Volume 8 Issue 8, August 2018

With country-specific development objectives and constraints, multiple market failures and limited international transfers, carbon prices do not need to be uniform across countries, but must be part of broader policy packages.

Low-probability, high-consequence climate change events are likely to trigger management responses that are based on the demand for immediate action from those affected. However, these responses may be inefficient and even maladaptive in the long term.

A well-defined relationship between global mean sea-level rise and cumulative carbon emissions can be used to inform policy about emission limits to prevent dangerous and essentially permanent anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

Climate change-driven alterations in storminess pose a significant threat to global capture fisheries. Understanding how storms interact with fishery social-ecological systems can inform adaptive action and help to reduce the vulnerability of those dependent on fisheries for life and livelihood.

Political crises may exacerbate environmental conflicts by shifting conservation priorities. Research now shows that increased carbon emissions from deforestation in Brazil may compromise its goals under the Paris Agreement.

The coincident reduction of Arctic sea ice with increasing mid-latitude wintertime extremes has motivated much research on Arctic–mid-latitude linkages. A new study reveals that projected Antarctic sea-ice loss could also impact the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes through perturbations to the strength and position of the westerly winds.

Will the Southern Ocean’s relentless waves undo Antarctica’s ecological isolation? The discovery of a wayward piece of kelp and a simple numerical experiment set new expectations for the potential invasion of Earth’s most isolated continent.

Protecting and restoring forests to mitigate climate change also promises to help protect tropical biodiversity and ecosystem services. Analysis now shows that optimizing for carbon can come at the expense of protecting biodiversity, but there are ways to effectively pair the two.

Ambitious carbon pricing reform is needed to meet climate targets. This Perspective argues that effective revenue recycling schemes should prioritize behavioural considerations that are aimed at achieving greater political acceptance.

This Perspective draws on two case studies to examine geodiversity and cultural diversity approaches to conservation currently used by US land trusts, and their complementary strengths and weaknesses in fostering climate resilience.

Ocean acidification, a result of increased levels of CO₂, impacts the marine environment and its biology. This Perspective presents the current understanding of the issue and highlights future directions for research.

Political bargaining has the potential to reverse Brazil’s deforestation control efforts. Integrated assessment modelling shows that weaker environmental governance threatens the country’s ability to achieve emissions consistent with a 2 °C goal.

Economy-wide GHG emissions reductions may negatively affect food security. Stringent mitigation policies, modelled as carbon prices, are shown to lead to an increase in production costs, food prices and the population’s risk of hunger.

Genomic tools and ocean circulation models show that organisms surface-drift across the Southern Ocean frequently. The extreme cold therefore keeps Antarctica biologically isolated, but as the climate warms new species may establish quickly.

The growth of nitrogen-fixing marine cyanobacteria Trichodesmium is limited by iron availability under current conditions. However warmer temperatures reduce the iron requirement, allowing greater growth rates and increased nitrogen fixation.

Topographic variations result in microclimatic heterogeneity that can substantially reduce extinction risk from climate change, according to a study of 430 climate-threatened and range-declining species in England.

Individual and metapopulation models together project that—under an unabated climate change scenario—warming could reduce breeding productivity of a currently abundant songbird enough to pose a risk of quasi-extinction this century.

A 1 °C increase in monthly average temperature is associated with higher suicide rates in the United States and Mexico. Combined with comparable analysis of depressive language in US Twitter updates, these results suggest a link between higher temperatures and mental well-being.

It has been suggested that tropical cyclones have migrated polewards in recent decades. Analysis of observational and reanalysis data suggests that this migration may be linked to an expansion of the Hadley cell and the changes in vertical atmospheric stability.

Marine fishes exposed to elevated CO₂ levels can have altered responses to sensory cues. Research now reveals a physiological and molecular mechanism in the olfactory system that helps to explain this altered behaviour under elevated CO₂.

Biodiversity is positively associated with carbon density in highly disturbed tropical forests, but this relationship breaks down in relatively undisturbed areas. Consequently, carbon conservation schemes can fail to protect the most ecologically valuable forests.