Reviews & Analysis

The role of peatlands in future climate change is uncertain because peat-derived greenhouse gas emissions are difficult to predict. Now research shows that reduced methane emissions from drying peatlands are likely to be outweighed by increasing CO₂ emissions.

Lakes are warming globally at variable rates with important consequences for species survival. Now, research quantifies change in thermal habitat of lakes around the world and shows that season or depth restrictions on species responses may increase thermal habitat change threefold.

Recent changes to how clouds are represented in global models, especially over the Southern Ocean, resulted in increased climate warming. Correcting rain processes in a model shows improved cloud representation but leads to a greatly enhanced negative feedback, offsetting documented increases in model climate sensitivity.

Mortality associated with rising temperatures is one of the clearest and impactful fingerprints of a changing climate. Research now shows an attributable increase in mortality due to climate change is already evident in cities on every continent.

There is no common structure for the way national emissions scenarios are created, hindering efforts for comparison and analysis at the larger scale. This Perspective presents a framework to guide individual national scenario creation in a standardized way.

E-fuels—hydrocarbon fuels synthesized from green hydrogen—can replace fossil fuels. This Perspective highlights the opportunities and risks of e-fuels, and concludes that hydrogen and e-fuels should be prioritized for sectors inaccessible to direct electrification.

The Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement measures progress towards a net-zero emissions goal. Now, research provides a way to improve representation of land-based contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and removals to properly assess collective progress.

Mountain snowpack in western North America is decreasing, and these trends are often reported using amount of maximum annual snowpack. An alternative metric — integrated snowmelt during the accumulation season — finds snowmelt decreases are three times more widespread, suggesting even stronger snow decline.

Thawing Arctic permafrost, and release of its stored carbon, is a known amplifier of global warming. Now research suggests an increase in Arctic lightning could speed up the permafrost’s demise.

Raising agricultural productivity has been essential for global food security and conserving land. Now, research quantifies how climate change has slowed agricultural productivity growth around the world.

Contributions to mitigate climate change should be equitable under the Paris Agreement, yet researchers take sharply diverging approaches to assessing national effort. This Perspective evaluates the literature and presents guidelines for policy-relevant—and ethically explicit—research on equity.

To mark the tenth anniversary of Nature Climate Change, we asked a selection of researchers across the broad range of climate change disciplines to share their thoughts on notable developments of the past decade, as well as their hopes and expectations for the coming years of discovery.

The science is ripe to update estimates of CO₂ emissions costs. Calls to scrap the calculation are misguided.

Climate change vulnerability assessments of cold-water species have focused on protecting cold summer habitats in high-elevation streams. Now, a study shows that seasonally warm rivers can provide the majority of growth potential for cold-water fishes, unveiling a notable blind spot in freshwater climate research and planning.

Coastal adaptation aims to reduce impacts of relative sea-level rise from climate-induced sea-level rise and land elevation changes. Now, a global projection of relative sea-level rise to 2050 suggests the critical role of managing land subsidence for coastal cities on sinking deltas.

Energy systems scenarios project a wide range of uncertainty in solar photovoltaic capacity, often thought to stem from techno-economic assumptions. Now research shows that the underlying sources of this uncertainty might be different than expected.

Gender has a powerful influence on experiences of, and resilience to, climate change. In this Review, the authors provide an overview of four common gender assumptions, and offer four suggestions for a more informed pursuit of gender equality in climate change policy and practice.

Aerosol–climate interactions are important in the Arctic, but they exhibit large spatiotemporal variability. This Perspective argues for community-driven model and observational improvement, emphasizing the need to understand natural aerosol processes and quantify how their baseline is changing.

Assessing future climate-related financial risk requires knowledge of how the climate will change at various spatial and temporal scales. This Perspective examines the demand for climate information from business and finance communities, and the extent to which climate models can meet these demands.

The combination of highly resolved climatic and genomic data allows assessment of putative maladaptation of populations to climate change and can identify high-risk populations. Now, a study that accounts for migration and dispersal shows high maladaptation of a North American tree species in the northern and eastern distribution range.