Research articles

Future greenhouse-gas emissions need to deviate from a fossil-fuel intensive scenario to avoid dangerous climate change, and this implies feedback links between climate change and societal actions. Research shows that the global growth of new renewable energy post-1990 represents an annual climate–society feedback of ∼ 0.25% per degree increase in global mean temperature.

This study describes the development of a multi-species model used to explore the integrated eco-evolutionary responses to climate change. The results should help to understand and predict the responses of biological diversity, ecosystems, and ecological services to changing climate.

Increasing ocean temperatures are impacting the health of coral reef ecosystems, but understanding how the response of corals varies spatially remains important for conservation efforts. Now research shows that skeletal extension within forereef colonies of the coral Siderastrea siderea declined with increasing seawater temperature, whereas extension rates of backreef and nearshore colonies were not impacted.

Evidence is presented that climate change-induced lake warming may cause the same undesired effects as have formerly emerged from excess nutrients (eutrophication). Stronger thermal stratification and reduced mixing has favoured blooming of a toxic cyanobacterium in a large temperate lake previously thought to be successfully ‘restored’ after decades of pollution.

South of Africa, the Agulhas ocean current system transports warm, salty water from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. This study shows that the mesoscale variability of the Agulhas system has intensified over recent decades, apparently owing to enhanced trade winds over the tropical Indian Ocean.

Accurately characterizing natural versus forced sea surface temperature variability in observations is needed to validate and verify climate models used for projections of future climate change. This study successfully resolves previous large discrepancies in estimated tropical Indo-Pacific twentieth-century trends between observationally based sea surface temperature reconstructions.

Based on an analysis of maximum latewood density data from northern Scandinavia, along with published dendrochronological records, this study finds evidence that previous tree-ring-reliant reconstructions of large-scale near-surface air temperature underestimated long-term pre-industrial warmth during Medieval and Roman times.

Using models and ecological data, this study shows that the eastern Pacific Ocean population of leatherback sea turtles could well face extirpation owing to climate change. However, the findings indicate that it may be possible to sustain a viable nesting population in Costa Rica throughout this century by cooling nests.

This study uses satellite data to study snow grain size–albedo relationships over the whole Antarctic Plateau. The findings suggest that increased precipitation resulting from climate change will effectively compensate for the decreased albedo that should have resulted from warming, thereby inhibiting the expected ice–albedo feedback.

Arid and semi-arid ecosystems cover ∼40% of Earth’s land surface, but little is known about how climate change will affect these areas. Now experimental research shows that altered precipitation (more small events) can result in a negative moss carbon balance leading to dramatic moss mortality. These findings indicate the potential sensitivity of drylands to subtle climatic changes.

Marked ecosystem changes in the Baltic Sea have been recorded in the sediments, but the reasons are not fully understood. Now an integrated study of high-resolution sediment records (of the past 1,000 years) in combination with an ecosystem modelling approach reveals that surface temperature changes strongly influence deepwater oxygenation.

Increased carbon dioxide levels, in combination with global warming, are predicted to lead to widespread impacts on marine ecosystems. Now research shows that the negative effects of ocean acidification and warming on juvenile fish are absent or reversed when parents also experience high carbon dioxide concentrations and warmer waters.

Sea-level rise is one of the key consequences of climate change. Its impact is long-term owing to the multi-century response timescales involved. This study addresses how much sea-level rise will result in coming centuries from climate-policy decisions taken today.

An isotopic analysis of well-dated massive corals in New Caledonia is used to reconstruct sea surface temperature variability in the southwest tropical Pacific from 1649 to 1999. The findings will be important for climate modelling studies and for studies that predict future climatic change.

This study provides field evidence of the existence, magnitude and formative processes of a sea-level-rise hotspot located in one of the world’s most densely populated coastal areas encompassing Boston, Providence, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Norfolk Virginia Beach.

The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant mode of climate variability. This study identifies a critical process that remains constant through ENSO regime shifts and that begins many months before the peak of the event. The findings should help understand how ENSO will respond to a warming world.

Public denial of anthropogenic climate change is significant in Western democracies. Experts assume that deniers would only act pro-environmentally if they were convinced that climate change is real, and therefore urge better communication of climate change risks. Research shows that focusing on the positive societal effects of climate change mitigation efforts can motivate deniers’ pro-environmental actions.

Arctic warming is expected to lead to the colonization of tundra by trees, increasing plant biomass and potentially helping to offset atmospheric carbon dioxide increases. However, this effect must be considered in the context of soil-carbon changes. Now research shows that enhanced plant growth in the European Arctic could result in an overall increase in carbon being released to the atmosphere.

The possibility of anthropogenic ocean warming has led to a range of concerns, from impacts on fisheries and ocean acidification to rising sea level and changes in tropical cyclone frequency and intensity. This study substantially strengthens the attribution of the recently observed global ocean warming to human activity.

Carbon dioxide enrichment can alter grassland ecosystem functioning directly and through indirect, soil-specific effects on moisture, nitrogen availability and species composition. Now research shows that change in aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) with carbon dioxide enrichment depends strongly on soil type; indicating that soils could cause spatial variation in carbon dioxide effects on ANPP and other ecosystem attributes.