Climate change articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • 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

    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

    Robust estimates of either urban expansion worldwide or the effects of such phenomenon on terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP) are lacking. Here the authors used the new dataset of global land use to show that the global urban areas expanded largely between 2000 and 2010, which in turn reduced terrestrial NPP globally.

    • Xiaoping Liu
    • , Fengsong Pei
    •  & Zhu Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate affects dynamics of infectious diseases, but the impact on respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) epidemiology isn’t well understood. Here, Baker et al. model the influence of temperature, humidity and rainfall on RSV epidemiology in the USA and Mexico and predict impact of climate change on RSV dynamics.

    • Rachel E. Baker
    • , Ayesha S. Mahmud
    •  & Bryan T. Grenfell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Suture zones are abundant on Antarctic ice shelves and widely observed to impede fracture propagation. Here we show that fracture detainment is principally controlled by the zones’ enhanced seawater contents, reducing fracture-driving stresses by orders of magnitude and therefore greatly enhancing stability.

    • Bernd Kulessa
    • , Adam D. Booth
    •  & Bryn Hubbard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There lacks a consistent and holistic evaluation of co-benefits of different mitigation pathways in studies on Integrated Assessment Models. Here the authors quantify environmental co-benefits and adverse side-effects of a portfolio of alternative power sector decarbonisation pathways and show that the scale of co-benefits as well as profiles of adverse side-effects depend strongly on technology choice.

    • Gunnar Luderer
    • , Michaja Pehl
    •  & Edgar G. Hertwich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Accurate estimates of global mean sea-level rise are important. Here the authors employ a new digital elevation model (DEM) utilizing neural networks and show that the new DEM more than triples the NASA SRTM-based estimates of current global population occupying land below projected sea levels in 2100, with more than 200 million people could be affected based on RCP4.5 and 2 degC of warming.

    • Scott A. Kulp
    •  & Benjamin H. Strauss

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Flash droughts are widely discussed in the scientific community since the rapid onset of the 2012 drought in the USA. Here, the authors model the temporal frequency of potential flash drought events and the exposure risk over China for the next 80 years.

    • Xing Yuan
    • , Linying Wang
    •  & Miao Zhang

  • 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

    Surface meltwater is known to influence the dynamics of some glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet. Here, the authors have identified the first examples of the drainage of surface meltwater to the bed of outlet glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula that trigger large and rapid accelerations of ice flow.

    • Peter A. Tuckett
    • , Jeremy C. Ely
    •  & Joshua Howard

  • 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

    During the Miocene, the Central American seaway was not closed, allowing low-salinity Pacific water to potentially weaken the Atlantic circulation. A new, continuous Nd isotope record shows that there was no direct intermediate water mass export from the Caribbean to the Florida Strait and thus, the Atlantic circulation could strengthen.

    • Valeriia Kirillova
    • , Anne H. Osborne
    •  & Martin Frank

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Assessments of sea level rise risks depend on elevation data. Here, the authors present a new dataset on the Mekong Delta which shows it to have a much lower elevation (0.82 m above sea level) than previously thought – underlying principles may also imply major elevation uncertainties in other deltas.

    • P. S. J. Minderhoud
    • , L. Coumou
    •  & E. Stouthamer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine sediment cores from east of Africa show that Sahara dust fluxes decreased by at least 50% between the last deglaciation and the mid Holocene, while the Northern Sector of the Red Sea remained unchanged. This constrains the African Humid Period impact to have extended up to ca. 22°N, across a more limited region than previously thought.

    • Daniel Palchan
    •  & Adi Torfstein

  • 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

    The role of climate change (CC) contrarians is neglected in climate change communication studies. Here the authors used a data-driven approach to identify CC contrarians and CC scientists and found that CC scientists have much higher citation impact than those for contrarians but lower media visibility.

    • Alexander Michael Petersen
    • , Emmanuel M. Vincent
    •  & Anthony LeRoy Westerling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Heatwaves are expected to increase under climate change, and so are the associated deaths. Here the authors determine the regional high temperature thresholds for 27 metropolises in China and analyze the changes to heat-related mortality, showing that the additional global-warming temperature increase of 0.5°C, from 1.5°C to 2.0°C, will lead to tens of thousands of additional deaths, annually.

    • Yanjun Wang
    • , Anqian Wang
    •  & Thomas Fischer

  • 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

    To trace the sources of Black Carbon being transported into the Tibetan Plateau is crucial for guiding an effective mitigation strategy. Here the authors utilized the adjoint of the Goddard Earth Observing System-Chem model and find that international trade aggravates the BC pollution over the HTP glacier regions and may cause significant climate change.

    • Kan Yi
    • , Jing Meng
    •  & Shu Tao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS) is not considered in Integrated Assessment Models. Here the authors make comparisons using multi-model regarding the role of DACCS in 1.5 and 2 degree scenarios and find that DACCS allows to postpone mitigation and reduce the climate policy costs.

    • Giulia Realmonte
    • , Laurent Drouet
    •  & Massimo Tavoni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Model simulations show that tropical cyclones were preferably formed in the Southern Hemisphere during the warmer Early Eocene, but then shifted along a cooling climate across the Cenozoic to the Northern Hemisphere. Today's conditions favoring the western North Pacific as the largest genesis center is a result of closing tropical seaways during the Pliocene.

    • Qing Yan
    • , Robert Korty
    •  & Huijun Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coral fossils can record climatic history, but teasing apart environmental signals remains a challenge. Here the authors show that crystallographic changes in coral skeletons grown under high CO2 conditions could be used as a sensitive pH proxy, enabling measurement of ocean acidification back in time.

    • Ismael Coronado
    • , Maoz Fine
    •  & Jarosław Stolarski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ocean anoxic events threaten marine ecosystems, and they are predicted to increase as the climate warms. Using model simulations, Oschlies and colleagues show that in spite of rising temperatures, after transitory deoxygenation, microbial denitrification could lead to oxygen increases that exceed preindustrial levels.

    • Andreas Oschlies
    • , Wolfgang Koeve
    •  & Paul Kähler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Future energy demand maybe induced by climate change and subject to uncertainties arising from different extent of climate change and socioeconomic development. Here the authors follow a top-down approach and combined the recently developed socio-economic and climate scenarios and found that across 210 scenarios, moderate warming increases global climate-exposed energy demand before adaptation by 25–58% between 2010 and 2050.

    • Bas J. van Ruijven
    • , Enrica De Cian
    •  & Ian Sue Wing

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is important to understand how physical changes in Polar regions influence social systems and populations. Here the authors develop an Arctic Climate Change Vulnerability Index focusing on aviation and marine infrastructure in future climate scenarios and show that transportation system vulnerability varies across the region depending on modeled hazards and transportation infrastructure types.

    • Nathan S. Debortoli
    • , Dylan G. Clark
    •  & Emilia P. Diaconescu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large uncertainty exists in projecting future 20-year global warming trends due to intrinsic tropical Pacific climate variability. Here the authors show that knowledge of the state of the Pacific Ocean can significantly reduce this uncertainty via the use of initialized decadal climate forecasts.

    • Mohammad Hadi Bordbar
    • , Matthew H. England
    •  & Mojib Latif

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Evaluating GHG emissions reported to inventories for the oil and gas (O&G) sector is important for countries with resource-based economies. Here the authors provide a top-down assessment of GHG emissions from the Canadian oil sands and find previous inventory reports underestimate emissions, by as much as 64% for surface mining facilities and 30% for the entire oil sands compared with their assessment.

    • John Liggio
    • , Shao-Meng Li
    •  & Felix Vogel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nonlinear transitions in permafrost carbon feedback and surface albedo feedback have largely been excluded from climate policy studies. Here the authors modelled the dynamics of the two nonlinear feedbacks and the associated uncertainty, and found an important contribution to warming which leads to additional economic losses from climate change.

    • Dmitry Yumashev
    • , Chris Hope
    •  & Gail Whiteman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For the first time, climate change experiments with a convection-permitting model have been carried out over an Africa-wide domain. These show more severe future changes in both wet and dry extremes over Africa compared to a traditional coarser resolution climate model.

    • Elizabeth J. Kendon
    • , Rachel A. Stratton
    •  & Catherine A. Senior

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding how climate change has shaped past high impact events requires reliable probabilities of extreme event occurrences. This study demonstrates how often overlooked techniques from weather forecasting can yield more reliable assessments of climate change impacts.

    • Omar Bellprat
    • , Virginie Guemas
    •  & Markus G. Donat

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multinational enterprises (MNE) play a key role in climate mitigation as the significance of the environmental impacts of MNE. Here the authors measured the carbon footprint of U.S. MNE affiliates throughout their global value chains and show their carbon footprint beyond borders at 0.5082 GtCO2 in 2009.

    • Luis-Antonio López
    • , María-Ángeles Cadarso
    •  & Guadalupe Arce

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The potential of biomass energy carbon capture and storage is unclear. Here the authors estimated the negative emissions potential from highly alkaline materials, by-products and wastes and showed that these materials have a CO2 storage potential of 2.5–7.5 billion tonnes per year by 2100.

    • Phil Renforth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The extent to which China’s existing and forthcoming policies would lead to emission reductions domestically has not been well understood. Here the authors combined expert elicitation and a system dynamic model and showed that China is on track to peak its emissions well in advance of 2030.

    • Kelly Sims Gallagher
    • , Fang Zhang
    •  & Qiang Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The response time of North Atlantic climate to changes in high-latitude deep-water formation during the last deglaciation is still unclear. Here the authors show that gradual changes in Nordic Seas deep-water circulation systematically lead ahead of abrupt regional climate shifts by ~400 years.

    • Francesco Muschitiello
    • , William J. D’Andrea
    •  & Trond M. Dokken

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The technical and economic viability of renewable energy (RE) based energy system is understudied. Here the authors utilized a LUT Energy System Transition Model to indicate that a carbon neutral electricity system can be built in all global regions in an economically feasible way but requires evolutionary changes for the following 35 years.

    • Dmitrii Bogdanov
    • , Javier Farfan
    •  & Christian Breyer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Impact models projections are used in integrated assessments of climate change. Here the authors test systematically across many important systems, how well such impact models capture the impacts of extreme climate conditions.

    • Jacob Schewe
    • , Simon N. Gosling
    •  & Lila Warszawski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The terrestrial biosphere absorbs a large fraction of emitted CO2, and thus, plays a critical role in climate change projections. Here, the authors use satellite leaf area and in-situ CO2 measurements to show that most Earth system models largely underestimate photosynthetic carbon fixation in high latitudes.

    • Alexander J. Winkler
    • , Ranga B. Myneni
    •  & Victor Brovkin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Meltwater ponding on top of ice shelves is thought to play a role in ice-shelf flexure and fracture, however in-situ evidence of these mechanisms is lacking. Here, the authors provide field-based evidence showing the impact of the filling and draining of four surface lakes on ice-shelf flexure in Antarctica.

    • Alison F. Banwell
    • , Ian C. Willis
    •  & Douglas R. MacAyeal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is challenging to communicate abstract future climate estimates. Here the authors utilized climate-analog mapping and they identified that North American urban areas’ climate by the 2080’s will become similar to the contemporary climate of locations hundreds of kilometers away and mainly to the south, while many urban areas will have no modern equivalent analogs under the RCP8.5 scenario.

    • Matthew C. Fitzpatrick
    •  & Robert R. Dunn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Country difference in macroeconomic cycles-mortality changes relationships has been rarely explored. Here the authors studied the relationship between 2008 recession and daily mortality counts for EU countries and revealed a significant relationship between macroeconomic cycles and mortality trends.

    • Joan Ballester
    • , Jean-Marie Robine
    •  & Xavier Rodó

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Climate change across other nature.com journals