Volume 7 Number 8

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Volume 7 Number 8

August 2017

Editorial

  • Choices to be made

    • Local and regional authorities are making climate-conscious choices, whilst climate change impacts will soon mean individuals need to make choices to survive.

Correspondence

Commentaries

  • Cities spearhead climate action

    • Following President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, cities worldwide have pledged support to combat climate change. Along with a growing coalition of businesses and institutions, cities represent a beacon of hope for carbon reduction in politically tumultuous times.

    Mark Watts

  • Stop preaching to the converted

    • Traditional moral arguments fail to persuade conservative climate sceptics. Pope Francis’ gifting of his climate encyclical to President Trump prior to his leaving the Paris Agreement shows that even a religious leader’s persuasive power is constrained by how his message resonates with conservative moral values.

    Asheley R. Landrum & Robert B. Lull

  • Impacts of the Larsen-C Ice Shelf calving event

    • A giant iceberg has calved off the Larsen-C Ice Shelf, the largest remaining ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula, reducing its total area by ~10%. Whilst calving events are a natural phenomenon and thus not necessarily indicative of changing environmental conditions, such events can impact ice-shelf stability.

    Anna E. Hogg & G. Hilmar Gudmundsson

Feature

  • Businesses lead where US falters

    • The Paris Agreement requires commitments from countries to take action and reduce emissions, but the corporate world is also looking at its contribution to mitigation.

    Erica Gies

Research Highlights

News and Views

  • Sea-level-rise impacts: Questioning inevitable migration

    • It is assumed that sea-level rise due to climate change will be so severe that those living near sea level will be forced to relocate. However, new research around a series of islands that have suffered subsidence due to a recent earthquake suggests that instead, island residents remain and use a range of strategies to adapt to regular flooding.

    Dominic Kniveton

    See also:Article by Ma. Laurice Jamero

  • Climate dynamics: Land warming revives monsoon

    • A weakening land–ocean temperature difference, owing to a rapidly warming Indian Ocean, has seen the Indian monsoon trending downward since the 1950s. New research gives hope for a revival in monsoon rainfall as land warming catches up with, and exceeds, ocean warming.

    Mathew Koll Roxy

    See also: Article by Qinjian Jin

  • Climate impacts of oil extraction increase significantly with oilfield age

    • The footprint of oil typically considers combustion emissions, neglecting extraction emissions. This study shows that production declines with depletion for 25 significant oil fields, whilst emissions increase through greater energy expenditure.

    Mohammad S. Masnadi & Adam R. Brandt

  • Balancing Europe’s wind-power output through spatial deployment informed by weather regimes

    • Weather regimes drive variability in wind-power generation across Europe, affecting energy security. Strategically deployed wind turbines in regions of contrasting weather regime behaviour can be used to balance wind capacity and minimize output variability.

    Christian M. Grams, Remo Beerli, Stefan Pfenninger, Iain Staffell & Heini Wernli

  • Importance of the pre-industrial baseline for likelihood of exceeding Paris goals

    • In order to meet internationally agreed temperature limits, it is important to have a defined baseline. This study shows for low-emission scenarios the likelihood and timing of exceedance are highly dependent on the baseline, as are allowable carbon emissions.

    Andrew P. Schurer, Michael E. Mann, Ed Hawkins, Simon F. B. Tett & Gabriele C. Hegerl

  • Continued increase of extreme El Niño frequency long after 1.5 °C warming stabilization

    • CMIP5 simulations reveal that the frequency of extreme El Niño events doubles under the 1.5 °C Paris target, and continues to increase long after global temperatures stabilize due to emission reductions. Extreme La Niña events, however, see little change at either 1.5 °C or 2 °C warming.

    Guojian Wang, Wenju Cai, Bolan Gan, Lixin Wu, Agus Santoso, Xiaopei Lin, Zhaohui Chen & Michael J. McPhaden

  • The limits of modifying migration speed to adjust to climate change

    • Analysis synthesizing 49 tracking studies shows that flexibility in the major determinant of migration duration is insufficient to adjust to ongoing climate change, and is unlikely to explain many of the changes in arrival timing already observed.

    Heiko Schmaljohann & Christiaan Both

  • Human disturbance and upward expansion of plants in a warming climate

    • A large proportion of European alpine plants are able to spread upslope faster than current climate velocities. Nevertheless, invasive species tend to be particularly effective dispersers, making them an additional pressure on the vulnerable native flora.

    Matteo Dainese, Sami Aikio, Philip E. Hulme, Alessio Bertolli, Filippo Prosser & Lorenzo Marini

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