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Different estimates of the social cost of carbon make its translation to policy difficult. This Perspective evaluates past estimates of this cost and calculates a lower bound. Results show that dominant values for the social cost of carbon are gross underestimates and suggest that climate policy should be more stringent than previously proposed.
Scientists, educators and stakeholders are grappling with how best to approach climate change education for diverse audiences, given the persistent social controversy associated with it. This Perspective examines how socio-cultural learning theories inform climate change education for learners with varied understanding of and attitudes towards climate change.
Studies often assume that climate is equally sensitive to emissions of warming greenhouse gases and cooling sulphate aerosols. Now, research illustrates that this is not true in models and that without this assumption recent assessments would have produced higher estimates of future temperatures.
Climate change poses new challenges to the conservation of species, which at present requires data-hungry models to meaningfully anticipate future threats. Now a study suggests that species traits may offer a simpler way to help predict future extinction risks.
Surface global warming has stalled since around 2000 despite increasing atmospheric CO2. A study finds that recent strengthening of Pacific trade winds has enhanced heat transport from the surface to ocean depths, explaining most of the slowed surface warming.
There has been much debate about whether winter warming due to climate change will substantially decrease mortality in that season. Research now finds that cold severity no longer predicts the number of excess winter deaths in England and Wales.
Reducing tropical deforestation has huge potential for mitigating climate change and saving the Earth's most biologically diverse biome. Corridors connecting existing protected areas represent an elegant means of attaining both goals.
Americans are more likely to believe in global warming when it's hot outside. A study now provides insights on why this reasoning process is not easily changed.
Computer models and theory do not offer a consensus on how El Niño will change under global warming. Despite this disagreement, a study indicates a robust increase in the frequency of extreme El Niño episodes.
Geoengineering the climate by increasing the Earth's reflectivity has been suggested. In this Perspective, the detectability of various methods is investigated. Although satellite observations can detect large changes in albedo, smaller increases caused by some methods of geoengineering are indistinguishable from natural variability. This raises the question of how such schemes would be managed if their impacts can not be quantified.
The increased use of bioenergy is mired in a controversy over the environmental and social risks of escalating biomass production. Assessments of global biomass potential published over the past 20 years are reviewed, showing how different levels of deployment necessitate assumptions that could have far-reaching consequences for global agriculture, forestry and land use. Critical future challenges that can be addressed by the scientific community are also identified.
