Volume 7 Issue 3, March 2017

President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline in 2015 established the viability of grassroots mobilization modelled on the social movement organization Bold Nebraska. This set a precedent for communities fighting energy projects that threaten natural resources and contribute to climate change.

Successful projection of the distribution of surface temperature change increases our confidence in climate models. Here we evaluate projections of global warming from almost 30 years ago using the observations made during the past half century.

An international coalition of museums could play a critical role in coordinating more effective public communication on and engagement with climate change.

Representing climate change through music and the visual arts anchors it in our culture.

Policymakers play a critical role in the global response to climate change. Now, research reveals an effective visual strategy for communicating climate science to policymakers and climate negotiators.

Anthropogenic aerosols over the Chinese Loess Plateau have diminished monsoon precipitation and concomitant soil erosion that plagues the region. Now, a reconstruction documents the differences between historical warming events and the present, highlighting the paradoxical implications of decreasing atmospheric aerosols.

Changes to the land surface, such as land clearing and logging of forest areas, impacts moisture cycling. Now a shift from small-scale to large-scale deforestation in the southern Amazon is found to modify the mechanisms and patterns of regional precipitation.

Climate and societies are dynamic. In this Perspective an approach to forecasting important aspects of societal change is proposed to help understanding of how future societies will be affected by climate change.

Communicating climate science requires depicting uncertainty. This study shows that the tendency for COP21 policymakers to assign model forecasts less weight than their prior beliefs when making predictions is mitigated by presenting individual model forecasts with the statistical range.

Historically, warm periods enhanced the Asian summer monsoon—increased rainfall brought additional nutrients to freshwater ecosystems and increased production. However, anthropogenic aerosols have weakened the monsoon and altered lake ecosystems.

Ocean acidification has expanded in the western Arctic Ocean. Observations from the 1990s to 2010 show that aragonite saturation levels have decreased, with low saturation water deepening to 250 m and increasing in area more rapidly than seen in other oceans.

Deforestation in Amazonia has previously been linked to thermally driven precipitation increases. Satellite observations and model simulations now suggest a shift toward a dynamically driven hydroclimate, with enhanced rainfall seen downwind of deforested areas.

Modelling of mammal and bird responses to recent climatic changes—based on a systematic review of the literature—suggests that large numbers of threatened species have already been affected by climate change in at least part of their range.

A seven-year experimental pond experiment reveals that warming can fundamentally alter the carbon balance of small ponds over a number of years, reducing their capacity to sequester CO₂ and increasing emissions of CH₄.

Observations from western North America and model simulations are used to understand how climate change will affect snowmelt. Snowmelt is found to be slower under climate change as earlier melt means there is less energy for high melt rates.

Forests are a key component of the Paris Agreement, providing about a quarter of planned emission reductions. Realizing this ambition, however, requires greater confidence in forest estimates, presenting a challenge and an opportunity for science.