Atmospheric science articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The methane emissions from natural gas vehicles (NGVs) are unclear. Here the authors report high methane emissions from heavy-duty NGVs, and by using a scenario analysis show that strictly implementing the upcoming China VI standard could reduce GHG emissions by 509 Mt CO2eq for 2020-2030.

    • Da Pan
    • , Lei Tao
    •  & Mark A. Zondlo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The spatial pattern and global mean values of warming differ between different climate models, an issue that needs to be better understood in order to obtain reliable regional projections. Here, the authors show that ice-albedo and water vapor feedbacks are the key processes that are responsible for this inter-model spread.

    • Xiaoming Hu
    • , Hanjie Fan
    •  & Song Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dust emissions are likely to increase significantly when land vegetation is absent, such as during the Precambrian period. Here, the authors use climate simulations to find that high dust emissions in the Precambrian could have cooled the global climate by ~10 °C.

    • Peng Liu
    • , Yonggang Liu
    •  & Yongyun Hu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The asymmetry between El Niño and La Niña episodes in the tropical Pacific is often not well represented in models. Here, the authors show that this asymmetry is related to subsurface nonlinear dynamical heating and that a realistic representation of this process can potentially improve tropical climate projections.

    • Michiya Hayashi
    • , Fei-Fei Jin
    •  & Malte F. Stuecker

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    The Montreal Protocol has begun to heal the Antarctic ozone hole and avoided more global warming than any other treaty. Still, recent research shows that new unexpected emissions of several chlorofluorocarbons, carbon tetrachloride, and hydrofluorocarbons, are undermining the Protocol’s success. It is time for policymakers to plug the holes in the ozone hole treaty.

    • Susan Solomon
    • , Joseph Alcamo
    •  & A. R. Ravishankara

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global mean sea surface surface temperature shows decadal fluctuations superimposed to the warming trend whose causes are still debated. Here, the authors provide a quantification of relative contributions of different drivers and conclude that both internal and externally-forced variability play a comparable role.

    • Giovanni Liguori
    • , Shayne McGregor
    •  & Gerald A. Meehl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the tropical mixed layer of the ocean reacts to near-inertial waves has rarely been observed directly. Here, the authors present new data that shows strongly elevated vertical diffusive heat flux in the presence of near-inertial waves, causing a cooling of the mixed layer that is particularly strong in summer.

    • Rebecca Hummels
    • , Marcus Dengler
    •  & Peter Brandt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plastic pollution is a critical concern across diverse ecosystems, yet most research has focused on terrestrial and aquatic transport, neglecting other mechanisms. Here the authors show that atmospheric transport is a major pathway for road plastic pollution over remote regions.

    • N. Evangeliou
    • , H. Grythe
    •  & A. Stohl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Strong mitigation of anthropogenic emissions is necessary, but it is not clear how fast these efforts would lead to temperature changes. Here, the authors find that there is a substantial delay between reductions of emissions and a detectable change in surface temperature for a number of climate forcers.

    • B. H. Samset
    • , J. S. Fuglestvedt
    •  & M. T. Lund

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How climate change affects the translation speed of tropical cyclones has been the subject of intensive debate. Here, the authors use models to show that future regional changes in the steering winds lead to faster-moving tropical cyclones as they make landfall in Texas.

    • Pedram Hassanzadeh
    • , Chia-Ying Lee
    •  & Laurence Y. Yeung

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this study, the authors investigate in the influence of atmospheric dust on the habitability of exoplanets. They find that atmospheric dust may postpone planetary water loss; for tidally locked planets in particular, dust can significantly widen the habitable zone by cooling the day side and warming the night side.

    • Ian A. Boutle
    • , Manoj Joshi
    •  & Krisztian Kohary

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How sulfur dioxide emitted through coal combustion is oxidized to sulfate particles during winter haze pollution events has been the subject of debate. Here, the authors show that rapid oxidation takes place by nitrogen dioxide and nitrous acid, producing nitrous oxide together with sulfate.

    • Junfeng Wang
    • , Jingyi Li
    •  & Daniel J. Jacob

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Model biases and internal variability are a cause for uncertainties in climate projections. Here, the authors show that 45% of projected uncertainty in the western Pacific Subtropical High can be reduced by correcting sea surface temperature biases in the equatorial Pacific and beneath marine stratocumulus clouds.

    • Xiaolong Chen
    • , Tianjun Zhou
    •  & Minghuai Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Floods are an important natural disaster on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, but their driving mechanisms are not well understood. Here, the authors utilize data from twitter messages and local newspaper reports to show that convectively coupled Kelvin waves play a key role in promoting floods on Sumatra.

    • Dariusz B. Baranowski
    • , Maria K. Flatau
    •  & Marzuki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine heatwaves are threatening ocean ecosystems with increasing frequency, but their seasonal drivers are unknown. Here, the authors determine that summertime blobs of warm temperature anomalies in the Pacific occur as a result of prolonged weakening in the North Pacific High-Pressure System.

    • Dillon J. Amaya
    • , Arthur J. Miller
    •  & Yu Kosaka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Following international agreements, the use of chlorofluorocarbons in production is supposed to be phased out. Here, the authors present a new estimate of these products already in use and their emissions and show that they are larger than expected and that not recovering these banks leads to a substantial delay in the polar ozone hole recovery.

    • Megan Lickley
    • , Susan Solomon
    •  & Kane Stone

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Algorithms to assess causal relationships in data sets have seen increasing applications in climate science in recent years. Here, the authors show that these techniques can help to systematically evaluate the performance of climate models and, as a result, to constrain uncertainties in future climate change projections.

    • Peer Nowack
    • , Jakob Runge
    •  & Joanna D. Haigh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tropical cyclones can cause severe damage, in particular through flooding of coastal areas. Here, the authors show that in addition to known impacts, tropical cyclone rainbands can cause meteotsunami waves that can contribute significantly to the total water levels and hence flooding risks.

    • Luming Shi
    • , Maitane Olabarrieta
    •  & John C. Warner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ensemble spread of climate models is often interpreted as the uncertainty of the projection, but this is not always justified. Applying learning algorithms to an ensemble of climate predictions allows for a significant uncertainty reduction of projected global mean surface temperatures compared to the ensemble spread.

    • Ehud Strobach
    •  & Golan Bel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    International agreements have been implemented to reduce emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) to reduce their radiative forcing. Even though reported HFC-23 emissions are at a historical low, observations indicate that emissions have actually increased over recent years to higher levels than previously.

    • K. M. Stanley
    • , D. Say
    •  & M. Rigby

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Models show a cooler surface temperature response to deforestation than observations which has been attributed to uncertainties in the models. A comparison of satellite observations and model experiments shows that the disagreement is due to the role of atmospheric feedbacks, which are not well captured in the observational space-for-time approach.

    • Liang Chen
    •  & Paul A. Dirmeyer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cracks in Arctic sea ice (leads) are becoming more prevalent and widespread, yet studies regarding their impacts on clouds are limited. Here, contrary to the present understanding, diverse observations and modelling simulations show that higher leads concentrations do not necessarily result in more low clouds.

    • Xia Li
    • , Steven K. Krueger
    •  & Sally Benson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the translation speed of tropical cyclones has changed in recent decades and will change in the future has been the subject of debate. Model results show that on average, they have not slowed down in the past, but despite a slowing of tropical cyclones at higher latitudes, a poleward shift in their mean track location causes a general speed up under high greenhouse gas emissions.

    • Munehiko Yamaguchi
    • , Johnny C. L. Chan
    •  & Ryo Mizuta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wind changes the surface of the Earth, but the surface characteristics of the planet also impact the winds above it. Here, the authors propose a feedback process in which wind erosion in the western Gobi Desert alters the thermal properties of the surface, which in turn increases near-surface winds.

    • Jordan T. Abell
    • , Alex Pullen
    •  & Gisela Winckler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The existence of regular decadal or longer climate oscillations has been the subject of intensive discussion. Here, statistical analysis of observational data and a large ensemble of model simulations show no evidence for longer-term internal oscillations that are distinguishable from climatic noise.

    • Michael E. Mann
    • , Byron A. Steinman
    •  & Sonya K. Miller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Past Indian summer monsoon (ISM) changes are not well understood. The application of an energetic framework to a transient model simulation shows that ISM influences have changed in the past, with rising water vapor more important during deglaciation, whereas cloud feedbacks dominated during the Holocene.

    • Chetankumar Jalihal
    • , Jayaraman Srinivasan
    •  & Arindam Chakraborty

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The radiative forcing due to aerosol-cloud interactions constitutes one of the largest uncertainties of anthropogenic radiative forcing. Direct satellite measurements of the relevant aerosol properties reveal that the resulting cooling from anthropogenic aerosols is much stronger than previously thought.

    • Otto P. Hasekamp
    • , Edward Gryspeerdt
    •  & Johannes Quaas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aerosol-cloud interactions are a large source of uncertainty in radiative forcing estimates. Here, the authors show that the radiative effects of clouds are influenced by a combination of aerosol particle distribution, environmental conditions and atmosphere dynamics.

    • S. J. Lowe
    • , D. G. Partridge
    •  & I. Riipinen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The loss of anomalous sulfur isotope compositions from sedimentary rocks has been considered a symptom of permanent atmospheric oxygenation. Here the authors show sulfur and oxygen isotope evidence from < 2.31 Ga sedimentary barium sulphates (barites) from the Turee Creek Basin, W. Australia, demonstrating the influence of local non-atmospheric processes on anomalous sulfur isotope signals.

    • B. A. Killingsworth
    • , P. Sansjofre
    •  & S. V. Lalonde

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Condensation of organic vapors is a main factor controlling the growth of atmospheric particles. Here the authors identify a distribution of organic vapors in a forested environment able to explain nanoparticle growth at the same location, contributing to understanding aerosol climate effects.

    • Claudia Mohr
    • , Joel A. Thornton
    •  & Taina Yli-Juuti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Gigantic jets, lightning discharges originating from tropical thunderstorms that can reach the base of the ionosphere at 90 km altitude, have not been captured using high-speed video cameras before. Here, the first such images are reported, showing a step-wise evolution of gigantic jets during their rising phase.

    • Oscar A. van der Velde
    • , Joan Montanyà
    •  & Steven A. Cummer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forests emit compounds into the atmosphere that are oxidized into highly oxygenated molecules that serve as precursors for cloud condensation nuclei–a process that impacts the climate, but is poorly represented in models. Here the authors create a new model that accurately depicts highly oxygenated molecule and climate dynamics over Boreal forests.

    • Pontus Roldin
    • , Mikael Ehn
    •  & Michael Boy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    “Reconstruction of precipitation variability from oxygen isotopes in the Mesoamerican and Caribbean region is made difficult by the occurrence of tropical cyclones. Here, the isotopic evolution of a tropical cyclone is studied in detail which helps disentangle the key processes governing rainfall isotope variability in the region.”

    • Ricardo Sánchez-Murillo
    • , Ana M. Durán-Quesada
    •  & Kim M. Cobb

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the spatial patterns of deep convection affect the large-scale dynamics of the atmosphere remains an open question. Here, it is shown that if convection along the equator is clustered, the tropical rain belt widens and exhibits a double peak structure.

    • Max Popp
    •  & Sandrine Bony

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Isoprene is a key component of the atmosphere, with impacts on oxidation, ozone and organic aerosols, but in-situ measurements are limited. Here, the authors present a full-physics measurement framework based on satellite data that enables the direct observation of atmospheric isoprene from space.

    • Dejian Fu
    • , Dylan B. Millet
    •  & Annmarie Eldering

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tropical cyclone-induced coastal flooding will increase under climate change. Here the authors estimate the effects of sea level rise and tropical cyclone climatology change on late–21st–century flood hazards along the US Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and find that the effect of tropical cyclone change could surpass the effect of sea level rise at some areas in the Gulf of Mexico.

    • Reza Marsooli
    • , Ning Lin
    •  & Kairui Feng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While it is known that the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences tropical cyclones, but little is known about a reverse effect. Here, data and model output shows that tropical cyclones can affect ENSO with a lead of 3 months, especially contributing to a significantly more intense El Niño in the winter months.

    • Qiuyun Wang
    • , Jianping Li
    •  & Yidan Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tropical land ecosystems contain vast carbon reservoirs, but their influence on atmospheric CO2 is poorly understood. Here the authors use new carbon-observing satellites to reveal a large emission source over northern tropical Africa, where there are large soil carbon stores and substantial land use changes.

    • Paul I. Palmer
    • , Liang Feng
    •  & Peter Somkuti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thunderstorms are commonly represented through simplified parametrizations in weather and climate models. Here it is shown that an increase in model resolution over West Africa, enabling the explicit modeling of Sahelian convective systems, can improve 5–8 day tropical and mid-latitude weather forecasts.

    • Gregor Pante
    •  & Peter Knippertz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    El Niño warms the tropical Atlantic, which in turn induces an anomalous Rossby wave train, triggering Arctic sea-ice growth and Eurasian warming in the El Niño decay year. This teleconnection via the tropical Atlantic and the Arctic in La Niña decay year contributes to Eurasian cold winter extremes.

    • Shinji Matsumura
    •  & Yu Kosaka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global average, geographical distribution and temporal variations of the 13C isotopic signature of enteric fermentation emissions are not well understood. Here the authors established a global dataset and show a larger emission increase between the two periods (2002–2006 and 2008–2012) than previous studies.

    • Jinfeng Chang
    • , Shushi Peng
    •  & Philippe Bousquet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Residential solid fuel use constitutes a large amount of air pollution but has been gradually replaced by other cleaner energy during the past three decades. Here the authors investigated the contribution of rural residential sector to ambient PM2.5 pollution and the resulting climate forcing and health impacts, and find that the remaining large quantities of solid fuels used in rural households are still a major contributor to ambient air pollution despite of decrease in its pollutant emissions and relative contribution to PM2.5 due to the clean energy transition.

    • Guofeng Shen
    • , Muye Ru
    •  & Shu Tao

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Atmospheric science across other nature.com journals