Research articles

Intraspecies response to climate change is expected to align with genetic affinity. Using the American pika as a case study suggests that divisions of species distributions best explain intraspecific heterogeneity in climate relationships.

The Indian Ocean is warming at an accelerated rate, and modelling experiments show teleconnections affecting the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). In a warming climate, reduced tropical Atlantic rainfall causes salinity changes strengthening the AMOC, while other factors weaken it.

Whether citizens are able to reject false information about climate change may depend on their confidence in their existing knowledge. This study shows that German citizens are less confident in their climate change knowledge than they should be based on their actual knowledge.

Bananas are a staple food crop and important agricultural export for many countries. Here, it is shown that global banana yields have increased historically and will continue to increase in Africa but reduced yields are expected among the larger producers.

The supply of dense Antarctic Bottom Water to the Atlantic overturning circulation has declined in recent years. Observations show that since 2014 this has stabilized and slightly recovered due to variability in upstream dense waters, with implications for the global climate.

Solar geoengineering could limit temperature increase, but its use is controversial. This study shows that climate experts are more opposed to geoengineering if they expect severe global climate change damages, but are more supportive if they expect severe damages in their home country.

Along the West Antarctic Peninsula, a 25-year dataset indicates that oceanic CO₂ uptake depends on upper ocean stability and phytoplankton dynamics. Diatoms achieve high oceanic CO₂ uptake and uptake efficiency. There has been a nearly fivefold increase in oceanic CO₂ uptake due to sea ice changes.

Diatoms have silicate skeletons that affect their buoyancy in the ocean. Ocean acidification reduces silicification, with varying effects between species, and could alter the marine carbon and silica cycles through changes in community composition and sinking rates.

Climate models project an increase in summer weather persistence for the northern mid-latitudes. In a 2 °C world, two-week-long hot-and-dry conditions increase by up to 20% for eastern North America. The chance of a week of heavy rainfall increases by 26%, adding to the risk of extremes in the future.

The components of the ocean carbon cycle will respond differently to climate change, with anthropogenic impacts first seen on processes sensitive to chemical changes—the calcium carbonate pump and oceanic uptake of CO₂—with the soft-tissue pump (sensitive to the ocean’s physical state) emerging later.

There are large uncertainties in wind-wave climate projections that need to be resolved to allow adaptation planning. A multi-method ensemble of global wave climate projections shows robust changes in wave height, period and direction that put 50% of the global coast at risk.

Fires play an important role in ecosystem dynamics. Long-term controls on global burnt area include fuel continuity and moisture, with ignitions and human activity becoming dominant in specific ecosystems. Changes in fuel continuity and moisture are the main drivers of changes of fire globally.

Climate change will increase meltwater and iceberg discharge from Antarctica, with implications for future climate and sea levels. Iceberg melt will partly offset greenhouse warming in the Southern Ocean and dampen the positive feedback loop between ice-sheet melting and subsurface warming.

Additional electricity generation is required to compensate for losses from inefficient transmission and distribution infrastructure. In this study, emissions from compensatory generation and the potential for reductions are estimated for 142 countries.

Two independent methods, applied to observations and climate models, suggest that changes in atmospheric circulation drive cold winters in mid-latitudes and coincident mild Arctic winters. Reduced Arctic sea ice causes Arctic warming but has minimal influence on the severity of mid-latitude winters.

Elevated CO₂ increases plant biomass, providing a negative feedback on global warming. Nutrient availability was found to drive the magnitude of this effect for the majority of vegetation globally, and analyses indicated that CO₂ will continue to fertilize plant growth in the next century.