Top Research Papers on Global Warming

Abstract Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change yields Charney (fast-feedback) equilibrium climate sensitivity 1.2 ± 0.3°C (2σ) per W/m2, which is 4.8°C ± 1.2°C for doubled CO2. Consistent analysis of temperature over the full Cenozoic era—including ‘slow’ feedbacks by ice sheets and trace gases—supports this sensitivity and implies that CO2 was 300–350 ppm in the Pliocene and about 450 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet, exposing unrealistic lethargy of ice sheet models. Equilibrium global warming for today’s GHG amount is 10°C, which is reduced to ...

It is shown that the North Pacific Ocean, the Greenland Sea and the Barents Sea host the species that are most vulnerable to global warming, and that the potential extinctions of the marine mammals that were most vulnerableto global warming might induce a disproportionate loss of functional diversity, which may have profound impacts on the future functioning of marine ecosystems worldwide.

Abstract Global warming is a worldwide and protracted phenomenon with heterogeneous local economic effects. We propose a dynamic economic assessment model of the world economy with high spatial resolution to assess its consequences. Our model features several forms of adaptation to local temperature changes, including costly trade and migration, local technological innovations, and local natality rates. We quantify the model at a 1∘×1∘ resolution and estimate damage functions that determine the impact of temperature changes on a region’s fundamental productivity and amenities conditional on lo...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It provides regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. This IPCC Special Report is a comprehensive assessment of our understanding of global warming of 1.5°C, future climate change, potential impacts and associated risks, emission pathways, and system transitions consistent with 1.5°C global warming, and strengthening the global response to climate change in the co...

Overall plant–pollinator interactions seem to be resilient biological networks, particularly because generalist species can buffer these changes due to their plastic behaviour, but information is lacking on where and why spatial mismatches do occur and how they impact the fitness of plants and pollinators, in order to fully assess if adaptive evolutionary changes can keep pace with global warming predictions.

Abstract Growth in aviation contributes more to global warming than is generally appreciated because of the mix of climate pollutants it generates. Here, we model the CO 2 and non-CO 2 effects like nitrogen oxide emissions and contrail formation to analyse aviation’s total warming footprint. Aviation contributed approximately 4% to observed human-induced global warming to date, despite being responsible for only 2.4% of global annual emissions of CO 2 . Aviation is projected to cause a total of about 0.1 °C of warming by 2050, half of it to date and the other half over the next three decades, ...

Abstract The costs of climate change are often estimated in monetary terms, but this raises ethical issues. Here we express them in terms of numbers of people left outside the ‘human climate niche’—defined as the historically highly conserved distribution of relative human population density with respect to mean annual temperature. We show that climate change has already put ~9% of people (>600 million) outside this niche. By end-of-century (2080–2100), current policies leading to around 2.7 °C global warming could leave one-third (22–39%) of people outside the niche. Reducing global warmin...

Climate projections by the fossil fuel industry have never been assessed. On the basis of company records, we quantitatively evaluated all available global warming projections documented by—and in many cases modeled by—Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp scientists between 1977 and 2003. We find that most of their projections accurately forecast warming that is consistent with subsequent observations. Their projections were also consistent with, and at least as skillful as, those of independent academic and government models. Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp also correctly rejected the prospect of a coming ice...

Climate warming has widely variable effects on terrestrial ecosystems, and warming-induced changes in soil erosion could accelerate or slow down future warming. Numerous methods and models have been developed to evaluate soil erosion. However, the quantification of the impact of climate change on soil erosion and selection of the most appropriate soil erosion model for a particular study area remain unclear. With the intensification of climate warming, solutions to these problems are becoming increasingly more important. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis of research on global soil er...

Determining the onset of organized disinformation about global warming is critical for understanding its political history and evaluating the responsibilities of fossil fuel producers and other relevant parties today. A newly discovered archival document shows the American Petroleum Institute was promulgating false and misleading information about climate change in 1980, nearly a decade earlier than previously known, in order to promote public policies favorable to the fossil fuel industry. This finding demonstrates early use of public-facing disinformation about global warming by the petroleu...

The ocean takes up about 93% of the global warming heat entering Earth's climate system. In addition, the associated thermal expansion contributes substantially to sea-level rise. Hence, quantifying the oceanic heat uptake rate and its statistical significance has been a research focus. Here we use gridded ocean heat content maps to examine regional trends in ocean warming for 0–700 m depth from 1993–2019 and 1968–2019, periods based on sampling distributions. The maps are from four research groups, three based on ocean temperature alone and one combining ocean temperature with satellite altim...

The authors model future flow and water temperature extremes and predict that increases in water temperature in particular will pose serious threats to freshwater fishes.

Abstract Carbon efflux from soils is the largest terrestrial carbon source to the atmosphere, yet it is still one of the most uncertain fluxes in the Earth’s carbon budget. A dominant component of this flux is heterotrophic respiration, influenced by several environmental factors, most notably soil temperature and moisture. Here, we develop a mechanistic model from micro to global scale to explore how changes in soil water content and temperature affect soil heterotrophic respiration. Simulations, laboratory measurements, and field observations validate the new approach. Estimates from the mod...

The major impacts of global warming on grape phenology and viticulture are reviewed and a focus is focused on the physiological and molecular responses of the grapevine to heat stress.

Abstract Human-induced climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation 1 . Due to the complexity of runoff generation and the streamflow process, the historical impact of human-induced climate change on river flooding remains uncertain. Here, we address the question of whether anthropogenic climate change has altered the probability of the extreme river flood events for the period 1951–2010 based on simulated river discharge derived from large ensemble climate experiments with and without human-induced climate change. The results indicate that human-induced clim...

Persistence of this climate change on ocean ecosystems, in future, will pose serious threat to the metabolism and distribution of marine microbes leading to fluctuations in the biogeochemical cycles thereby affecting the overall ecosystem functioning.

Abstract Projecting mitigations of carbon neutrality from individual countries in relation to future global warming is of great importance for depicting national climate responsibility but is poorly quantified. Here, we show that China’s carbon neutrality (CNCN) can individually mitigate global warming by 0.48 °C and 0.40 °C, which account for 14% and 9% of the global warming over the long term under the shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) 3-7.0 and 5-8.5 scenarios, respectively. Further incorporating changes in CH 4 and N 2 O emissions in association with CNCN together will alleviate global wa...

It is shown that countries most vulnerable to climate change will probably face the highest antimicrobial resistance in aquaculture-related bacteria, and that infected aquatic animals have higher mortality at warmer temperatures.

Abstract How long will the four seasons be by 2100? Increasing evidence suggests that the length of a single season or in regional scales has changed under global warming, but a hemispherical‐scale response of the four seasons in the past and future remains unknown. We find that summer in the Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes has lengthened, whereas winter has shortened, owing to shifts in their onsets and withdrawals, accompanied by shorter spring and autumn. Such changes in lengths and onsets can be mainly attributed to greenhouse‐warming. Even if the current warming rate does not accelerate,...

Abstract Food consumption is a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and evaluating its future warming impact is crucial for guiding climate mitigation action. However, the lack of granularity in reporting food item emissions and the widespread use of oversimplified metrics such as CO 2 equivalents have complicated interpretation. We resolve these challenges by developing a global food consumption GHG emissions inventory separated by individual gas species and employing a reduced-complexity climate model, evaluating the associated future warming contribution and potential benefits fr...