Reviews & Analysis

Climate change can be robustly attributed to human activities using different datasets, despite uncertainties in the processing of observational data.

The rising demand for road vehicles increases Europe's oil dependency and carbon emissions. Switching to alternative cars and fuels can help energy security and climate change policy, if consumers can be persuaded.

It is argued by many that market-based policies along with cash transfers will make it easier for nations to forge deals to cut carbon emissions. However, emission-intensive manufacturing in China and India could be hit especially hard by this approach.

Biofuels could be an important energy source, but they compete with food for cropland. An analysis of current crop production suggests that increasing yields of biofuel crops on existing cropland could avoid agricultural expansion and its associated impacts.

Public policy and investments alone cannot reduce vulnerability to climate change. Research shows that, with adequate institutional mechanisms, private adaptation choices can play an important role in improving society's climate resilience.

Drought has emerged as a major threat to the world's forests. A study shows that tree mortality in Canada's boreal forests has increased by nearly 5% per year — much higher than expected — owing to water stress from regional warming.

Global marine fisheries research shows how climate change is likely to impact the economics of world fisheries by affecting primary productivity, distribution and the potential yield of exploited species. Despite the gaps in understanding climate change effects on fisheries, the available information highlights the need for mitigation and adapation policies to minimize impacts.

The systematic bias in the position and strength of the 'roaring forties' that is found in climate models affects our present ability to predict carbon dioxide uptake by the Southern Ocean.

The distributions of terrestrial organisms are shifting in response to climate change. Research shows that these changes are happening at a much faster rate than previously estimated.

Some commercial fish species of the northeast Atlantic Ocean have relocated in response to warming. The impact of warming on marine assemblages in the region may already be much greater than appreciated, however, with over 70% of common demersal fish species responding through changes in abundance, rather than range.

Improved regional monitoring and reporting of greenhouse-gas emissions depends on accurate estimates of emissions from different land-use regimes. An analysis suggests that measuring emissions per crop yield may be an optimum metric for refining land-management decisions.

Whether the widely accepted 2 °C limit for climate change is practically achievable depends partly on climate sensitivity, but predominantly on complex socio-economic dynamics.

Climate change projections are usually presented as ‘snapshots’ of change at a particular time in the future. Now a new approach to presenting projections, which should prove useful to policymakers, shows when temperature thresholds might be crossed, shifting the emphasis from ‘what might happen’ to ‘when it might happen’.

It is well recognized that species are shifting their distributions and the timing of key life events in response to climate change. What is less appreciated is that many species are also experiencing reductions in body size, with implications for food availability and the balance of ecosystems. This Perspective looks at the evidence for shrinking body size across endothermic and ectothermic organisms and proposes future research directions.