Climate sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impacts of climate change on agricultural productivity remain debated. Here, the authors present new evidence for the magnitude and causes of U.S. crop insurance losses, using a database of production risk from 1989–2014 across 1733 counties for corn and 1632 counties for soybeans, and find that crop production risk will increase in response to warmer temperatures.

    • Edward D. Perry
    • , Jisang Yu
    •  & Jesse Tack

  • 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

    The relationship between atmospheric CO2 and climate during the Eocene greenhouse remains uncertain. Here authors show that Eocene CO2 and climate sensitivity was high during the warmest intervals and declined as global climate cooled, with implications for the Earth’s future warming climate.

    • E. Anagnostou
    • , E. H. John
    •  & G. L. Foster

  • 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

    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 hydroclimatic variations of the Amazon River basin can exert profound impacts on the marine ecosystem in the Amazon plume region. Here the authors show that an amplified seasonal cycle of Amazonia precipitation during 1979–2018 leads to enhanced seasonality in both Amazon river discharge and ocean salinity.

    • Yu-Chiao Liang
    • , Min-Hui Lo
    •  & John D. Steffen

  • 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

  • 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

    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

  • Article
    | Open Access

    East Antarctic ice shelves typically have cold ice cavities with low basal melt rates. Here the authors direct observational evidence of high basal melt rates beneath Shirase Glacier Tongue in East Antarctica, driven by inflowing warm water guided by a deep continuous trough extending to the continental slope.

    • Daisuke Hirano
    • , Takeshi Tamura
    •  & Shigeru Aoki

  • 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

    Some palaeotemperature proxies suffer from inaccuracies related to kinetic fractionations occurring during carbonate mineral growth. Here, the authors show that dual clumped isotope thermometry can identify the origin of these kinetic biases and allows for the reconstruction of accurate environmental temperatures.

    • David Bajnai
    • , Weifu Guo
    •  & Jens Fiebig

  • 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

    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

    Predicted sea-level rise is widely anticipated to lead to increased coastal erosion, however, assessing how rocky coasts will respond to changes in marine conditions is difficult to constrain. Here, the authors find that a North Yorkshire rocky cliff has been eroding at a similar rate over the last 7 kyr, and they do not observe an increase in erosion rates in response to modern sea level rise.

    • Zuzanna M. Swirad
    • , Nick J. Rosser
    •  & John Barlow

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cement plays a dual role in the carbon cycle like a sponge. Here, the authors employ a dynamic model to quantify such sponge effect and concluded that deep decarbonization of the global cement cycle will require radical technology advancements and widespread deployment of material efficiency measures.

    • Zhi Cao
    • , Rupert J. Myers
    •  & Gang Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ocean oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) are known to emit the powerful greenhouse gas N2O, but global emission dynamics are not constrained. Here the authors use air trajectory analyses and find that air masses pick up N2O as they pass over OMZs, and that overall concentrations are elevated during La Niña events.

    • Andrew R. Babbin
    • , Elisabeth L. Boles
    •  & Ray F. Weiss

  • 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

    Microbial ammonia oxidation is important in marine nutrient cycling and greenhouse gas dynamics, but the responses to ocean warming are unclear. Here coast to open ocean incubations show that projected year 2100 temperatures might be too hot for these microbes in oligotrophic regions to handle, but may facilitate oxidation rates in coastal waters.

    • Zhen-Zhen Zheng
    • , Li-Wei Zheng
    •  & Shuh-Ji Kao

  • 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

    The authors of this study compile data on spatial and temporal dynamics of surface water bodies across China, covering a time span from 1989 – 2016. The study describes hot-spot areas with strongly decreasing trends in surface water area and terrestrial water storage in North China and discusses implications of water resources and security in China.

    • Xinxin Wang
    • , Xiangming Xiao
    •  & Bo Li

  • 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

    Glaciers in the European Alps are strongly affected by global warming, yet there is no methodologically consistent alpine-wide analysis on glacier changes. Here the authors show significant glacier retreat and an ice mass loss of 1.3 ± 0.2 Gt a−1, derived from contemporaneous measurements of glacier areas and elevations.

    • Christian Sommer
    • , Philipp Malz
    •  & Matthias H. Braun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Terrestrial carbon uptake as high inter-annual variability which can be used to help understand future responses to climate change. Here the authors’ modeling reveals a large portion of this variability is driven by human land use changes and management, and not captured by other models.

    • Chao Yue
    • , Philippe Ciais
    •  & Alexander A. Nassikas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Northeast Atlantic climate shifted into the Quaternary Ice Age around 2.6 Myr ago. Here, the authors use 3D seismic data from the northern North Sea to document detailed changes in continental-margin sedimentary architecture spanning the transition from a fluvially dominated environment to an icehouse world.

    • H. Løseth
    • , J. A. Dowdeswell
    •  & D. Ottesen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The environmental changes at the Permian–Triassic boundary are thought to have been caused primarily by volcanic eruptions. Here the authors develop a model to show that the loss of ecosystems on land and consequent massive terrestrial biomass oxidation triggered large biogeochemical changes in the oceans at the time of the marine mass extinction.

    • Jacopo Dal Corso
    • , Benjamin J. W. Mills
    •  & Paul B. Wignall

  • 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

    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

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