefore urge better communication of climate change risks. Research shows that focusing on the positive societal effects of climate change mitigation efforts can motivate deniers’ pro-environmental actions.
This study looks at changes in North Atlantic tropical storm occurrence in the twenty-first century, and finds that over the first half of the century, storm frequency increases were caused by radiative forcing changes, not increasing carbon dioxide. The chaotic nature of the climate system and the climate response to radiative forcing are the largest uncertainties in North Atlantic tropical storm frequency.
South of Africa, the Agulhas ocean current system transports warm, salty water from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. This study shows that the mesoscale variability of the Agulhas system has intensified over recent decades, apparently owing to enhanced trade winds over the tropical Indian Ocean.
Increasing shrub cover on Arctic tundra is linked to climate warming, which is partially amplified by sea ice feedbacks, but the nature of these interactions remains poorly understood. Now research indicates that tundra plant productivity in late spring relates to sea-ice-driven temperature amplification but that the growing season peak is more closely associated with persistent large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns.
Using information on current species distributions and dispersal traits, this study forecasts climate-driven range dynamics of plant species across the European Alps. Simulations predict moderate range contractions over the twenty-first century; however, more severe effects of climate warming on mountain plant diversity are expected in the longer term.
This study provides a quantitative approach that predicts the response of coral calcification to the combined effects of ocean acidification and global warming. The analysis suggests that warm-water aragonitic corals are more resilient to climate change than previously thought, whereas marine organisms that precipitate calcitic skeletons are particularly vulnerable.
An international agreement on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions requires large financial flows from richer to poorer countries. However, the amount and justification for such transfers is still contested. Now research has developed an argument for transfer payments by estimating regional carbon prices versus a global price, and found that in the case of a global carbon price of US$35 per tonne of carbon dioxide, a flow of US$15–48 billion per year would be needed.
Marine biologist Laura Stocker led experts in economics, policy and urban and regional planning to develop a participatory approach to climate adaptation and sustainability at Rottnest Island, Australia.
