Nature Climate Change Contents June 2012 Volume 2 Number 6 pp 375-468

TABLE OF CONTENTS June 2012 Volume 2, Issue 6 In This Issue Editorial Correspondence Commentaries News Feature Corrections Policy Watch Research Highlights News and Views Perspective Review Letters Article Beyond Boundaries Subscribe   Facebook   RSS   Recommend to library   Twitter   Advertisement The Arab world has a rich history of scientific breakthroughs. Ensure you're part of the scientific and medical community gaining access to a regularly updated list of science jobs and local events in the Middle East. www.nature.com/nmiddleeast/ Follow us: Facebook, Twitter, & Google +   In This Issue Top In this issue doi:10.1038/nclimate1563 Full Text | PDF Editorial Top Brazil takes centre stage p375 doi:10.1038/nclimate1574 Brazil's hosting of the much anticipated Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development this month will put the country in the climate change spotlight. Full Text | PDF Correspondence Top Managing exposure to flooding in New York City p377 Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts and W. J. Wouter Botzen doi:10.1038/nclimate1487 Full Text | PDF See also: Article by Ning Lin et al. Assessing climate risks to UK agriculture p378 Jerry W. Knox and Steven Wade doi:10.1038/nclimate1538 Full Text | PDF See also: Commentary by Mikhail A. Semenov et al. Commentaries Top Rio+20 and Brazil's policy on climate change pp379 - 380 Eduardo Fernandez Silva doi:10.1038/nclimate1525 As host to the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Brazil will draw international attention to its policy on climate change, but the measures announced so far are not commensurate with the recently set reduction goal. Full Text | PDF Shortcomings in wheat yield predictions pp380 - 382 Mikhail A. Semenov, Rowan A. C. Mitchell, Andrew P. Whitmore, Malcolm J. Hawkesford, Martin A. J. Parry and Peter R. Shewry doi:10.1038/nclimate1511 Predictions of a 40–140% increase in wheat yield by 2050, reported in the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, are based on a simplistic approach that ignores key factors affecting yields and hence are seriously misleading. Full Text | PDF See also: Correspondence by Jerry W. Knox et al. Greenhouse-gas emissions from tropical dams pp382 - 384 Philip M. Fearnside and Salvador Pueyo doi:10.1038/nclimate1540 Emissions from tropical hydropower are often underestimated and can exceed those of fossil fuel for decades. Full Text | PDF Shale gas can be a double-edged sword for climate change pp385 - 387 Deyi Hou, Jian Luo and Abir Al-Tabbaa doi:10.1038/nclimate1500 Shale gas can be a powerful tool in combating climate change. However, its exploitation may also lead to undesired environmental effects that can conversely worsen climate change. Full Text | PDF News Feature Top Waste not want not pp388 - 391 Sonja van Renssen doi:10.1038/nclimate1541 Industrial symbiosis — the sharing of by-product resources among diverse industries — can reduce costs and improve the environment. But despite its benefits, it is no panacea. Full Text | PDF Corrections Top Correction: Cooking up fuel p391 doi:10.1038/nclimate1543 Full Text | PDF Correction: Seeing carbon emissions p391 doi:10.1038/nclimate1545 Full Text | PDF Correction: Robustness of warming attribution p402 doi:10.1038/nclimate1549 Full Text | PDF Correction: Mapping vulnerabilities p468 doi:10.1038/nclimate1579 Full Text | PDF Policy Watch Top Saving EU climate policy pp392 - 393 Sonja van Renssen doi:10.1038/nclimate1561 Market-based mechanisms to tackle climate change have many advocates, but economic conditions are making emissions trading schemes hard to implement and sustain, explains Sonja van Renssen. Full Text | PDF Research Highlights Top Energy economics: Biofuel economic potential | Modelling: Climate and Baltic Sea nutrients | Technology: Mitigation costs | Scenario analysis: Urbanization emissions | Permafrost: Accounting for snow types | Politics: Voting for climate | Cryoscience: Glacier speeds | Carbon cycle: Certainty about uncertainty | Phenology: Experiments in context News and Views Top Glaciology: Future of the Greenland ice sheet pp396 - 397 Gerhard Krinner and Gaël Durand doi:10.1038/nclimate1557 Ice-sheet loss is a likely effect of human interference with the climate system. Research shows that the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet could occur close to, or even below, the target of limiting warming to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Full Text | PDF See also: Letter by Alexander Robinson et al. Oceanography: Future impact of today's choices pp397 - 398 Ronald J. Stouffer doi:10.1038/nclimate1550 Climate change is now occurring, but few people consider how long the effects may last. A study emphasizes the long-term climate effects of present-day emissions. Full Text | PDF Energy: Analysing fossil-fuel displacement pp398 - 399 Andrew K. Jorgenson doi:10.1038/nclimate1552 It is commonly assumed that fossil fuels can be replaced by alternative forms of energy. Now research challenges this assumption, and highlights the role of non-technological solutions to reduce fossil-fuel consumption. Full Text | PDF See also: Letter by Richard York Migration: The drivers of human migration pp400 - 401 Etienne Piguet doi:10.1038/nclimate1559 Warnings about torrents of forced migrations owing to climate change make headlines. Now research shows that this is an oversimplification. Full Text | PDF See also: Letter by Dominic R. Kniveton et al. Migration: Flooding and the scale of migration pp401 - 402 Allan M. Findlay doi:10.1038/nclimate1554 Immobility rather than mobility should be the focus of concern for policymakers worried about the impact of climate-related natural hazards on the livelihoods of rural populations. Full Text | PDF nclimate JOBS of the week Faculty Position in Hydrometeorology and Climate Science University of Saskatchewan Postdoctoral Fellow, Cryosphere and Climate Science Desert Research Institute (DRI) Lecturer / Senior Lecturer | Climate Change Research Institute Victoria University of Wellington Chair in Climate Modelling University of Leeds Staff Scientist - Climate Change Ecojustice Canada Society More Science jobs from nclimate EVENT 8th Alexander von Humboldt International Conference on Natural Disasters, Global Change, and the Preservation of World Heritage Sites 12.-16.11.12 Cusco, Peru More science events from Perspective Top Quantifying future climate change pp403 - 409 Matthew Collins, Richard E. Chandler, Peter M. Cox, John M. Huthnance, Jonathan Rougier and David B. Stephenson doi:10.1038/nclimate1414 This Perspective describes techniques for quantifying uncertainties in climate projections in terms of a common framework, whereby models are used to explore relationships between past climate and climate change and future projections. Full Text | PDF Review Top Global agriculture and nitrous oxide emissions pp410 - 416 Dave S. Reay, Eric A. Davidson, Keith A. Smith, Pete Smith, Jerry M. Melillo, Frank Dentener and Paul J. Crutzen doi:10.1038/nclimate1458 This Review discusses current knowledge regarding agriculture as a source for nitrous oxide — a major greenhouse gas. It offers an outlook on future developments about the consequences of increasing use of biofuels and the potential importance of aquaculture, as well as options for mitigation. Full Text | PDF Evaluation of climate models using palaeoclimatic data pp417 - 424 Pascale Braconnot, Sandy P. Harrison, Masa Kageyama, Patrick J. Bartlein, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Ayako Abe-Ouchi, Bette Otto-Bliesner and Yan Zhao doi:10.1038/nclimate1456 This Review focuses on the work of the Palaeoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project, showing the contribution that palaeoclimate records can make to understanding contemporary climate change by providing a means to test climate models. Full Text | PDF Letters Top 135 years of global ocean warming between the Challenger expedition and the Argo Programme pp425 - 428 Dean Roemmich, W. John Gould and John Gilson doi:10.1038/nclimate1461 Comparison of global-scale measurements of subsurface ocean temperature taken during the epic voyage of HMS Challenger (1872–1876) with data collected by the Argo Programme over the past eight years shows that oceans have been warming at least since the late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century. Full Text | PDF Multistability and critical thresholds of the Greenland ice sheet pp429 - 432 Alexander Robinson, Reinhard Calov and Andrey Ganopolski doi:10.1038/nclimate1449 A comprehensive stability analysis shows that the critical global temperature rise that leads to collapse of the Greenland ice sheet is only 1–2 °C above the pre-industrial climate state, which is significantly lower than previously believed. Full Text | PDF See also: News and Views by Gerhard Krinner et al. Overestimation of Mediterranean summer temperature projections due to model deficiencies pp433 - 436 Fredrik Boberg and Jens H. Christensen doi:10.1038/nclimate1454 This study addresses the importance of systematic biases in regional and global climate models. Simulations for the central Mediterranean region show that, unless a bias-correction method is applied, individual models significantly overestimate regional amplification of global warming. Full Text | PDF Black-carbon reduction of snow albedo pp437 - 440 Odelle L. Hadley and Thomas W. Kirchstetter doi:10.1038/nclimate1433 This paper reports results from a laboratory experiment designed to quantify the reduction of snow albedo by black carbon. The study aims to test models of radiative transfer in snow and the parameterizations from them that are used in climate models. Full Text | PDF /td> Do alternative energy sources displace fossil fuels? pp441 - 443 Richard York doi:10.1038/nclimate1451 Analysts implicitily assume that increasing renewable-energy generation by one unit displaces conventional energy by the same amount. Research now shows that, owing to the complexity of our socio–economic systems, each unit of total national non-fossil-fuel energy use displaced less than one-quarter of a unit of fossil-fuel energy use over the past 50 years. Full Text | PDF See also: News and Views by Andrew K. Jorgenson Emerging migration flows in a changing climate in dryland Africa pp444 - 447 Dominic R. Kniveton, Christopher D. Smith and Richard Black doi:10.1038/nclimate1447 Despite 20 years of concern about human migration in response to environmental pressure, estimates of the numbers likely to move as a result of climate change remain, at best, guesswork. Now computer simulations reveal complex interactions in the way that climate and demographic changes combine to influence migration, suggesting that we should expect some surprises. Full Text | PDF See also: News and Views by Etienne Piguet Vulnerability of cloud forest reserves in Mexico to climate change pp448 - 452 Rocío Ponce-Reyes, Víctor-Hugo Reynoso-Rosales, James E. M. Watson, Jeremy VanDerWal, Richard A. Fuller, Robert L. Pressey and Hugh P. Possingham doi:10.1038/nclimate1453 How effective are protected areas for conserving biodiversity in a rapidly changing world? A study shows that the network of protected areas in Mexico’s cloud forests—a biome with high species richness and a large fraction of endemics—is almost completely redundant in a changing climate. Full Text | PDF Plot-scale evidence of tundra vegetation change and links to recent summer warming pp453 - 457 Sarah C. Elmendorf, Gregory H. R. Henry, Robert D. Hollister, Robert G. Björk, Noémie Boulanger-Lapointe, Elisabeth J. Cooper, Johannes H. C. Cornelissen, Thomas A. Day, Ellen Dorrepaal, Tatiana G. Elumeeva, Mike Gill, William A. Gould, John Harte, David S. Hik, Annika Hofgaard, David R. Johnson, Jill F. Johnstone, Ingibjörg Svala Jónsdóttir, Janet C. Jorgenson, Kari Klanderud, Julia A. Klein, Saewan Koh, Gaku Kudo, Mark Lara, Esther Lévesque, Borgthor Magnússon, Jeremy L. May, Joel A. Mercado-D?´az, Anders Michelsen, Ulf Molau, Isla H. Myers-Smith, Steven F. Oberbauer, Vladimir G. Onipchenko, Christian Rixen, Niels Martin Schmidt, Gaius R. Shaver, Marko J. Spasojevic, Þóra Ellen Þórhallsdóttir, Anne Tolvanen, Tiffany Troxler, Craig E. Tweedie, Sandra Villareal, Carl-Henrik Wahren, Xanthe Walker, Patrick J. Webber, Jeffrey M. Welker and Sonja Wipf doi:10.1038/nclimate1465 Satellite data suggest that contemporary climate warming has already resulted in increased productivity and shrub biomass over much of the Arctic, but plot-level evidence for vegetation transformation remains sparse. Now research provides plot-scale evidence linking changes in vascular plant abundance to local summer warming in widely dispersed tundra locations across the globe. Full Text | PDF Biogeochemical and ecological feedbacks in grassland responses to warming pp458 - 461 Zhuoting Wu, Paul Dijkstra, George W. Koch and Bruce A. Hungate doi:10.1038/nclimate1486 Feedbacks can modulate the way plants respond to warming, but difficulties in detecting long-acting feedbacks complicate understanding of the climatic effects on community structure and function beyond initial responses. Now a mesocosm experiment shows that although warming initially increased aboveground net primary productivity in grassland ecosystems, the response diminished progressively over time. Full Text | PDF Article Top Physically based assessment of hurricane surge threat under climate change pp462 - 467 Ning Lin, Kerry Emanuel, Michael Oppenheimer and Erik Vanmarcke doi:10.1038/nclimate1389 Focusing on New York City, this study investigates the impact of climate change on hurricane storm surges. The analysis shows that the frequency of surge-flooding events is likely to increase greatly owing to the combined effects of storm-climatology change and sea-level rise. Full Text | PDF See also: Correspondence by Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts et al. Beyond Boundaries Top Integrating knowledge p468 doi:10.1038/nclimate1551 Environmental social scientist Lindsay C. Stringer worked with ecologists, soil and climate scientists, economists, and livelihood and policy experts to examine carbon storage, livelihoods and ecosystem services in subSaharan Africa's drylands. Full Text | PDF Advertisement Stay connected to Nature Climate Change on Facebook and Twitter.   Natureevents is a fully searchable, multi-disciplinary database designed to maximise exposure for events organisers. The contents of the Natureevents Directory are now live. The digital version is available here. Find the latest scientific conferences, courses, meetings and symposia on natureevents.com. For event advertising opportunities across the Nature Publishing Group portfolio please contact natureevents@nature.com More Nature Events

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