Research articles

Achieving the Paris Agreement goals may require complementary institutions such as climate clubs. Enhanced technological diffusion and the provision of low-cost climate finance are shown to support the creation of climate coalitions.

Calcifying marine species are threatened by ocean acidification. A year-long study of calcifying fluid chemistry shows that reef species, both corals and calcifying macroalgal species, were not able to adapt to ocean acidification.

There is a growing need to find cost-effective options for greenhouse gas abatement. In this study, spatially disaggregated marginal abatement cost curves are developed to facilitate economic appraisal of tropical reforestation.

Political interests play a key role in the passage of climate policy. This study quantifies that political lobbying reduced the probability of enacting the Waxman–Markey bill in the United States by 13 percentage points, representing US$60 billion in expected climate damages.

Natural abundance radiocarbon is used to evaluate temperature sensitivities across Arctic soil carbon pools from Utqiaġvik, Alaska. Temperature sensitivity was consistent across pools irrespective of native decomposition rate.

Behavioural interventions aimed at curbing carbon emissions are inexpensive and easy to implement but can offer the false promise of a quick fix. Across six experiments, the authors show that exposure to a green energy nudge diminishes support for carbon taxes.

Public concern about climate change is difficult to motivate. This study finds an increase in climate change concern among parents after their middle school-aged children participated in a climate change school curriculum.

Interdecadal modulations in the North Pacific Oscillation (NPO) influence North American winter temperatures. An eastward shift of the NPO in recent decades has increased its influence, resulting in more extremes, depending on the NPO phase.

The benefits of using natural gas as a bridge fuel are often called into question. A coal-to-gas shift in China, Germany, India and the United States is broadly consistent with climate stabilization goals in the Paris Agreement, except when metrics emphasizing very short-term outcomes are used.

Fifty years of monthly observation of rainforest canopy trees in the Central Amazon reveals that drought, heat, storms and extreme rain can all increase tree mortality. Pioneers, softwoods and evergreen functional groups were particularly vulnerable.

The frequency of extreme weather events is increasing due to climate change. Here, the authors exploit regional variation in the UK summer heatwave of 2018 and find that exposure to extreme temperatures influenced concern about energy security.

Spaceborne thermal observation is used to monitor discrete phenophases of forest understory plants in near-real time and the thermal relationship is used to project phenological changes under future climates.

The life-cycle GHG emissions from plastics are expected to increase. Here, it is shown that an aggressive strategy of decarbonizing energy infrastructure, improving recycling, adopting bio-based plastics and reducing demand is required to keep emissions below 2015 levels.

In this Article, modelling results from a consistent set of sectoral climate change impact models, covering 22 impact sectors of the United States, are summarized. Findings are complex, but largely negative and expensive.

The Pacific Walker circulation is predicted to weaken, however, observations suggest a current strengthening. Satellite humidity observations show a weaker response than reanalyses; coupled with model simulations, this suggests that internal variability dominates recent strengthening.

Climate change has the potential to profoundly affect Arctic transportation systems. Here, Indigenous knowledge and climate data are integrated to model changing trail access for Canada’s Inuit communities over the past 30 years

Decision-making structures in forest-user communities often exclude women. This lab-in-field experiment shows that groups in which at least 50% of members were women conserved more trees, and distributed benefits more equally, in a payment for ecosystem services intervention.

Melting glaciers are increasing Himalayan glacial lakes and potentially the risk of outburst floods. An advanced automated algorithm identifies glacial lake outburst floods from Landsat images since the late 1980s to improve understanding of these events and trends in their frequency.

Uncertainties are often cited as a reason for mitigation inaction. Here, millions of scenarios are evaluated to assess the relative importance of human–earth system uncertainties and policy variables. The growth rate of global abatement is found to be the primary driver of long-term warming.