Reviews & Analysis

A fifty-year observational record of Central Amazon forest reveals the multifaceted nature of tree death and concerning signs of vulnerability to increasing heat.

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, launched in 2002, allows monitoring of changes in hydrology and the cryosphere with terrestrial and ocean applications. This Review Article focuses on its contribution to the detection and quantification of climate change signals.

The Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project develops a framework to design low-emission development pathways. This Perspective discusses the framework and how it can support the development of national strategies to meet climate targets, as well as help achieve stakeholder engagement.

The Arctic climate is changing rapidly, but quantifying outcomes for Inuit has been elusive. Now, research starts with trail-use instead of models, and finds that the effects from climate change are modest compared with the role of skill and risk-tolerance of the travellers.

Women have typically been excluded from forest conservation programs due to traditional decision-making structures in their villages and local governments. Research now shows that greater representation of women in forest-user groups leads to more equitable sharing of program benefits and increases conservation outcomes.

Emergent constraints can be an evaluation tool for Earth System Models. This Perspective discusses emergent constraints, how they should be assessed, and when these statistical relationships can be confirmed and used to improve understanding of the changing climate system.

Cities around the world are at the forefront of enacting climate mitigation policies, but effective action requires a better understanding of potential solutions. This Review offers a systematic exploration of the urban case study literature and discusses ways to best make use of the growing body of cases.

According to the conventional wisdom, defection by one country from global climate cooperation should undermine the incentives for other countries to act. But new research shows that the public in the United States and China both maintain robust support for national climate reforms, even when a major carbon polluter stops cooperating.

To meet the Paris Agreement goals, CO₂ emissions in industrial countries must decrease over the long term. Now research shows that an increase in the share of renewable energy and a decrease in energy use have contributed to emissions reductions in industrial countries, but enhanced policies are needed to decouple economic growth from emissions.

Collaborative research utilizing field trials and whole farm crop simulation enables adaptation of Australian wheat crop practices. Novel varieties sown earlier enable a longer growing season, which facilitates wheat yield increases despite an increasingly challenging climate.

Big data is increasingly popular in many research domains. This Perspective discusses where elements of big data approaches have been employed in climate research and where combining big data with theory-driven research can be most fruitful.

The Paris Agreement requires substantial changes in the land system. However, national implementation plans are vague, largely insufficient and unlikely to be fully achieved. Realistic policies require proper consideration of land-system lags.

Global greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise again in 2018. New research from the United States Geological Survey casts light on emissions from fuels produced on federal lands and finds that they accounted for over 20% of US emissions in recent years.

In the Southern Ocean, climate-driven contraction of Antarctic krill from open ocean toward the frozen continent is a perilous journey. Research now shows that a poleward shift in distribution is accompanied by diminished spatial less habitat, lower densities and larger mean size of adults.

Near-term climate predictions bridge the gap between seasonal forecasts and long-term projections. This Perspective outlines the challenges and opportunities for near-term climate prediction, highlighting the need for co-ordinated efforts to benefit society.

In this Review, a Bayesian framework is used to explain climate change belief updating, and the evidence required to support claims of directional motivated reasoning versus a model in which people aim for accurate beliefs, but vary in how they assess information credibility.

Climate change adaptation encompasses a wide range of behaviours in response to a variety of short- and long-term risks. Now meta-analyses identify which motivational factors are consistent predictors of adaptation action, and which are more context-specific.

This Perspective synthesizes research on the origins and impacts of scientific misinformation campaigns, pointing to public inoculation, legal, political and financial strategies for countering climate change misinformation and limiting its dissemination.

Earth system models project likely future climates, however, evaluation of their output is challenging. This Perspective discusses new evaluation approaches, considering both simulations and observations, to ensure credible information for decision-making.