Climate change articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ocean uptake of carbon dioxide impacts the climate, but flux estimates from surface measurements have not been corrected for temperature differences between surface and water sampling depth. Making that correction, the authors find previous estimates for ocean uptake have been substantially underestimated.

    • Andrew J. Watson
    • , Ute Schuster
    •  & Lonneke Goddijn-Murphy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wheat yield is sensitive to temperature, but there could be substantial variation in this response across cultivars. Here the authors present data on the climatic responses of wheat cultivars in South Africa, highlighting which cultivars might be better able to maintain yield under warming.

    • Aaron M. Shew
    • , Jesse B. Tack
    •  & Petronella Chaminuka

  • 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

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Prior studies mapping climatologically suitable areas for malaria transmission have used relatively simple thresholds for precipitation. Here the authors show that when models incorporate hydrological processes a more complex pattern of malaria suitability emerges in Africa and future shifts in suitability are more pronounced.

    • M. W. Smith
    • , T. Willis
    •  & C. J. Thomas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Predicting the fate of carbon in peatlands relies on assumptions of behaviour in response to temperature. Here, the authors show that the temperature dependency of respiratory carbon losses shift strongly over day-night cycles, an overlooked facet causing bias in peatland carbon cycle simulations.

    • Järvi Järveoja
    • , Mats B. Nilsson
    •  & Matthias Peichl

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Climate science and climate economics are critical sources of expertise in our pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals. Effective use of this expertise requires a strengthening of its epistemic foundations and a renewed focus on more practical policy problems.

    • David A. Stainforth
    •  & Raphael Calel

  • 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

    Drylands cover nearly half of Earth’s surface, yet how they will fare in light of anthropogenic climate change is debated. Here the authors find that over the past 40 years climate change has pushed ~13% of drylands towards desertification threatening hundreds of millions of people in developing nations.

    • A. L. Burrell
    • , J. P. Evans
    •  & M. G. De Kauwe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change may impact groundwater storage and thus the availability of freshwater resources. Here the authors use climate models to examine seven aquifers and find that storage changes are primarily the result of enhancement of evapotranspiration, reduction in snowmelt, and over-pumping rather than long-term precipitation changes.

    • Wen-Ying Wu
    • , Min-Hui Lo
    •  & Zong-Liang Yang

  • 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

    Heatwaves are expected to become more frequent and more intense under global warming, but how these trends differ on a regional scale is not well known. Here, the authors provide a comprehensive assessment of regional changes and show that most heat indicaters have increased since the 1950s.

    • S. E. Perkins-Kirkpatrick
    •  & S. C. Lewis

  • 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

    To remove CO2 from the atmosphere every year by mid-century will need new technologies. Here the authors proposed the use of magnesia (MgO) in ambient looping processes to remove CO2 from the air and they found that the proposed approach will cost $46–195 tCO2−1 net removed from the atmosphere considering both grid and solar electricity resources without including post-processing costs.

    • Noah McQueen
    • , Peter Kelemen
    •  & Jennifer Wilcox

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The United Kingdom has experienced a strong heat wave in 2019 that set a new temperature record for the country of 38.7 °C. In this study the authors show that under climate change, local temperatures are increasingly likely to exceed 35 °C and 40 °C in the next decades and, hence, summers like the one of 2019 become more frequent.

    • Nikolaos Christidis
    • , Mark McCarthy
    •  & Peter A. Stott

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fire is an important component of many African ecosystems, but prediction of fire activity is challenging. Here, the authors use a statistical framework to assess the seasonal environmental drivers of African fire, which allow for a better prediction of fire activity.

    • Yan Yu
    • , Jiafu Mao
    •  & Yaoping Wang

  • 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

    Rising temperatures in the Arctic can lead to the release of vast amounts of carbon stored in permafrost soils. Here the authors show that stratospheric sulfate aerosol injection geoengineering can help to avoid about 14 gigatons of carbon release and US$8.4 trillion in economic losses by 2070 compared to RCP4.5 emissions.

    • Yating Chen
    • , Aobo Liu
    •  & John C. Moore

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impacts of power plant water shortage during drought on electricity prices are understudied. Here the authors show that on extreme days, almost 50% (7 GWe) of the freshwater thermal capacity is unavailable in the Great Britain and annualized cumulative costs on electricity prices are in the range of £29-95m per year.

    • Edward A. Byers
    • , Gemma Coxon
    •  & Jim W. Hall

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There lacks a European cost-benefit analysis of possible protective measures against rising seas. Here the authors used a probabilistic data and modeling framework to estimate costs and benefits of coastal protection measures and found that at least 83% of flood damages could be avoided by dyke improvements along a third of the European coastline.

    • Michalis I. Vousdoukas
    • , Lorenzo Mentaschi
    •  & Luc Feyen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Siberian Arctic permafrost contains vast stores of carbon, the fate of which is dependent on the climate. Here the authors use models of future scenarios to show that under the direst climate changes up to 2/3 of the stored organic carbon could thaw.

    • Jan Nitzbon
    • , Sebastian Westermann
    •  & Julia Boike

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Threats to marine ecosystems are increasing due to ocean acidification, but trends are spatiotemporally difficult to monitor or predict. Here the authors use an Earth system model to accurately predict surface pH changes in the economically and ecologically important California Current System.

    • Riley X. Brady
    • , Nicole S. Lovenduski
    •  & Keith Lindsay

  • 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

    High latitude droughts are increasing, but their effects on freshwater systems are poorly understood. Here the authors investigate Sweden’s most severe drought in the last century and show that these dry conditions induce hypoxia and elevated methane production from streams.

    • Lluís Gómez-Gener
    • , Anna Lupon
    •  & Ryan A. Sponseller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Estuaries are diverse and important aquatic ecosystems, yet we lack information on their response to climate change. Here, the authors show that east Australian estuaries are warming and acidifying faster than predicted by ocean or atmospheric models; a trend that is magnified in shallow estuaries.

    • Elliot Scanes
    • , Peter R. Scanes
    •  & Pauline M. Ross

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cooling demand project largely ignores the role of humidity. Here the authors show that in many of the high energy consuming states, projections based on air temperature alone underestimates cooling demand by as much as 10–15% under both present and future climate scenarios, due to the neglected role of humidity.

    • Debora Maia-Silva
    • , Rohini Kumar
    •  & Roshanak Nateghi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most of the North Atlantic has seen strong increase in surface temperatures in recent decades, except for one region, which has been called the North Atlantic warming hole. Here, the authors employ detection and attribution techniques to show that this temperature pattern in recent decades is being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

    • Rei Chemke
    • , Laure Zanna
    •  & Lorenzo M. Polvani

  • 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

    Water temperature is a critical variable for lakes, but its spatial and temporal patterns are not well characterised globally. Here, the authors use surface temperature dynamics to define lake thermal regions that group lakes with similar patterns, and show how these regions shift under climate change.

    • Stephen C. Maberly
    • , Ruth A. O’Donnell
    •  & Andrew N. Tyler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extreme high temperature events are increasing in frequency and severity, threatening the capacity for crops and farmers alike to adapt. Here Sloat and colleagues track the movement of cereal crops over the past 40 years, finding a global migration away from warming climates.

    • Lindsey L. Sloat
    • , Steven J. Davis
    •  & Nathaniel D. Mueller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Land cover change contributes to regional climate trends. Here, the authors use high-resolution land cover maps and state-of-the-art climate modelling to assess land cover change effects across Europe over 1992-2015, showing widespread cooling after agricultural abandonment but also different, region-specific effects.

    • Bo Huang
    • , Xiangping Hu
    •  & Francesco Cherubini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the Asian monsoon, earth surface processes and human development interact is not well known. Here, a new record of dust storm intensity shows a relationship between the stability of dynasties and dust storm activity for the last ~2200 years, which argues for a strong human control of dust storms in East Asia over this time.

    • Fahu Chen
    • , Shengqian Chen
    •  & Jianbao Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    New hydrological simulations show for the first time how sensitive groundwater and surface water connections are to systematic warming across the continental United States. The authors here show a clear reduction in subsurface water storage under a warming climate and intensified aridification of north America.

    • Laura E. Condon
    • , Adam L. Atchley
    •  & Reed M. Maxwell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Compound hot extremes that combine day- and nighttime heat have particularly strong impacts. Here, the authors show that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases have made compound hot extremes increasingly frequent and intense, and project that under future emissions four to eight times as many people will be affected by them by 2100.

    • Jun Wang
    • , Yang Chen
    •  & Jiangjiang Xia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The carbon footprints of natural gas supplies at the field level are unclear. Here the authors analysed the GHG intensities of gas supplies from 104 fields and show that their GHG intensities range from 6.2 to 43.3 g CO2eq MJ-1.

    • Yu Gan
    • , Hassan M. El-Houjeiri
    •  & Michael Wang

  • 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

    There are significant uncertainties of how large sea level changes due to Antarctic Ice Sheet melting could be. Here, the authors quantify the impact of different greenhouse gas emission scenarios and different Antarctic contributions to changes to extreme sea-level events and find that even under low emissions the occurrence of sea-level extremes could rise significantly due to Antarctic meltwater increase.

    • Thomas Frederikse
    • , Maya K. Buchanan
    •  & Roderik S. W. van de Wal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the effects of irrigation on the climate conditions compare to other anthropogenic forcings is not well known. Observational and model evidence show that expanding irrigation has dampened historical anthropogenic warming during hot days, an effect that is particularly strong over South Asia.

    • Wim Thiery
    • , Auke J. Visser
    •  & Sonia I. Seneviratne

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Gardner and colleagues argue that efforts to conserve biodiversity should capitalise on current momentum in the realm of climate change policy.

    • Charlie J. Gardner
    • , Matthew J. Struebig
    •  & Zoe G. Davies

  • 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

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