Climate-change impacts articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Delimiting populations is crucial for conserving threatened species. Using genome-wide data from the whole of Antarctica, Cristofari et al.show that Emperor penguins are organised into a single global population that have shared demography since the late Quarternary.

    • Robin Cristofari
    • , Giorgio Bertorelle
    •  & Emiliano Trucchi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Environmental change can have indirect effects on populations by altering the outcome of competitive interactions. Here, Chu et al. show that although direct effects dominate the responses of grassland species to climate perturbations, indirect effects could be greater among species with smaller niche differences.

    • Chengjin Chu
    • , Andrew R. Kleinhesselink
    •  & Peter B. Adler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Renewables are key for abating climate change, but also potentially vulnerable to it. Here, the authors show that the power supply from a well-developed European fleet of photovoltaic installations may undergo decreases during the 21st century, but with limited changes in amplitude and temporal stability.

    • Sonia Jerez
    • , Isabelle Tobin
    •  & Martin Wild

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Uncertainties in the absorptive properties of black and brown carbon particles limit our understanding of their warming potential. Following an extensive field campaign, Liuet al. report that the magnitude of warming is dependent on particle coatings, which vary due to source and photochemical aging.

    • Shang Liu
    • , Allison C. Aiken
    •  & André S. H. Prévôt

  • Article |

    Accurate forecasting of tropical precipitation is dependent on our understanding of the hydrological cycle. Here, the authors present a speleothem-derived record of Mesoamerican precipitation variability since the 1930s, and show that multi-decadal declines in rainfall coincide with major volcanic eruptions.

    • Amos Winter
    • , Davide Zanchettin
    •  & Hai Cheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global wildfires can have severe societal implications and economic cost and have been strongly linked to climate. Here, the authors analyse daily global wildfire trends and show that, during the past 35 years, wildfire season length has increased by 18.7% over more than a quarter of the Earth’s surface.

    • W. Matt Jolly
    • , Mark A. Cochrane
    •  & David M. J. S. Bowman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Regional surface climate response to a future decline in solar activity remains uncertain. Here, via numerical simulations, the authors show that a return to Maunder Minimum-like lows by 2050 could lead to some areas of significantly reduced surface warming via modulation of the North Atlantic Oscillation.

    • Sarah Ineson
    • , Amanda C. Maycock
    •  & Richard A. Wood

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How primary production is influenced by climatic forcing has not been tested in most ecosystems. Here, the authors study a four-decade record of grassland production and find a sustained decline in above-ground net primary production attributable to increased aridity from declining late-summer rainfall.

    • E. N. J. Brookshire
    •  & T. Weaver

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The rainfall rate of tropical cyclones is expected to increase under a warmer climate, yet likely changes in rainfall area remain unknown. Here, the authors combine satellite data and model simulations and show that rainfall area is dependent on relative sea surface temperatures.

    • Yanluan Lin
    • , Ming Zhao
    •  & Minghua Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The sign of soil moisture–precipitation feedback has been strongly debated. Here, the authors show that rain tends to fall where soils are drier than their surroundings, but on days with overall wet and heterogeneous conditions, explaining the apparent contradictions between recent studies.

    • Benoit P. Guillod
    • , Boris Orlowsky
    •  & Sonia I. Seneviratne

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The last interglacial has been suggested as a test bed for models developed for future climate prediction, yet many climatic parameters remain unknown. Here, the authors present a precisely dated fossil coral and show that temperature seasonality in the southern Caribbean Sea 118 ka was similar to today.

    • Thomas Felis
    • , Cyril Giry
    •  & Sander R. Scheffers

  • Article |

    El Niño Southern Oscillation affects seasonal climate worldwide; however, it is uncertain how it impacts global crop yields. Here, the authors present a global assessment of the impacts of El Niño Southern Oscillation on crop productivity and show large differences among regions, crop types and cropping technologies.

    • Toshichika Iizumi
    • , Jing-Jia Luo
    •  & Toshio Yamagata

  • Article |

    Wind power installations have boomed across Europe in recent decades, yet the potentially negative impact of wind farms on climate remains largely untested. Vautard et al. parameterize operational and planned European wind farms in a regional climate model and show limited regional-scale climate impacts.

    • Robert Vautard
    • , Françoise Thais
    •  & Paolo Michele Ruti

  • Article |

    Species response to environmental change can have an impact on community assemblages and ecosystem functioning. Here, the authors assess the combined impact of regional land use and climate change on bird functional diversity and find that global changes may lead to uniform species assemblages across Europe.

    • Wilfried Thuiller
    • , Samuel Pironon
    •  & Niklaus E. Zimmermann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forest cover up-river influences the sediments reaching coral reefs, but how this relationship is affected by future climate change is not clear. In a study of the Malagasy coral reefs, Maina et al.find that regional land-use management is more important than mediating climate change for reducing reef sedimentation.

    • Joseph Maina
    • , Hans de Moel
    •  & Jan E. Vermaat

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