Climate change articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Indian summer monsoon rainfall impacts millions of people and accurate forecasts are highly desirable, yet official operational forecasts have failed to predict extreme events in 1994, 2002, 2004 and 2009. Here, the authors use dynamical and physical–empirical models to investigate the reasons for this failure.

    • Bin Wang
    • , Baoqiang Xiang
    •  & Kyung-Ja Ha

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How primary production is influenced by climatic forcing has not been tested in most ecosystems. Here, the authors study a four-decade record of grassland production and find a sustained decline in above-ground net primary production attributable to increased aridity from declining late-summer rainfall.

    • E. N. J. Brookshire
    •  & T. Weaver

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sea surface temperature anomalies in the tropical Pacific can influence global atmospheric circulation, yet prediction of this atmospheric signal is limited to less than 1 year. Here, the authors present observational and modelling evidence for multi-year predictability.

    • Yoshimitsu Chikamoto
    • , Axel Timmermann
    •  & Fei-Fei Jin

  • Article |

    Tornadoes are one of nature’s most hazardous phenomena, yet prognostic tools for tornado occurrence are lacking. Here, the authors use Bayesian inference techniques to evaluate the spatiotemporal relationship between atmospheric variables and tornado activity in North America.

    • Vincent Y.S. Cheng
    • , George B. Arhonditsis
    •  & Heather Auld

  • Article |

    The role of successional state in determining ecosystem sensitivity to climate change is largely unknown. Here, the authors subject seven European shrublands to moderate warming and drought conditions over 14 years and show that responsiveness is associated with the dynamic state of the ecosystem.

    • György Kröel-Dulay
    • , Johannes Ransijn
    •  & Josep Penuelas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The rainfall rate of tropical cyclones is expected to increase under a warmer climate, yet likely changes in rainfall area remain unknown. Here, the authors combine satellite data and model simulations and show that rainfall area is dependent on relative sea surface temperatures.

    • Yanluan Lin
    • , Ming Zhao
    •  & Minghua Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The sign of soil moisture–precipitation feedback has been strongly debated. Here, the authors show that rain tends to fall where soils are drier than their surroundings, but on days with overall wet and heterogeneous conditions, explaining the apparent contradictions between recent studies.

    • Benoit P. Guillod
    • , Boris Orlowsky
    •  & Sonia I. Seneviratne

  • Article |

    Extreme sea level rises are a threat to coastal communities, but their cause, in terms of seasonal or interannual time scales, has received little attention. Here, the authors combine observational and model data to show that one such rise in 2009–10 was caused by a 30% downturn in the Atlantic overturning circulation.

    • Paul B. Goddard
    • , Jianjun Yin
    •  & Shaoqing Zhang

  • Article |

    Using tidal correlations as a predictive tool for earthquakes is controversial because of the size of the data set. This study examines correlations between small earthquakes and periodic fault stresses to build a simple predictive model for larger quakes that shows good agreement with observed trends.

    • Braden A.W. Brinkman
    • , Michael LeBlanc
    •  & Karin A. Dahmen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The last interglacial has been suggested as a test bed for models developed for future climate prediction, yet many climatic parameters remain unknown. Here, the authors present a precisely dated fossil coral and show that temperature seasonality in the southern Caribbean Sea 118 ka was similar to today.

    • Thomas Felis
    • , Cyril Giry
    •  & Sander R. Scheffers

  • Article |

    Comparison of climate model hindcasts with proxy data is essential to improve model reliability, yet standardized palaeoclimate data sets are lacking. Here, Heiri et al. compare chironomid-based palaeotemperature records with the ECHAM-4 atmospheric general circulation model, showing excellent agreement.

    • Oliver Heiri
    • , Stephen J. Brooks
    •  & André F. Lotter

  • Article |

    El Niño Southern Oscillation affects seasonal climate worldwide; however, it is uncertain how it impacts global crop yields. Here, the authors present a global assessment of the impacts of El Niño Southern Oscillation on crop productivity and show large differences among regions, crop types and cropping technologies.

    • Toshichika Iizumi
    • , Jing-Jia Luo
    •  & Toshio Yamagata

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The risks of flooding to coastal communities are increasing due to coastal development and climate change. Here, the authors use meta-analyses to quantitatively show that coral reefs can significantly reduce risks from natural hazards, and that reef defences can be enhanced cost effectively.

    • Filippo Ferrario
    • , Michael W. Beck
    •  & Laura Airoldi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Prediction of the Madden–Julian Oscillation using complex cloud-resolving models has been limited by computational power. Here, Miyakawa et al.run a series of simulations using the newly developed 10 peta-flop ‘K computer’ and demonstrate a Madden–Julian Oscillation predictive window of 27 days.

    • Tomoki Miyakawa
    • , Masaki Satoh
    •  & Kunio Yoneyama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The effectiveness of climate engineering in averting potentially catastrophic climate change has thus far been poorly evaluated. Keller et al. use an Earth system model to show that five different climate engineering scenarios are likely to have either a limited impact or potentially severe side effects.

    • David P. Keller
    • , Ellias Y. Feng
    •  & Andreas Oschlies

  • Article |

    Wind power installations have boomed across Europe in recent decades, yet the potentially negative impact of wind farms on climate remains largely untested. Vautard et al. parameterize operational and planned European wind farms in a regional climate model and show limited regional-scale climate impacts.

    • Robert Vautard
    • , Françoise Thais
    •  & Paolo Michele Ruti

  • Article |

    Species response to environmental change can have an impact on community assemblages and ecosystem functioning. Here, the authors assess the combined impact of regional land use and climate change on bird functional diversity and find that global changes may lead to uniform species assemblages across Europe.

    • Wilfried Thuiller
    • , Samuel Pironon
    •  & Niklaus E. Zimmermann

  • Article |

    Africa is one of the fastest growing regions for the voluntary carbon market. Here, Greve et al.quantify the potential for aboveground C stocking across tropical Africa and assess the optimal placement of carbon-stocking projects when also taking co-benefits and feasibility into account.

    • Michelle Greve
    • , Belinda Reyers
    •  & Jens-Christian Svenning

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forest cover up-river influences the sediments reaching coral reefs, but how this relationship is affected by future climate change is not clear. In a study of the Malagasy coral reefs, Maina et al.find that regional land-use management is more important than mediating climate change for reducing reef sedimentation.

    • Joseph Maina
    • , Hans de Moel
    •  & Jan E. Vermaat

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The South African archaeological record contains evidence of the early flourishing of the human mind. Ziegler et al. provide new paleoclimate reconstructions, which suggest that rapid fluctuations in global climate have played a key role in the evolution of these early human cultures.

    • Martin Ziegler
    • , Margit H. Simon
    •  & Rainer Zahn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is thought that only climate change drives temporal tree mortality increases in old forests. Here, Luo and Chen show that both forest dynamics and climate change drive temporal tree mortality increases in young and old forests, and that climate change-associated mortality increases are higher in the young forests.

    • Yong Luo
    •  & Han Y. H. Chen

  • Article |

    The long-term hydroclimate variability in Amazonia and its influence on biodiversity remain poorly understood. Here, new speleothem oxygen isotope records characterize spatial–temporal changes in precipitation and provide new insights to understanding the west–east contrasting pattern of biodiversity in Amazonia.

    • Hai Cheng
    • , Ashish Sinha
    •  & Augusto S. Auler

  • Article |

    Mineral cave deposits—speleothems—provide a record of past rainfall changes. This study presents a speleothem data-set from southwestern Oregon, revealing winter climate change over the past 13,000 years with abrupt transitions between warm-dry and cold-wet regimes influenced by solar forcing.

    • Vasile Ersek
    • , Peter U. Clark
    •  & R. Lawrence Edwards

  • Article |

    Understanding the environmental controls of past wildfires is difficult due to the lack of records of weather or vegetation. This study shows, using cross-scale analysis, how power laws associated with fire-event time series can identify critical thresholds in landscape dynamics in a rapidly changing climate.

    • Donald McKenzie
    •  & Maureen C. Kennedy

  • Article |

    A detailed assessment of near-shore temperature changes is needed for improved forecasts of the consequences of coastal warming. Here, changes in coastal sea surface temperature are estimated, showing that although 71% of the world's coastlines are warming, the rates of change have varied spatially.

    • Fernando P. Lima
    •  & David S. Wethey

  • Article |

    Many organisms are responding to a warming climate by shifts in spatial distribution. The poleward movement of silver hake,Merluccius bilinearis, over the last forty years is related to the position of the Gulf Stream and Atlantic meridional overturning circulation through changes in local bottom water temperature.

    • Janet A. Nye
    • , Terrence M. Joyce
    •  & Jason S. Link

  • Article |

    Assessments of future water availability in South America are uncertain based on multiple coupled general circulation models. Shiogamaet al.identify global-scale metrics for measuring the reliability of water resource assessments, and indicate a higher probability of drying in the Amazon basin.

    • Hideo Shiogama
    • , Seita Emori
    •  & Toru Nozawa

  • Article |

    Ocean acidification due to increasing carbon dioxide levels can affect the growth and viability of corals. In this study, the authors measured extension, calcification and density in Florida corals collected in 1996, and show that recent climate change did not cause a decline in their extension or calcification.

    • Kevin P. Helmle
    • , Richard E. Dodge
    •  & C. Mark Eakin

  • Article |

    Global vegetation models are too coarse to predict climate change effects at the hillslope level. Using high-resolution LiDAR, the authors explore the three-dimensional structure and vegetation of an African savanna, and suggest that finer hydrogeomorphological features will shape future climate effects.

    • Shaun R. Levick
    • , Gregory P. Asner
    •  & David E. Knapp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The storage in soils of biochar, the product of biomass pyrolysis, has been proposed as an attractive option to mitigate climate change. Amonette and co-workers model the potential impact of biochar and find that it could eliminate more carbon from the atmosphere than using the same biomass for biofuel.

    • Dominic Woolf
    • , James E. Amonette
    •  & Stephen Joseph

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