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31 julio In Agenda, Portafolio cambio climático by Coordinación Editorial

nature climate change, august 2020

Volume 10 Issue 8, August 2020

Volume 10 Issue 8

Human fingerprint in regional drying

The large-scale mechanisms causing regional drying are not well understood. Writing in this issue of Nature Climate Change, Celine Bonfils et al. demonstrate through models and observational data that human-caused changes in greenhouse gases and aerosols have led to detectable global and hemispheric signals in the combined behaviour of precipitation, temperature and aridity since the 1950s.

See Bonfils et al.

Image: Céline Bonfils, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Cover Design: Valentina Monaco

Editorial

  • Editorial | 29 July 2020

    Nature Climate Change is making changes to our article formats to streamline our content and more clearly denote original research contributions.

Correspondence

Comment

  • Comment | 13 July 2020

    Planned relocation of communities exposed to climate hazards is an important adaptation measure. However, relocation planning and policies must recognize and support those who do not wish to relocate, particularly groups with strong place attachment and for whom relocation may increase, not reduce, vulnerability.

    • Carol Farbotko
    • Olivia Dun
    • Celia McMichael

    • Comment | 27 July 2020

    Phasing out coal requires expanding the notion of a ‘just transition’ and a roadmap that specifies the sequence of coal plant retirement, the appropriate policy instruments as well as ways to include key stakeholders in the process.

    • Michael Jakob
    • Jan Christoph Steckel
    • Johannes Urpelainen

Research Highlights

News & Views

  • News & Views | 13 July 2020

    Over the last two decades, many countries have passed laws addressing climate change and related areas. Research now shows that these laws make a difference to emission outcomes, but the pathways of impact require further research.

    • Navroz K. Dubash

    • News & Views | 29 June 2020

    Over the last half of the twentieth century, surface temperature over the South Pole was steady if not slightly cooling, suggesting the high Antarctic interior might be immune to warming. Research now shows a dramatic switch; in the past 30 years, the South Pole has been warming at over three times the global rate.

    • Sharon E. Stammerjohn
    • Ted A. Scambos

    News & Views | 06 July 2020

    Warming can change the vegetation growing season, but the response of autumn phenology to warming remains uncertain. Now research shows warming can lead to autumn greening by delaying leaf senescence, but carbon uptake is constrained by radiation.

    • Sujong Jeong

Perspectives

  • Perspective | 29 July 2020

    In recent decades, the Arctic has warmed at over twice the global rate. This Perspective places these trends into the context of abrupt Dansgaard–Oeschger warming events in the palaeoclimate record, arguing that the contemporary Arctic is undergoing comparably abrupt climate change.

    • Eystein Jansen
    • Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen
    • Martin Stendel

Matters Arising

Letters

  • Letter | 06 July 2020

    Large-scale mechanisms causing regional drying are not well understood. Models and observational data reveal that human-caused changes in GHGs and aerosols led to detectable global and hemispheric signals in the joint behaviour of precipitation, temperature and aridity since the 1950s.

    • Céline J. W. Bonfils
    • Benjamin D. Santer
    • Susan R. H. Zimmerman

    • Letter | 20 July 2020

    Polar bear numbers are expected to decline as the sea ice they rely on to catch their prey declines with global warming. Projections show when fasts caused by declining sea ice are likely to lead to rapid recruitment and survival declines across the polar bear circumpolar range.

    • Péter K. Molnár
    • Cecilia M. Bitz
    • Steven C. Amstrup

    Letter | 06 July 2020

    Phenological shifts due to warming extend the growing season for plants, with implications for ecosystem productivity. Carbon uptake through photosynthesis is limited by radiation, particularly in autumn, which explains contrasting regional responses of autumn carbon uptake to rising temperatures.

    • Yao Zhang
    • Róisín Commane
    • Pierre Gentine

Articles

  • Article | 06 July 2020

    Carbon dioxide removal technologies may be needed to meet climate targets. In this study, national surveys and deliberative workshops in the United States and the United Kingdom show that carbon dioxide removal is perceived as too slow to address the immediate climate crisis while not addressing the root causes of climate change.

    • Emily Cox
    • Elspeth Spence
    • Nick Pidgeon

    • Article | 13 July 2020

    Climate change laws are shown to reduce national CO2 emissions by 0.78% in their first three years and 1.79% in the longer term. These reductions add up to 38 GtCO2 of avoided emissions for 1999–2016—equal to a year of CO2 emissions.

    • Shaikh M. S. U. Eskander
    • Sam Fankhauser

    Article | 13 July 2020

    A large proportion of anthropogenic heat energy is being taken up by ocean warming. Analysis of yearly 0–700 m ocean heat content maps from four different estimates shows that the longer the period over which regional trends are estimated, the larger the area of statistically significant warming.

    • Gregory C. Johnson
    • John M. Lyman

    Article | 29 June 2020

    Surface air temperatures at the South Pole warmed at over three times the global rate in recent decades. Research shows this trend was driven remotely by the tropics and locally by a positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode, increasing the influx of warm moist air atop anthropogenic warming.

    • Kyle R. Clem
    • Ryan L. Fogt
    • James A. Renwick

    Article | 29 June 2020

    Climate change has altered the vertical structure of atmospheric temperature. Global land observations show melting level height (the altitude where falling precipitation begins to melt) has increased, deepening the warm cloud layer and intensifying rainfall extremes at the expense of snow and hail.

    • Andreas F. Prein
    • Andrew J. Heymsfield

    Article | 06 July 2020

    Autumn leaf senescence has later onset, higher phenological plasticity and a stronger climatic response under warm compared to cold autumns. While night-time warming delays senescence, drought induced by daytime warming advances it, which may lead to loss in growing season under global warming.

    • Lei Chen
    • Heikki Hänninen
    • Jianquan Liu

Analysis

  • Analysis | 13 July 2020

    The economic optimality of limiting global warming to below 2 °C has been questioned. This analysis shows that the 2 °C target is economically optimal in a version of the DICE model that includes updated climate science, climate damage estimates and evidence on social discount rates.

    • Martin C. Hänsel
    • Moritz A. Drupp
    • Thomas Sterner

Amendments & Corrections

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