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Volume 5 Issue 12, December 2015

Editorial

  • A new climate agreement won't solve climate change, but it should nudge the world onto a lower-emissions path. Research must drive deeper transformations by translating proposed solutions into workable action.

    Editorial

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Commentary

  • Tropical forests could offset much of the carbon released from the declining use of fossil fuels, helping to stabilize and then reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations, thereby providing a bridge to a low-fossil-fuel future.

    • R. A. Houghton
    • Brett Byers
    • Alexander A. Nassikas
    Commentary
  • Policymakers have committed to tackling loss and damage as a result of climate change across three high-profile international processes. Framing post-2015 development as a means to address loss and damage can synergize these agendas.

    • Erin Roberts
    • Stephanie Andrei
    • Lawrence Flint
    Commentary
  • More effort should be put into standardization as a route to achieving international consensus and action on climate change. Cities are a good example of what is being achieved through this arguably unfashionable mechanism.

    • Victoria Hurth
    • Patricia McCarney
    Commentary
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Research Highlights

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News & Views

  • Undoing the effects of continuing high carbon dioxide emissions on the oceans could take centuries, if it is possible at all.

    • Richard Matear
    • Andrew Lenton
    News & Views
  • The temperature in many office buildings is set according to a method from the 1960s. Consideration of the different metabolic rates of male and females is necessary to increase comfort and reduce energy consumption.

    • Joost van Hoof
    News & Views
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Perspective

  • It is sometimes assumed that making climate change seem 'closer to home' is a good way to catalyse action. But insights from psychology suggest that people's reaction to the proximity of climate change is complex.

    • Adrian Brügger
    • Suraje Dessai
    • Nicholas F. Pidgeon
    Perspective
  • This Perspective considers the influence of marine predators on carbon cycling in salt marshes, seagrass meadows, and mangroves, and the potential role that these carbon-rich vegetated coastal ecosystems could play in climate change mitigation.

    • Trisha B. Atwood
    • Rod M. Connolly
    • Peter I. Macreadie
    Perspective
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Review Article

  • Two competing theories suggest that Arctic communities are either highly vulnerable to climate change, or demonstrate significant adaptive capacity. A review of the research shows that the challenge of Arctic adaptation is formidable, but can be overcome.

    • James D. Ford
    • Graham McDowell
    • Tristan Pearce
    Review Article
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Letter

  • The thermal comfort standards developed in the 1960s were based on the average male. Altering these standards to account for female metabolic rates could save energy and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from buildings.

    • Boris Kingma
    • Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt
    Letter
  • Corporations need to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions to help avoid dangerous climate change. A new method for setting emissions targets, which can also be used to assess corporate climate performance and increase accountability, is proposed.

    • Oskar Krabbe
    • Giel Linthorst
    • Alberto Carrillo Pineda
    Letter
  • An analysis of US domestic flight data for the past two decades reveals the overwhelmingly tight control of climate variability on air travel. Potential feedbacks between aviation and climate change are quantified using CMIP5 model projections.

    • Kristopher B. Karnauskas
    • Jeffrey P. Donnelly
    • Jonathan E. Martin
    Letter
  • The mechanisms that allow some species to adjust to changing environmental conditions across generations are poorly understood. This study reveals the molecular processes underlying transgenerational acclimation in a common reef fish.

    • Heather D. Veilleux
    • Taewoo Ryu
    • Philip L. Munday
    Letter
  • A shift from coral to macroalgae dominance of reef systems affected by volcanically acidified waters around Maug (Mariana Islands, North Pacific Ocean) increases fears that reef corals will be displaced by algae as a result of ocean acidification.

    • I. C. Enochs
    • D. P. Manzello
    • N. N. Price
    Letter
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Article

  • Simulations show that massive removal of CO2 from the atmosphere through geoengineering will not eliminate the long-term consequences of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the marine environment.

    • Sabine Mathesius
    • Matthias Hofmann
    • Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
    Article
  • Coastal flood risk is strongly influenced by sea-level rise and changes in tropical cyclone activity, but these factors are usually considered independently. Research now accounts for their joint contribution to coastal flood hazard for the US East Coast over the 21st century.

    • Christopher M. Little
    • Radley M. Horton
    • Gabriele Villarini
    Article
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