Climate change articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vegetation changes have been suggested as a climate mitigation option, but the numerous feedbacks between vegetation and climate are not well understood. Here, the authors show that greening leads to surface cooling in many areas, but the size of the effect depends on the background climate.

    • Ramdane Alkama
    • , Giovanni Forzieri
    •  & Alessandro Cescatti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The iron and steel industry is emissions intensive. Here the authors explore its decarbonisation potential based on recovering energy and recycling materials from waste streams in 2020-2050. 28.5% of CO2 emissions under sectoral 2 °C target requirements can be reduced in a high-potential pathway.

    • Yongqi Sun
    • , Sicong Tian
    •  & Zuotai Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Moving conferences from in-person to virtual and hybrid modes may have emissions reductions benefits. Here the authors find that the switch to virtual and hybrid conferencing reduces the carbon footprint by 94% when it comes to the switch to virtual conferencing, and 67% for hybrid conferences with carefully selected hubs.

    • Yanqiu Tao
    • , Debbie Steckel
    •  & Fengqi You

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Anomalously slow seismic velocities in the upper Greenlandic crust reveal soft sedimentary substrates beneath major outlet glaciers. This, together with elevated geothermal heat flux observed at the onset of fast ice flow, has major implications for ice-sheet dynamics.

    • G. A. Jones
    • , A. M. G. Ferreira
    •  & A. Morelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Outdoor workers may need to adapt to warming by moving labor from midday to cooler hours. Here the authors find this adaptation strategy loses efficacy under additional climate change due to increased heat exposure in the coolest hours of the day.

    • Luke A. Parsons
    • , Drew Shindell
    •  & June T. Spector

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change does not only increase mean temperatures, but also the magnitude of year-to-year temperature variability. Here, the authors use large model ensembles to show that these changes can be statistically distinguished from the baseline variability in most regions of the world during the 21st century.

    • Dirk Olonscheck
    • , Andrew P. Schurer
    •  & Gabriele C. Hegerl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bioenergy crops has been proposed as a climate mitigation measure, but how the biophysical effects of large-scale cultivation would influence the climate is not well known. Here, the authors use models to show that large-scale cultivation could cool the global land by 0.03 to 0.08 °C.

    • Jingmeng Wang
    • , Wei Li
    •  & Olivier Boucher

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change will impact the global economy. Here, the authors propose a framework to evaluate its effect on economies across multiple regional and temporal scales, and project decreased financial stability in a northern temperate economy.

    • Kayla Stan
    • , Graham A. Watt
    •  & Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    The reasons for concern framework are an effective visualisation of climate change related risks. Here, the authors propose a new framework by which different levels of uncertainty can be included into this aggregated assessment in order to ensure a transparent communication of risks.

    • Luke J. Harrington
    • , Carl-Friedrich Schleussner
    •  & Friederike E. L. Otto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Potential gains in future salmon habitat associated with glacier loss have yet to be quantified. This study projects future gains in Pacific salmon freshwater habitat within western North America by linking a model of glacier mass change for 315 glaciers, forced by five different Global Climate Models, with a simple model of salmon stream habitat potential.

    • Kara J. Pitman
    • , Jonathan W. Moore
    •  & Daniel E. Schindler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Arctic warms faster than other areas of the planet, which also influences precipitation. Here, the authors show that the latest CMIP6 model ensemble shows a faster Arctic warming and sea-ice loss, causing an earlier transition from a snow- to a rain-dominated Arctic than previously thought.

    • Michelle R. McCrystall
    • , Julienne Stroeve
    •  & James A. Screen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Urban trees influence temperatures in cities. The authors here investigate in spatio-temporal variations in their cooling effect and find 8-12 K decreased temperatures for tree-rich urban areas in Central Europe during hot summers, and up to 4 K for Southern Europe, respectively.

    • Jonas Schwaab
    • , Ronny Meier
    •  & Edouard L. Davin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impact of anthropogenic emissions on climate dynamics is important in our changing climate. Here, the authors show that anthropogenic aerosol emissions can reduce northern hemisphere tropical cyclones but will increase in the southern hemisphere primarily through altering vertical wind shear and upward motion in the tropical cyclone formation zones.

    • Jian Cao
    • , Haikun Zhao
    •  & Liguang Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the Pacific Walker circulation (PWC) changes under climate change is not well understood. Here, the authors show that the strengthening of the PWC since 1979 is related to internal variability of the Pacific and use this as a constraint to show that it is likely to weaken in the next decades.

    • Mingna Wu
    • , Tianjun Zhou
    •  & Lixia Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The implications of delaying carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are poorly understood. Here the authors highlight the potential extra costs and reduced removal potential of delayed CDR action, with a special focus on direct air capture and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (DACCS and BECCS).

    • Ángel Galán-Martín
    • , Daniel Vázquez
    •  & Gonzalo Guillén-Gosálbez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is a strong disagreement between climate models on how precipitation in California will change. Here, the authors show that much of this uncertainty originates from internal variability with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation linking the precipitation changes with the El Niño-like warming pattern through the westerly jet extension

    • Lu Dong
    • , L. Ruby Leung
    •  & Jian Lu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Comprehensive policy measures are needed to close the emissions gap between Nationally Determined Contributions and emissions goals of the Paris Agreement. Here the authors present a Bridge scenario that may aid in closing the emissions gap by 2030.

    • Heleen L. van Soest
    • , Lara Aleluia Reis
    •  & Detlef P. van Vuuren

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stabilizing climate change requires simultaneous mitigation of all greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Here the authors examine 90 mitigation scenarios pairing different levels of CO2 and non-CO2 GHG abatement pathways to demonstrate the contributions of different GHGs towards 1.5 °C and 2 °C goals.

    • Yang Ou
    • , Christopher Roney
    •  & Haewon McJeon

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Climate change negatively impacts the livelihoods of indigenous communities across the world, including those located on the African continent. This Comment reports on how five African indigenous communities have been impacted by climate change and the adopted adaptation mechanisms.

    • Walter Leal Filho
    • , Newton R. Matandirotya
    •  & Richard Achia Mbih

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solar and wind resources are dependent on geophysical constraints. Here the authors find that solar and wind power resources can satisfy countries’ electricity demand of between 72–91% of hours, but hundreds of hours of unmet demand may occur annually.

    • Dan Tong
    • , David J. Farnham
    •  & Steven J. Davis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    New climate models show a stronger warming with greenhouse gas emissions than is suggested by observations. Here, the authors argue that internal variability of the Atlantic Ocean may have dampened some of the recent warming, which could explain part of the disagreement between the newer models and observations.

    • Rémy Bonnet
    • , Didier Swingedouw
    •  & Adriana Sima

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite global initiatives to reach net-zero CO2 emissions, the tradeoffs of energy systems to reach that goal remain understudied. Here the authors analyze all net-zero scenarios used for the 2018 IPCC report and quantify the role of renewable energy, fuels, and emissions in attaining a zero CO2 world.

    • Julianne DeAngelo
    • , Inês Azevedo
    •  & Steven J. Davis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Long-term variability of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) circulation is not well understood. Here, the authors present data from different boundary currents that shows an enhanced NPSG circulation since ~3000-4000 years ago, linked to a southward migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone.

    • Yancheng Zhang
    • , Xufeng Zheng
    •  & Zhonghui Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The intergenerational distribution of costs and benefits of climate change mitigation is not well understood. Here the authors analyze lifetime costs and benefits of climate change mitigation by age cohorts across countries under the Paris Agreement.

    • Haozhe Yang
    •  & Sangwon Suh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vegetation emits organic vapors which can form aerosols in the atmosphere and influence cloud properties. Here, the authors show observational evidence that warmer temperatures lead to increased emissions of these aerosols in boreal forests which cause surface cooling, demonstrating a negative climate feedback mechanism.

    • Taina Yli-Juuti
    • , Tero Mielonen
    •  & Annele Virtanen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Root-mycorrhizal interactions could help explain the heterogeneity of plant responses to CO2 fertilisation and nutrient availability. Here the authors combine tree-ring and metagenomic data to reveal that tree growth responses to increasing CO2 along a soil nutrient gradient depend on the nitrogen foraging traits of ectomycorrhizal fungi.

    • Peter T. Pellitier
    • , Inés Ibáñez
    •  & Kirk Acharya

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How much the potential intensity of tropical cyclones (TCs) increases in warmer environments is not well known. Here, the authors show that TC rainfall rates have increased by 1.3% per year between 1998 and 2018, a trend that is mainly driven by stronger rainfall in the outer-core region of TCs.

    • Oscar Guzman
    •  & Haiyan Jiang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How climate change influences the lifecycle of stratospheric volcanic aerosols and the associated radiative forcing is unknown. Here, the authors present model experiments suggesting that climate change amplifies the forcing of large-magnitude tropical eruptions but reduces the forcing of moderate-magnitude tropical eruptions.

    • Thomas J. Aubry
    • , John Staunton-Sykes
    •  & Anja Schmidt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Methane emissions from oil and gas systems are underestimated in official inventories. Here the authors synthesize thousands of field measurements and develop an inventory-based model for a better understanding of why this underestimation exists and how it can be fixed.

    • Jeffrey S. Rutherford
    • , Evan D. Sherwin
    •  & Adam R. Brandt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Satellite observations reveal a significant positive trend in Earth’s energy imbalance, but the contributing drivers have yet to be understood. Here, the authors show that it is exceptionally unlikely that this trend can be explained by internal variability; instead, anthropogenic forcing and feedbacks cause the trend.

    • Shiv Priyam Raghuraman
    • , David Paynter
    •  & V. Ramaswamy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How acute deoxygenation events affect tropical marine ecosystems remains poorly understood. This study integrates analyses of coral reef benthic communities with microbial community sequencing to show how a deoxygenation event rapidly altered a shallow tropical coral reef ecosystem in the Caribbean.

    • Maggie D. Johnson
    • , Jarrod J. Scott
    •  & Andrew H. Altieri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the Central American mountains influence tropical cyclone (TC) development in the eastern North Pacific is not well understood. Here, the authors use model simulations to show that on a seasonal timescale, these mountains interrupt moisture transport from the Caribbean Sea and as a result, reduce TC activity by up to 35%.

    • Dan Fu
    • , Ping Chang
    •  & Hylke E. Beck

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    Many different methods have been developed to forecast climate phenomena like the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) which makes a fair comparison of their capabilities crucial. In this perspective, the authors discuss how choices in the evaluation method can lead to an overestimated perceived skill of ENSO forecasts.

    • James S. Risbey
    • , Dougal T. Squire
    •  & Carly R. Tozer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forests can influence climate by affecting low cloud formation, but where and when this occurs is not well known. Here, the authors provide a global-scale assessment, based on satellite remote sensing observations, suggesting afforestation mostly increases low cloud cover which could potentially cool surface temperatures.

    • Gregory Duveiller
    • , Federico Filipponi
    •  & Alessandro Cescatti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How tropical cyclones have varied in intensity and frequency in the past is not well known as longer records are rare. Here, the authors show that changes in observing practices explain the recorded century scale increase in Atlantic major hurricane frequency, and recent increases are not part of a century-scale trend.

    • Gabriel A. Vecchi
    • , Christopher Landsea
    •  & Thomas Knutson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate models project an intensification of extreme precipitation under climate change, but this effect is difficult to detect in the observational record. Here, the authors show that a physically interpretable anthropogenic impact on extreme precipitation is detectable in global observational data sets.

    • Gavin D. Madakumbura
    • , Chad W. Thackeray
    •  & Alex Hall

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