Articles in 2014

Saturation state is shown to be the key component of marine carbonate chemistry affecting larval shell development and growth in two commercially important bivalve species.

Modelling studies of climate change impacts on phytoplankton typically consider individual properties, which ignores the complex nature of the marine environment. This work undertakes regional assessments using multiple properties, including interactions, and finds shifts of <20–300% in phytoplankton physiological rates.

Millions of people in China lack ready access to clean water and sanitation. Projected impacts of climate change may delay China’s progress towards reducing the burden of water-, sanitation- and hygiene-attributable infectious disease.

The global ocean is a major heat reservoir of the climate system. This study investigates ocean warming for 2005–2013 in the context of global sea-level rise and Earth’s energy budget, and finds that the deep ocean (below 2,000 m) has contributed negligibly to both.

A systematic analysis shows that China’s climate policy on carbon intensity reduction may not help all Chinese regions to become more efficient and could actually lock the whole nation into a long-term emission-intensive economic structure.

A project to develop an approach to adaptation to sea-level rise with a local community is described. The result is a theoretically informed, empirically tested and locally supported adaptation pathway.

Climate change is increasing ocean temperatures and acidification. This study tests the adaptive evolution of a globally important phytoplankton, Emiliania huxleyi, and finds they are able to evolve to cope with the changing marine environment.

With food demand set to double, agriculture will account for a larger proportion of total future greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet global food production and land-use scenarios have received relatively little attention in relation to climate change mitigation. This study shows that to avoid dangerous climate change, we must address food demand, as sustainable intensification of agriculture does not, in itself, suffice.

The near-term costs of greenhouse-gas emissions reduction may be offset by the air-quality co-benefits of mitigation policies. Now research estimates the monetary value of the human health benefits from air-quality improvements due to US carbon abatement policies, and finds that the benefits can offset 26–1,050% of the cost of mitigation policies.

The slowdown in global warming has been identified predominately through changes in the Pacific Ocean. This study investigates the teleconnections and seasonal changes associated with the slowdown. The present forcing from the tropical Pacific is found to produce many of the changes in atmospheric circulation, for example, changes in the upper troposphere wave patterns increase the chances of cold European winters.

The current slowdown in global warming has raised questions about the accuracy of climate model projections. This work selects models that are largely in phase with the natural variability, in this case the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, of the climate system. The selected models are able to predict the recent Pacific Ocean temperature and spatial trends.

Technology is expected to play an important role in climate change adaptation, but little is known about whether it is actually being transferred to developing countries. Research now shows that in most of the adaptation projects managed by the Global Environment Facility, technology transfer is occurring mainly in the form of early deployment of existing technologies.

Deforestation affects climate, biodiversity and other ecosystem services. This study quantifies Indonesia’s increasing rate of primary forest loss, which runs counter to the declining rates of loss in Brazil. The results highlight the value of thematically consistent and spatially and temporally explicit information in tracking forest change.

Most integrated assessment models used to estimate the long-term economic loss from current carbon emissions, and to evaluate climate policy, are deterministic. By including the risk of damage in these models, research now shows that estimates of the optimal rate of emissions abatement and carbon taxation are double the levels obtained by using the standard formulation.

Studies into the effects of climate change on crop yields have tended to focus on the average state of the climate. Now, research into the effects of adverse weather events on wheat yields in Europe suggests that the probability of single and multiple adverse events occurring within a season is expected to increase substantially by the year 2060.

A warming world poses challenges for species with temperature-dependent sex determination. The implications of increasingly skewed sex ratios for an important marine turtle rookery have been assessed. This study has identified how offspring sex ratio translates into future operational sex ratios and population size-up, and should help to guide conservation efforts.

The IPCC uses probabilistic statements to describe uncertainty in the projections of models. Now a multinational study, across 17 languages, shows that people interpret IPCC statements as implying probabilities closer to 50% than intended by the IPCC authors. If numerical ranges are included, interpretations better reflect the IPCC guidelines.

The Greenland ice sheet is a large contributor to sea-level rise primarily because of the increased speed of its glaciers in the southeast and northwest. This study looks at a previously stable ice stream in northeast Greenland, and finds that it is thinning due to regional warming. This region drains 16% of the ice sheet but has not figured in model projections of sea-level rise, indicating an under-estimation of Greenland contributions.

The slowdown in global average surface warming has recently been linked to sea surface cooling in the eastern Pacific Ocean. This work shows that strengthening trade winds caused a reduction in the 2012 global average surface air temperature of 0.1–0.2 °C. This may account for much of the warming hiatus and is a result of increased subsurface ocean heat uptake.

Little is known about how temperature anomalies affect people’s views about climate change. Research now shows that available information about today’s temperature, even though less relevant than evidence of global patterns, is used to formulate opinions. With experience of abnormal temperatures, people overestimate the frequency of similar past events and belief in global warming increases.