Category: Nature

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 21 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02239-0 Accountability serves as an adhesive that binds commitment to results. Now, a study on corporate carbon emissions targets reveals that firms hold limited accountability to their targets, with little public backlash against missed targets.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 21 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02236-3 Companies have set emissions reduction targets globally, yet whether they are held accountable for the outcomes remains uncertain. By examining the emissions targets that ended in 2020, researchers find low awareness of the failed targets and limited negative reactions from different stakeholders.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 21 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02234-5 How the carbon stocks of the Arctic–Boreal Zone change with warming is not well understood. Here the authors show that wildfires and large regional differences in net carbon fluxes offset the overall increasing CO2 uptake.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 17 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02238-1 To understand the potential for seaweed as a Blue Carbon strategy, the authors quantify carbon burial under 20 globally distributed seaweed farms. They attribute an average of 1.06 ± 0.74 tCO2e ha−1 yr−1 to seaweed farms, and show increased accumulation of carbon with farm age.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02235-4 Climate change and disturbances are changing forest tree composition, but it is not clear if disturbances assist trees in tracking their climate ranges. This study shows that the impact of disturbance on range shifts is dependent on the tree species and type of disturbance.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 06 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02243-y Publisher Correction: Brazil’s coastline under attack   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 06 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02233-6 Changes in the Arctic could impact the oceanic carbon sequestration of the region. Here the authors consider regional biogeochemistry, including coastal erosion and river inputs, to show a 40% reduction in the biological carbon pump to 2100 under climate change.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 06 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02205-w The authors use ground-based records and remote-sensing data to show that late spring frost delays the timing of spring leaf-out in the subsequent year by reducing photosynthetic productivity. Integrating late spring frost into models can increase the accuracy of predictions of spring timings and carbon cycling.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 06 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02224-7 Arctic warming will decrease sea ice cover and increase the possibility of intensified marine heatwaves. Using a high-resolution model, the authors show that this intensification, combined with strengthened short-term temperature variability and enhanced stratification, could threaten the ecosystem.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 06 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02199-5 Pressure ridges, a characteristic feature of Arctic sea ice, play an important role in the ecosystem but pose challenges to shipping. Here the authors use aircraft measurements to document a decline in both the frequency and height of these pressure ridges in recent decades.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 06 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02206-9 For almost 30 years, an insect fungal disease has repressed defoliation caused by the spongy moth in North American hardwood forests. The fungus needs cool, moist weather, but computer models project that the effects of climate change will prevent the fungus from killing spongy moths, which…

Read More “Climate change is projected to drive renewed spongy moth attacks on North American forests” »

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 06 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02225-6 As Arctic sea ice thinned, it was thought that a weaker, more dynamic ice cover might become more heavily deformed and ridged. Now, analysis of three decades of airborne observations shows instead that the Arctic ice cover has smoothed.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 06 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02204-x The authors constructed an eco-climate model to project climate change impacts on populations of the spongy moth (Lymantria dispar) and its pathogen Entomophaga maimaiga. They show that climate change will sharply reduce E. maimaiga infection rates and subsequently increase spongy moth defoliation.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 06 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02221-w Climate change is impacting mountain regions and the agricultural livelihood of residents, and will continue to do so. In this study, the authors survey farmers in ten African mountain regions to understand their perceptions of climate change impacts and identify adaptation opportunities and constraints.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 03 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02200-1 Climate change research and policy rely on emissions scenarios to project future warming and its impacts. Now, a study highlights both progress and challenges to keeping key socioeconomic scenario assumptions up to date for the IPCC.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 03 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02198-6 Scenarios for mitigation pathways lay the foundation for IPCC reporting and provide guidelines for future climate actions. This Analysis compares all the scenarios included since the Fifth Assessment Report and discusses how the portfolio has evolved over the past decade and the driving factors behind these…

Read More “Energy and socioeconomic system transformation through a decade of IPCC-assessed scenarios” »

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 03 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02194-w The authors model the impact of changing tropical cyclone activity on coastal ecosystems. Under SSP5-8.5, by 2050 nearly 10% of terrestrial ecosystems will be at risk from changing tropical cyclone frequency, threatening the recovery potential of even the most resilient ecoregions.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 03 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02201-0 The authors develop a machine learning-based approach to derive abrupt shift probability in dryland ecosystem functioning in the Sudano–Sahel. They highlight areas with high probabilities of abrupt shifts in the near future (2025), which are linked to long-term rainfall trends.   

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 02 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02203-y Climate-sensitive disturbances impact ecosystem productivity and carbon uptake. We found that the sensitivity of ecosystem productivity to disturbances differs between regions, with dryland ecosystems becoming more sensitive to water stress after disturbances, whereas wet regions become less sensitive. On average, ecosystem sensitivity requires approximately five years…

Read More “Dryland ecosystems become more sensitive to water stress after disturbances” »

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 02 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02193-x The aluminium production process is energy intensive and individual smelters often depend on associated fossil fuel-based captive power units. With detailed global facility-level data, this research highlights the importance of early retirement of fossil fuel plants and retrofitting with inert anodes.