Volume 7 Issue 9, September 2017

To enable society to better manage the risks and opportunities arising from changes in climate, engagement between the users and the providers of climate information needs to be much more effective and should better link climate information with decision-making.

Solar geoengineering is no substitute for cutting emissions, but could nevertheless help reduce the atmospheric carbon burden. In the extreme, if solar geoengineering were used to hold radiative forcing constant under RCP8.5, the carbon burden may be reduced by ∼100 GTC, equivalent to 12–26% of twenty-first-century emissions at a cost of under US$0.5 per tCO₂.

Policymakers are beginning to understand the scale of carbon dioxide removal that is required to keep global warming “well below 2 °C”. This understanding must now be translated into policies that give business the incentive to research, develop and deploy the required technologies.

Changing climates are outpacing some components of our food systems. Risk assessments need to account for these rates of change. Assessing risk transmission mechanisms across sectors and international boundaries and coordinating policies across governments are key steps in addressing this challenge.

With climate change, urban development and economic growth, more assets and infrastructures will be exposed to flooding. Now research shows that investments in flood protection are globally beneficial, but have varied levels of benefit locally.

Using a fully statistical approach, the paper shows that the most likely range of cumulative CO₂ emissions includes the IPCC’s two middle scenarios but not the extreme ones. Carbon intensity reduction should accelerate to achieve the 1.5 °C warming target.

Managing future flood risk is necessary to minimize costs and achieve maximum benefit from investment. This study presents a framework to assess urban structural protection under climate change and socio-economic development.

The effect of ozone and fine particulate matter on human health is dependent on emissions and climate change. Here the effects of climate change on air pollution mortality are isolated, with increases predicted in all regions except Africa.

Even if fossil-fuel emissions were to cease immediately, continued anthropogenic warming is expected. Here, observation-based estimates indicate there is a 13% risk that committed warming already exceeds the 1.5 K Paris target.

Warming of surface ocean waters is well known, but how the subsurface waters are changing is less clear. This study shows that subtropical mode water in the North Atlantic and North Pacific is warming at twice the rate of the surface waters.

A warmer climate is generally expected to favour smaller organisms and steeper body-mass–abundance scaling through food webs. Results from across a stream temperature gradient now show that this effect can be offset by increasing nutrient supply.

The mass balance of glaciers will influence regional water resources in the Himalayas. Changes in atmospheric dynamics, the Karakoram vortex contraction, and interaction with the monsoon influence the glacial melt of the region.