Environmental health articles within Nature Climate Change

Featured

  • News & Views |

    Residents of informal settlements suffer from extreme weather due to their precarious living environment. Now, findings show that extreme weather event thresholds do not fully capture the negative impacts experienced by women in Nairobi, Kenya.

    • Lauren Broyles

  • Article |

    Defining thresholds for extreme weather events is important for adaptation but often ignores impacts on climate-vulnerable communities. This research finds current practices do not capture experiences of women in informal settlements and self-reported impact data could help to address the issue.

    • Samantha C. Winter
    • , Mark R. Winter
    •  & Susan S. Witte

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Greenland is at the heart of climate research, yet the related perceptions of Greenland’s Indigenous population have long been overlooked. Findings based on two nationally representative surveys reveal a large gap between the scientific consensus and Kalaallit views.

    • Kelton Minor
    • , Manumina Lund Jensen
    •  & Minik T. Rosing

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Antarctic bottom water (AABW), a key component of ocean circulation, provides oxygen to the deep ocean. This work shows that AABW transport reduced over the past decades in the Australian Antarctic Basin, weakening the abyssal overturning circulation and decreasing deep ocean oxygen.

    • Kathryn L. Gunn
    • , Stephen R. Rintoul
    •  & Melissa M. Bowen

  • Article |

    The authors investigate the response of Archaea to experimental warming in a tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Warming was linked to reduced diversity and convergent succession, with further links to changed ecosystem function. Stochastic processes dominated community changes but decreased over time.

    • Ya Zhang
    • , Daliang Ning
    •  & Jizhong Zhou

  • Editorial |

    The modern food industry is reshaping society and contributing to global warming. Mitigation efforts at different levels are needed to promote environmental and human health.

  • Analysis |

    A systematic review shows that >58% of infectious diseases confronted by humanity, via 1,006 unique pathways, have at some point been affected by climatic hazards sensitive to GHGs. These results highlight the mounting challenge for adaption and the urgent need to reduce GHG emissions.

    • Camilo Mora
    • , Tristan McKenzie
    •  & Erik C. Franklin

  • Feature |

    As deaths attributable to climate change increase, there has been a call from some scientists for the inclusion of climate-related data on death certificates. However, others argue that there are more important methods to reduce the impacts of climate extremes on people.

    • Carrie Arnold

  • News & Views |

    A warmer world will shift mortality patterns around the world. Research suggests that the mortality costs from climate change will be massively larger than previously thought, despite accounting for future adaptation and rising incomes.

    • Maximilian Auffhammer

  • Comment |

    Shifts in phenology can impact organism fitness, ecosystem function, and goods and services from nature. Climate change management must better integrate phenology to optimize conservation outcomes as these impacts increase.

    • A. K. Ettinger
    • , C. J. Chamberlain
    •  & E. M. Wolkovich

  • Q&A |

    Civil society has an important role to play in climate action. Nature Climate Change speaks to Chidi Oti-Obihara, investment banker turned climate activist, about how he found his role in the discussion.

    • Bronwyn Wake

  • Review Article |

    Thawing permafrost in the Arctic may release microorganisms, chemicals and nuclear waste that have been stored in frozen ground and by cold temperatures. This Review discusses the current state of potential hazards and their risks under warming to identify prospective threats to the Arctic.

    • Kimberley R. Miner
    • , Juliana D’Andrilli
    •  & Charles E. Miller

  • News & Views |

    Mortality associated with rising temperatures is one of the clearest and impactful fingerprints of a changing climate. Research now shows an attributable increase in mortality due to climate change is already evident in cities on every continent.

    • Dann Mitchell

  • Article |

    The amount of carbon stored in African ecosystems and how climate change will affect this is uncertain. Projections indicate that carbon storage will increase in East Africa, climate change will have an overall negative impact on woody biomass and that other human pressures will amplify the trend.

    • C. Wade Ross
    • , Niall P. Hanan
    •  & Qiuyan Yu

  • Article |

    Mesoscale eddy variability has increased in eddy-rich regions by 2–5% per decade but decreased in the tropical ocean over the satellite record (1993–2020). These changes will impact ocean–atmosphere heat and carbon exchange, with implications for regional and global climate.

    • Josué Martínez-Moreno
    • , Andrew McC. Hogg
    •  & Adele K. Morrison

  • Editorial |

    The past year has seen climate change manifest in wildfires, storms and flooding, in some cases simultaneous with outbreaks of the COVID-19 pandemic that restricted human activity and impacted global emissions. Despite these trials, other developments hint at the potential for positive steps in climate mitigation.

  • News & Views |

    Increasing fire frequency and severity may shift boreal forests from carbon sinks to carbon sources and amplify climate warming. Analysis indicates that fuel characteristics are important drivers of wildfire carbon emissions across a broad range of North America’s boreal forest.

    • Rachel A. Loehman

  • Comment |

    The COVID-19 pandemic will be an unprecedented test of governments’ ability to manage compound risks, as climate hazards disrupt outbreak response around the world. Immediate steps can be taken to minimize climate-attributable loss of life, but climate adaptation also needs a long-term strategy for pandemic preparedness.

    • Carly A. Phillips
    • , Astrid Caldas
    •  & Colin J. Carlson

  • News & Views |

    Food security is uncertain under future climate change, but is there a threat of food system collapse? Now research assesses the probability of weather hazards occurring at the same time in the world’s major breadbaskets and reveals that the weather-related component of this risk could be increasing.

    • Zia Mehrabi

  • Letter |

    Along the West Antarctic Peninsula, a 25-year dataset indicates that oceanic CO2 uptake depends on upper ocean stability and phytoplankton dynamics. Diatoms achieve high oceanic CO2 uptake and uptake efficiency. There has been a nearly fivefold increase in oceanic CO2 uptake due to sea ice changes.

    • Michael S. Brown
    • , David R. Munro
    •  & Oscar M. Schofield

  • Review Article |

    In this Review, a Bayesian framework is used to explain climate change belief updating, and the evidence required to support claims of directional motivated reasoning versus a model in which people aim for accurate beliefs, but vary in how they assess information credibility.

    • James N. Druckman
    •  & Mary C. McGrath

  • Comment |

    Climate change will almost certainly cause millions of deaths. Climate engineering might prevent this, but benefits — and risks — remain mostly unevaluated. Now is the time to bring planetary health research into climate engineering conversations.

    • Colin J. Carlson
    •  & Christopher H. Trisos

  • Article |

    Elevated atmospheric CO2 (550 ppm) could cause an additional 175 million people to be zinc deficient and 122 million protein deficient (assuming 2050 population and CO2 projections) due to the reduced nutritional value of staple food crops.

    • Matthew R. Smith
    •  & Samuel S. Myers

  • News & Views |

    Antibiotic resistance is a growing global health crisis. Research now suggests that higher local temperatures are associated with a greater incidence of resistant infections.

    • Jessica M. A. Blair

  • Letter |

    Based on an analysis of the distribution of antibiotic resistance across the United States, research shows that increasing local temperatures as well as population density across regions are associated with increasing antibiotic resistance in common bacterial pathogens.

    • Derek R. MacFadden
    • , Sarah F. McGough
    •  & John S. Brownstein

  • Perspective |

    Climate change has a gradual influence on landscapes and ecosystems that may lead to feelings of loss for those with close ties to the natural environment. This Perspective describes existing research on ecological grief and outlines directions for future inquiry.

    • Ashlee Cunsolo
    •  & Neville R. Ellis

  • Perspective |

    Some of the predicted impacts of climate change on crops may be avoided by exploiting existing crop diversity. This Perspective examines this possibility for wine grapes where about 1% of diversity accounts for more than 80% of cultivated areas in some countries.

    • E. M. Wolkovich
    • , I. García de Cortázar-Atauri
    •  & T. Lacombe

  • Letter |

    Apparent temperature, the perceived temperature from air temperature, humidity and wind combined, is projected to increase faster than air temperature. Thermal discomfort will see greater increases in summertime, outweighing wintertime decreases.

    • Jianfeng Li
    • , Yongqin David Chen
    •  & Ngar-Cheung Lau

  • News & Views |

    Strategies that reduce fossil-fuel use can achieve both global carbon mitigation and local health-protection goals. Now research shows the dual benefits of compact urban design and circular economy policies in Chinese cities.

    • Nadine Ibrahim

  • Letter |

    The importance of climate change for malaria transmission has been hotly debated. Research based on ten years of field observations and a model that simulates village-scale transmission for West Africa suggests that we should not be overly concerned.

    • Teresa K. Yamana
    • , Arne Bomblies
    •  & Elfatih A. B. Eltahir

  • Article |

    A model comparison shows that integrated and sector-specific models suggest different results for various climate impacts. The discrepancies are particularly pronounced for indicators such as food production and water exploitation.

    • Paula A. Harrison
    • , Robert W. Dunford
    •  & Mark D. A. Rounsevell

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