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The dipole-like trend of tropical sea surface temperature is investigated and this study finds it to be initiated in the Atlantic Ocean. Atlantic warming drives wind and circulation changes and influences Pacific Ocean surface temperatures.
Seasonal aragonite undersaturation events are predicted to affect Southern Ocean surface waters by 2030. This study shows ocean uptake of anthropogenic CO2 will cause these events, with spatial spread and duration increasing rapidly from 2035.
This study uses model projections of the open water season (for 1920–2100) to investigate Arctic sea-ice decline. Nearshore regions began shifting from pre-industrial conditions in 1990, and human influence is projected to emerge in 2040.
Climate change is causing drylands to expand and this work shows that they will cover half of the land surface by 2100 under a moderate emissions scenario.
Land surface models do not usually account for soil movement effects on soil organic carbon (SOC). Research utilizing a SOC cycling scheme modified to include soil redistribution now shows potential for reducing uncertainty in SOC flux estimates.
Regional climate models for the Persian (Arabian) Gulf indicate that extremes of wet-bulb temperature—a measure of temperature and humidity—may exceed a critical threshold for human tolerance with implications for the future human habitability of the region.
Breaking away from the utopian assumption that the international community will agree on a single emissions allocation scheme, this study assesses approaches to setting country-level mitigation targets in line with the 2 °C goal.
Research utilizing C isotopes to partition ecosystem respiration sources in a subarctic warming experiment shows that old soil contributions increased with soil temperature but that carbon losses were modulated by plant responses to warming.
Satellite measurements of chlorophyll are used to infer phytoplankton biomass changes and the relationship to sea surface temperature. This study shows that chlorophyll changes can be light-driven so the temperature–biomass relationship may not hold in the future.
Remotely sensed vegetation and water-balance measurements from 190 river basins across Australia show that sub-humid and semi-arid basins are ‘greening’—as expected under CO2 fertilization—increasing water consumption and reducing streamflow.
Wildfires play an important role in boreal forest carbon cycling but short records make projections difficult. Research utilizing palaeoenvironmental data now points to increasing Alaskan boreal forest fire activity in response to warming.
The IPCC summaries written for policymakers are meant to communicate findings to a wide audience. Textual analysis shows that these reports continue to have low readability, in contrast with media coverage.
Increases in temperature extremes are of major concern for agricultural production. However, this study identifies a connection between agricultural intensification and less extreme summer temperatures over the agriculturally dominated US Midwest.
Ice shelves lose ice through both melting caused by warm marine waters and instability. For the Filchner–Ronne ice shelf, West Antarctica, ice loss is dominated by melt due to warm water intrusion, rather than marine ice-sheet instability.
Estimates of global forest area vary widely; this discrepancy is now shown to originate primarily from ambiguity in the definition of ‘forest’. Monitoring and reporting should focus on measures more directly relevant to ecosystem function.
Experiments show that providing people with information about the prevalence of natural disasters can counterintuitively increase the appeal of disaster-prone regions, suggesting that isolated information is not enough to encourage risk-averse activity.
Investigation of multiple stressors on a subantarctic diatom reveals the importance of considering individual and interactive effects. Experiments show that temperature and iron enrichment enhance growth and help overcome nutrient depletion.
This study finds significant positive associations between the diversity of soil fungi and surface air temperature in the maritime Antarctic, one of the most rapidly warming regions on Earth.
This study quantifies a direct link between global greenhouse gas emissions and rainfall changes over tropical land, and identifies regions most at risk of large changes, such as southern and east Africa.
Emphasizing the co-benefits of climate policy can motivate action across ideological, age and gender divides regardless of existing levels of concern about climate change, as global survey data shows.