Reviews & Analysis

Policies aimed at mitigating climate change, adapting to it and minimizing its impacts must take into account human behaviours and motivations. Psychology can therefore inform efforts to address climate change, but further research is required.

There have been calls for more voices from the global south to engage in the climate engineering debate. A Berkeley Workshop held in July 2014 achieved just this, identifying themes that should inform research and governance in this arena.

Diatoms are important primary producers in the ocean, however their response to rising CO₂ is uncertain. Now research shows how diatoms regulate their metabolism in response to changing CO₂.

Countries need to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from the energy sector if the world is to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. But no one is sure of the best path. New research highlights the key uncertainties driving energy policy debate in the UK.

The recent FACE model–data synthesis project used data from two FACE experiments to assess land ecosystem models. This Perspective details the 'assumption-centered' approach used to identify and evaluate the causes of model differences.

A new analysis shows that global warming could be limited to 1.5 °C by 2100, but that the window for achieving this is small and rapidly closing.

Clean electricity generation is good for the climate and improves the quality of the air that we breathe. An analysis of US power plants shows that the magnitude of the resulting health benefits depends greatly on the carbon standards adopted.

The global atmosphere is warming and human emissions are responsible. Now research shows that an increasing fraction of temperature and precipitation extremes are attributable to that warming.

The Atlantic overturning circulation plays a key role in large-scale climate but how it varies is not well known. Now a study proposes that the weakening it may have experienced in the late 1970s is unprecedented over the last millennium.

Whether simple or sophisticated, educational games can help inform the public about climate change, its impacts, and what can be done about it.

This Perspective assesses the global balance between fossil-fuel carbon supply and the sufficiency of carbon stores for climate-change mitigation.

In this Review, temperature trends in mountainous regions around the world and the mechanisms that contribute to elevation-dependent warming are discussed.

Long-term climate change and sea-level rise in model projections have been primarily determined by external forcing of climate conditions. Now, research shows that centennial projections of the dynamic sea level are also sensitive to the ocean's initial conditions.

The underlying causes of biodiversity loss can be numerous and difficult to identify. Now evidence suggests that disease outbreaks triggered by warming oceans are a primary cause of the disappearance of Caribbean coral reefs.

The recent boom in residential solar power is disrupting centralized electricity systems and helping to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

This Perspective presents a conceptual framework for extending electricity access while also transitioning to a decarbonized energy system.

This paper reviews the monitoring, reporting and verification of greenhouse-gas emissions needed for carbon-pricing and management mechanisms.

Modelling of the power system on the west coast of North America shows that including bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration technologies could enable the region to be carbon negative by 2050.