In this web focus we present opinion pieces, along with research and overview articles that explore the dynamic processes that occur during plate rifting. Case studies include both rifting on land, in East Africa and Iceland, and at the mid-ocean ridges that divide the oceanic crust.
Guilt trip p297 doi:10.1038/nclimate1526 As the evidence for a tight link between greenhouse-gas emissions and climate change accrues, scientists — and editors — should moderate their use of international air travel. Full Text| PDF
Emergence of the carbon-market intelligence sector pp300 - 302 Mark Maslin and Martyn Poessinouw doi:10.1038/nclimate1492 The newly observed economic phenomenon carbon-market intelligence was worth over £35 billion in 2010–2011 and is forecast to experience annual double-digit growth over the next five years. Full Text| PDF
Schools of thought pp303 - 305 Mason Inman doi:10.1038/nclimate1494 Teaching the science of climate change has become a political issue in many schools across the United States. Nature Climate Change look at an education battle against denialists. Full Text| PDF
Offsetting under pressure p307 doi:10.1038/nclimate1510 Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director of the UK Tyndall Centre and an expert on greenhouse-gas emissions trajectories explains to Nature Climate Change why he believes that carbon offsetting can be worse than useless. Full Text| PDF
Climate battle for the skies pp308 - 309 Sonja van Renssen doi:10.1038/nclimate1493 Tackling greenhouse-gas emissions from aircraft was never going to be easy, but Europe is laying the groundwork. Sonja van Renssen investigates whether the plans have wings. Full Text| PDF
Sweetening the dragon's breath pp309 - 311 doi:10.1038/nclimate1503 China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is developing seven experimental carbon-trading schemes. Anna Petherick looks for clues as to how that's going. Full Text| PDF
Urban policy: Shedding light on urban policy pp314 - 315 Richard J. Arnott doi:10.1038/nclimate1498 Urban economic models should raise the quality of debate about planning at the metropolitan level. Now research shows how this can be done. Full Text| PDF See also:Letter by Vincent Viguié et al.
Meteorology: Arctic warming favours extremes pp315 - 316 Vladimir A. Semenov doi:10.1038/nclimate1502 The twenty-first century was marked by a number of extreme weather events over northern continents. Amplified warming in the Arctic region and associated changes in atmospheric dynamics may provide a clue for understanding the origin of these recent extremes. Full Text| PDF
Palaeoclimate: Looking back to the future pp317 - 318 Tim Naish and Dan Zwartz doi:10.1038/nclimate1504 Firmly establishing Earth's surface temperatures during a sustained episode of global warming in the Pliocene will help 'ground truth' projections of future climate based on computer simulations using global climate models. Full Text| PDF See also:Article by Harry J. Dowsett et al.
Freshwater ecology: Melting biodiversity pp318 - 319 Leopold Füreder doi:10.1038/nclimate1508 Glacial meltwater contributions to rivers are declining in many parts of the world, but the effect of these changes on river communities remains poorly understood. Now a quantitative analysis points to the potential scale of this biodiversity problem. Full Text| PDF See also:Letter by Dean Jacobsen et al.
Reconciling top-down and bottom-up modelling on future bioenergy deployment pp320 - 327 Felix Creutzig, Alexander Popp, Richard Plevin, Gunnar Luderer, Jan Minx and Ottmar Edenhofer doi:10.1038/nclimate1416 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation assessed the role of bioenergy as a solution to meeting green-energy demand. The report encompassed information from integrated assessment modelling and life-cycle analysis, but failed to reconcile these contrasting insights. This Perspective discusses the merits of each approach and advocates an integrated research agenda. Full Text| PDF
Realizing the electric-vehicle revolution pp328 - 333 Martino Tran, David Banister, Justin D. K. Bishop and Malcolm D. McCulloch doi:10.1038/nclimate1429 Substantial work has shown the potential energy and climate benefits of full battery electric vehicles (BEVs) — an important policy option to mitigate climate change — but there are still uncertainties about their market diffusion. Research shows the importance of assessing BEV diffusion from an integrated perspective, focusing on the interaction between technology and behaviour. Full Text| PDF
Trade-offs and synergies in urban climate policies pp334 - 337 Vincent Viguié and Stéphane Hallegatte doi:10.1038/nclimate1434 Urban climate policies interact with socio–economic policy goals. These interactions can lead to trade-offs or synergies, but have been rarely analysed. Now research provides a quantification of these trade-offs and synergies, and suggests that stand-alone adaptation and mitigation policies are unlikely to be politically acceptable, emphasizing the need to mainstream climate policy within urban planning. Full Text| PDF See also:News and Views by Richard J. Arnott
Climate response to zeroed emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols pp338 - 341 H. Damon Matthews and Kirsten Zickfeld doi:10.1038/nclimate1424 A modelling study shows how global temperatures would change if all greenhouse-gas and aerosol emissions were eliminated. The researchers estimate the committed future climate warming associated with past anthropogenic emissions, and provide a critical baseline against which to measure the effect of future emissions. Full Text| PDF
Vulnerability of coastal aquifers to groundwater use and climate change pp342 - 345 Grant Ferguson and Tom Gleeson doi:10.1038/nclimate1413 There are concerns that sea-level rise resulting from climate change could lead to saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers. However, a study shows that groundwater extraction is the main driver of saltwater intrusion in the United States, highlighting the importance of sustainable water management. Full Text| PDF
High sensitivity of the continental-weathering carbon dioxide sink to future climate change pp346 - 349 E. Beaulieu, Y. Goddéris, Y. Donnadieu, D. Labat and C. Roelandt doi:10.1038/nclimate1419 This modelling study shows that chemical weathering of continental surfaces—which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—is highly sensitive to a carbon dioxide doubling for the Mackenzie River Basin, the most important Arctic watershed. The findings highlight the potential role of chemical weathering processes in mitigating global warming. Full Text| PDF
Impacts of incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation on global species extinctions pp350 - 355 Bernardo B. N. Strassburg, Ana S. L. Rodrigues, Mykola Gusti, Andrew Balmford, Steffen Fritz, Michael Obersteiner, R. Kerry Turner and Thomas M. Brooks doi:10.1038/nclimate1375 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) has been widely discussed as a way of mitigating climate change while concurrently benefitting biodiversity. This study combines a global land-use model and spatial data on species distributions to quantify the potential impacts of REDD in avoiding global species extinctions. Full Text| PDF
Temperature-related changes in polar cyanobacterial mat diversity and toxin production pp356 - 360 Julia Kleinteich, Susanna A. Wood, Frithjof C. Küpper, Antonio Camacho, Antonio Quesada, Tancred Frickey and Daniel R. Dietrich doi:10.1038/nclimate1418 This study documents the effects of warming on cyanobacterial mats from the Arctic and Antarctica. It describes toxin production in such mats and provides experimental evidence that increased temperatures could shift mat cyanobacterial species diversity from cold-loving species towards predominance of cold-tolerant and toxin-producing species. Full Text| PDF
Biodiversity under threat in glacier-fed river systems pp361 - 364 Dean Jacobsen, Alexander M. Milner, Lee E. Brown and Olivier Dangles doi:10.1038/nclimate1435 In many regions climate change is reducing the glacial meltwater contribution to river flow, but the effect of these changes on specialized glacier-fed river communities is poorly quantified. Now research demonstrates quantitatively not only the vulnerability of local biodiversity hotspots but also that the number of species lost is likely to be much higher than the few specialist species found only in glacier-fed rivers. Full Text| PDF See also:News and Views by Leopold Füreder
Assessing confidence in Pliocene sea surface temperatures to evaluate predictive models pp365 - 371 Harry J. Dowsett, Marci M. Robinson, Alan M. Haywood, Daniel J. Hill, Aisling M. Dolan, Danielle K. Stoll, Wing-Le Chan, Ayako Abe-Ouchi, Mark A. Chandler, Nan A. Rosenbloom, Bette L. Otto-Bliesner, Fran J. Bragg, Daniel J. Lunt, Kevin M. Foley and Christina R. Riesselman doi:10.1038/nclimate1455 Sea-surface-temperature proxy data for a period of natural climate warming during the Pliocene are used in this study to show how palaeoclimatic data can help ‘ground truth’ numerical models, increasing the confidence in these same models for projecting future climate. Full Text| PDF See also:News and Views by Tim Naish and Dan Zwartz
Climate change and jobs p374 doi:10.1038/nclimate1501 Development expert Barbara Harriss-White leads a team of specialists from agriculture to economics, environmental science and policy to investigate neglected aspects of the climate change response in India. Full Text| PDF
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