Volume 9 Issue 3, March 2019

Climate science celebrates three 40th anniversaries in 2019: the release of the Charney report, the publication of a key paper on anthropogenic signal detection, and the start of satellite temperature measurements. This confluence of scientific understanding and data led to the identification of human fingerprints in atmospheric temperature.

As the World Climate Research Programme approaches its fortieth anniversary, Nature Climate Change speaks to Julia Slingo, leader of a major review of the programme, about its achievements and future directions.

According to the conventional wisdom, defection by one country from global climate cooperation should undermine the incentives for other countries to act. But new research shows that the public in the United States and China both maintain robust support for national climate reforms, even when a major carbon polluter stops cooperating.

To meet the Paris Agreement goals, CO₂ emissions in industrial countries must decrease over the long term. Now research shows that an increase in the share of renewable energy and a decrease in energy use have contributed to emissions reductions in industrial countries, but enhanced policies are needed to decouple economic growth from emissions.

Collaborative research utilizing field trials and whole farm crop simulation enables adaptation of Australian wheat crop practices. Novel varieties sown earlier enable a longer growing season, which facilitates wheat yield increases despite an increasingly challenging climate.

This Perspective synthesizes research on the origins and impacts of scientific misinformation campaigns, pointing to public inoculation, legal, political and financial strategies for countering climate change misinformation and limiting its dissemination.

Big data is increasingly popular in many research domains. This Perspective discusses where elements of big data approaches have been employed in climate research and where combining big data with theory-driven research can be most fruitful.

The Paris Agreement requires substantial changes in the land system. However, national implementation plans are vague, largely insufficient and unlikely to be fully achieved. Realistic policies require proper consideration of land-system lags.

Between 2005 and 2015, several developed economies experienced decreases in CO₂ emissions. In this study, emissions in 18 countries are broken down and the potential effects of energy and climate policies on emission declines are explored.

Aviation’s contribution to global emissions is increasing and requires action. This paper shows that the International Civil Aviation Organization plan to offset increasing emissions will not be realized unless robust criteria for the eligibility of offset credits are adopted.

The compensation between atmospheric and oceanic heat transports under anthropogenic warming can be linked to the combined impact of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakening, perturbations to Southern Ocean heat storage, and coupled responses of the Hadley and Subtropical cells.

Up to 35,000 lakes in the Northern Hemisphere may be at risk of intermittent winter ice cover at 2 °C warming, reveals an observation-based study. This would affect 394 million people reliant on lake ice for ecosystem services.

Warming is altering subtropical precipitation; however, it is not clear whether this will continue in an equilibrium climate. Using projections to 2300, Southern Hemisphere drying is shown to be a transient response to the meridional temperature gradient changes.

Abrupt community shifts, for marine species from zooplankton to fish, are shown to occur with local climate changes in which warming pushes species beyond their thermal niche. This modelling approach suggests future events will be larger and have more broad-reaching impacts.

Crop models suggest that early sowing and slower-developing cultivars could maintain Australian wheat yields despite less-favourable climatic conditions. Field trials now confirm the potential of this adaptation for wheat production across Australia.

Climate change mitigation requires cooperation among nations, which could be undermined if a major emitter defects from international agreements. This study shows that public support for global climate policies is unaffected by information on other countries failing to reduce their emissions.