El Niño events are a prominent feature of climate variability with global climatic impacts. The 1997/98 episode, often referred to as ‘the climate event of the twentieth century and the 1982/83 extreme El Niño, featured a pronounced eastward extension of the west Pacific warm pool and development of atmospheric convection, and hence a huge rainfall increase, in the usually cold and dry equatorial eastern Pacific.
Predicting survival and extinction scenarios for climate change requires an understanding of the present day ecological characteristics of species and future available habitats, but also the adaptive potential of species to cope with environmental change. Hybridization is one mechanism that could facilitate this. Here we report statistical evidence that the transfer of genetic information through hybridization is a feature of species from the plant genus Pachycladon that survived the Last Glacial Maximum in geographically separated alpine refugia in New Zealand’s South Island.
A changing climate is increasing the frequency, intensity, duration and spatial extent of heat waves. These changes are associated with increased human mortality during heat extremes. At the other end of the temperature scale, it has been widely speculated that cold-related mortality could decrease in a warmer world. We aim to answer a key question; the extent to which mortality due to temperature extremes in Stockholm, Sweden during 1980–2009 can be attributed to climate change that has occurred since our reference period (1900–1929).
Larval stages are considered as the weakest link when a species is exposed to challenging environmental changes. Reduced rates of growth and development in larval stages of calcifying invertebrates in response to ocean acidification might be caused by energetic limitations. So far no information exists on how ocean acidification affects digestive processes in marine larval stages. Here we reveal alkaline (~pH 9.5) conditions in the stomach of sea urchin larvae.
Extreme weather, sea-level rise and degraded coastal ecosystems are placing people and property at greater risk of damage from coastal hazards. The likelihood and magnitude of losses may be reduced by intact reefs and coastal vegetation1, especially when those habitats fringe vulnerable communities and infrastructure. Using five sea-level-rise scenarios, we calculate a hazard index for every 1 km2 of the United States coastline. We use this index to identify the most vulnerable people and property as indicated by being in the upper quartile of hazard for the nation’s coastline.
Actions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions often reduce co-emitted air pollutants, bringing co-benefits for air quality and human health. Past studies typically evaluated near-term and local co-benefits, neglecting the long-range transport of air pollutants long-term demographic changes, and the influence of climate change on air quality.
Marine phytoplankton are responsible for ~50% of the CO2 that is fixed annually worldwide, and contribute massively to other biogeochemical cycles in the oceans1. Their contribution depends significantly on the interplay between dynamic environmental conditions and the metabolic responses that underpin resource allocation and hence biogeochemical cycling in the oceans. However, these complex environment–biome interactions have not been studied on a larger scale.
Recent observed global warming is significantly less than that simulated by climate models. This difference might be explained by some combination of errors in external forcing, model response and internal climate variability.
On the basis of climate change projections, increases in heat-related deaths are set to outweigh reductions in cold-related deaths in the borough of Manhattan, New York.
Climate change has altered not only the overall magnitude of rainfall but also its seasonal distribution and interannual variability worldwide. Such changes in the rainfall regimes will be most keenly felt in arid and semiarid regions, where water availability and timing are key factors controlling biogeochemical cycles5, primary productivity, and the phenology of growth and reproduction, while also regulating agricultural production.
