Volume 9 Issue 5, May 2019

The way in which climate change research funds are managed is shifting dramatically toward investments in large collaborative research networks. This poses significant challenges for researchers, and requires changes from the institutions and funders that support them.

Many countries are formulating a long-term climate strategy to be submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by 2020. Model-based, multi-disciplinary assessments can be a key ingredient for informing policy makers and engaging stakeholders in this process.

Long-term climate dynamics and impacts from sea level rise to heat stress make the case for much stronger mitigation efforts today

Climate change exposes more people to heat waves and other extreme weather events. New research shows that experiencing a heat wave can affect concerns about energy security, but not enough to change behaviour.

North American winters have varied from mild to extremely cold in recent years. Now, research provides a framework for understanding these changing temperature extremes.

A fifty-year observational record of Central Amazon forest reveals the multifaceted nature of tree death and concerning signs of vulnerability to increasing heat.

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, launched in 2002, allows monitoring of changes in hydrology and the cryosphere with terrestrial and ocean applications. This Review Article focuses on its contribution to the detection and quantification of climate change signals.

The frequency of extreme weather events is increasing due to climate change. Here, the authors exploit regional variation in the UK summer heatwave of 2018 and find that exposure to extreme temperatures influenced concern about energy security.

The life-cycle GHG emissions from plastics are expected to increase. Here, it is shown that an aggressive strategy of decarbonizing energy infrastructure, improving recycling, adopting bio-based plastics and reducing demand is required to keep emissions below 2015 levels.

Melting glaciers are increasing Himalayan glacial lakes and potentially the risk of outburst floods. An advanced automated algorithm identifies glacial lake outburst floods from Landsat images since the late 1980s to improve understanding of these events and trends in their frequency.

Fifty years of monthly observation of rainforest canopy trees in the Central Amazon reveals that drought, heat, storms and extreme rain can all increase tree mortality. Pioneers, softwoods and evergreen functional groups were particularly vulnerable.

The benefits of using natural gas as a bridge fuel are often called into question. A coal-to-gas shift in China, Germany, India and the United States is broadly consistent with climate stabilization goals in the Paris Agreement, except when metrics emphasizing very short-term outcomes are used.

In this Article, modelling results from a consistent set of sectoral climate change impact models, covering 22 impact sectors of the United States, are summarized. Findings are complex, but largely negative and expensive.

The Pacific Walker circulation is predicted to weaken, however, observations suggest a current strengthening. Satellite humidity observations show a weaker response than reanalyses; coupled with model simulations, this suggests that internal variability dominates recent strengthening.

Interdecadal modulations in the North Pacific Oscillation (NPO) influence North American winter temperatures. An eastward shift of the NPO in recent decades has increased its influence, resulting in more extremes, depending on the NPO phase.

Spaceborne thermal observation is used to monitor discrete phenophases of forest understory plants in near-real time and the thermal relationship is used to project phenological changes under future climates.