Research articles

Natural peatlands accumulate carbon but land-use change and drainage leads to emission of GHGs from peatlands. Loss of natural peatland area globally has shifted the peatland biome from a sink to a source of carbon, but restoration of drained peatlands could make them carbon neutral.

The reflectivity of the Arctic Ocean decreases as sea ice decreases, creating a feedback of more heat absorption, warming and further melt. An ensemble of models is used to gain understanding of this in the current climate to constrain the intermodel spread in predictions of sea-ice albedo changes.

Nitrous oxide, a strong GHG, is produced during nitrification. Changes in ocean pH cause its production to increase, relative to nitrification rates, suggesting large potential increases in the future as ocean acidification continues.

Small shallow estuaries face enhanced flood risk under climate change because of sea-level-rise-induced tidal amplification. In contrast, large deep estuaries are threatened by sediment starvation and therefore a loss of intertidal area. Both cases can potentially be mitigated by estuary widening.

Permafrost thaw due to rising temperatures will impact soil hydrology in the Arctic. Abrupt changes in soil moisture and land–atmosphere processes may alter the bearing capacity of soil and increase susceptibility to wildfires, with consequences for adapting engineering systems in the region.

Increasingly, financial institutions will be exposed to climate risks that will exacerbate the negative economic impacts of climate change. An agent-based integrated assessment model is used to analyse climate impacts on the global banking system, finding an increase in banking crises and public bailout costs.

The resilience of a marine food web to climate change is investigated through a combination of multiple and nested species interactions. The Kongsfjorden food web adapts and maintains core ecological processes during change, with increasing dominance of Atlantic species boosting resilience.

Winter warming in the Arctic will increase the CO₂ flux from soils. A pan-Arctic analysis shows a current loss of 1,662 TgC per year over the winter, exceeding estimated carbon uptake in the growing season; projections suggest a 17% increase under RCP 4.5 and a 41% increase under RCP 8.5 by 2100.

Global warming projections exhibit a contracted intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and an expanded Hadley cell. Here, equatorial Pacific warming is shown to contract seasonal ITCZ migration and counteract Hadley cell expansion, leading to an equatorward shift in the Asian subtropical monsoon.

Climate change is expected to impact river flows. Here, it is shown that plant physiological responses to increased CO₂, rather than atmospheric changes, are the primary drivers of mean, peak and low flows throughout the tropics.

This study shows that expressing uncertainty about best- and worst-case effects of climate change on sea-level rise increases trust in climate scientists and message acceptance but not when the full extent of inevitable uncertainty due to unpredictable storm surges is also acknowledged.

The subnivium—the space between snowpack and the ground—is an insulating refuge from winter cold. This study predicts that climate warming decreases the subnivium’s seasonal duration yet increases snow-free days with frozen ground, making winter functionally colder for subnivium-dependent life.

Predicting mortality in forests is challenging because its underlying causes are spatially varied and not well known. Reduced resilience detected from remotely sensed time series of vegetation dynamics can serve as an effective early warning signal to indicate the potential for forest mortality.

Ocean warming and acidification will affect the structure and bioavailability of biomolecules. The toxic form of two neurotoxins will increase with climate change, presenting an ecotoxicology risk with global hotspots as exemplified by saxitoxin toxicity in Alaskan butter clam.

Improved predictions of coral bleaching are critical. In a coordinated global survey effort during the 2016 El Niño, time-series patterns of peak hot temperatures, cool period durations and temperature bimodality were found to be better predictors of coral bleaching than common threshold metrics.

A 30-year dataset shows that marsh plants increased primary productivity and stem density with CO₂ enrichment, but diameter and height decreased under nitrogen limitation. The addition of nitrogen reversed these changes, which is important to allow marshes to keep pace with rising sea levels.

Understanding which factors influence future economic impacts from climate change is important for informing mitigation and adaptation strategies. This study demonstrates that projected economic impacts are primarily attributed to variation in socioeconomic development and future emissions trajectories, rather than uncertainties in the climate response.

Future climate conditions threaten crops in sub-Saharan Africa. It is shown that most major sub-Saharan African crops have wild relatives that occur in regions better suited for future climate conditions, suggesting an opportunity for adaptation that does not require the adoption of new production systems.