Heatwaves pose a direct threat to human health and well-being, particularly in cities, but there is little evidence of how much adaptation is needed at high northern latitudes. Drawing on IPCC’s notion of climate risk, we develop an integrated approach to determine the economic viability of adaptation to growing mortality caused by increasing heatwaves via improved cooling of...
This study highlights the benefits of using high-resolution reanalysis and climate models to assess climate change over time at the subcontinental scale for both present and future periods. The emergence of climate change over the internal variability for each AR6 region is studied by evaluating the decadal frequency distributions of the monthly normalized 2 m temperature...
We present an analysis to determine whether historical trends in extreme precipitation and temperature indices, as well as in yearly averages of several climate variables. To achieve this, we use three methodologies: a) a climate model-based approach, b) a hybrid method that combines models and observations (1979–2019), and c) a climate observations-based method (1983–2016). For...
Permafrost degradation is one of the most significant consequences of climate change in the Arctic. During summers, permafrost degradation is evident with cryospheric hazards like retrogressive thaw slumps (RTSs) and active layer detachment slides (ALDs). In parallel, the Arctic has become a popular tourist destination for nature-based activities, with summer being the peak...
Effective communication is critical in efforts to limit and manage the risks of climate change. One empirical approach to crafting effective communication is to start with communication objectives, that is, the attitudes and actions one seeks to influence, then identify the beliefs that are most strongly associated with those objectives, and end by developing and delivering...
Since 1990, the U.S. Global Change Research Program has published five cross-sectoral National Climate Assessment (NCA) reports. Federal, state, and local governments, policymakers, and the public employ NCAs to analyze climate risks, impacts, and adaptation and mitigation options. This article surveys the NCA landscape and makes the case for centering environmental justice (EJ...
“Global warming is taking a heavier toll than previously thought on a grueling 200-km speedskating marathon over frozen rivers and canals linking 11 towns in northern Holland.” This and many other headlines appeared in the national and international media in response to an article that we (Visser and Petersen) published in 2009 in Climatic Change. Here, we provide an update and...
Despite continuous investigation, reasons for both the abandonment of Roman Britain around 410 CE, and the separate collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE remain unclear. Here, we use tree ring-based climate reconstructions and written documentary sources to show that a sequence of severe summer droughts from 364 to 366 CE not only contributed to prolonged harvest...
Accounting for 21% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, buildings play a crucial role in climate change mitigation. Demand-side policies offer large energy and GHG emission reduction potentials. The effects of broader sectoral policies at the global level beyond energy efficiency improvements, including sufficiency and structural changes, and their interaction with cross...
Climate assessments consolidate our understanding of possible future climate conditions as represented by climate projections, which are largely based on the output of global climate models. Over the past 30 years, the scientific insights gained from climate projections have been refined through model structural improvements, emerging constraints on climate feedbacks, and...
“Nature” is a broad term with neither a standard definition nor consistent use, even across federal reports like the National Climate Assessment (NCA). The process of defining complex topics like “nature” is difficult given the broad range in people’s understandings of and relationships with the natural world. To support the development of future nature assessments and NCAs, we...
Studying climate-related migration requires research across disciplines. The aim of this article is to discuss how climate and migration researchers engaging in interdisciplinary collaboration translate concepts from one disciplinary tradition to another and bridge their different methodologies and approaches. Exemplifying this challenge with “tipping point” and “threshold” the...
The boundary between land suitable for low rainfall grain cropping and the arid interior suitable for extensive grazing has a history in South Australia dating back to Goyder in the 1860s and in Western Australia to Brookman in the 1900s. Historical and future shifts in climatically determined edges of cropping regions focus discussion on how farmers might adapt to a changing...
The emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) continue to rise, and the effects of global warming are becoming increasingly evident. While efforts to mitigate climate change generally focus on CO2, reducing methane emissions is considered a particularly effective approach to moderate global warming in the coming decades because methane has a...
Fires play an important role in the climate system. The boreal forests in Southern Siberia and the Neotropics are crucial regions for global fire emissions with only few available paleofire records. High-alpine ice archives such as Tsambagarav glacier in the Mongolian Altai and Illimani glacier in the Bolivian Andes located close to boreal and evergreen forest ecotones...
Regional chapters in the National Climate Assessment (NCA) report provide a comprehensive synthesis of how climate change is impacting United States regions and are extensively used to support climate change decision-making by local communities and policymakers. The regional chapter author teams are tasked with assessing the climate trends, risks, and responses across a range of...
The basis for attribution assessments of current extreme weather and climatic events such as droughts and floods is that the record of such events is of sufficient length to be able to compare the occurrence and severity of recent events with those in the past. If this assumption holds, then the magnitude and frequency of extreme hydrological events in the current...
Analysis of a homogenized dataset from 60 in-situ weather stations across Israel over the past 70 years revealed a significant weekly cycle in precipitation. Generally, weekends exhibit lower precipitation levels, aligning with reduced anthropogenic activity. At some stations, precipitation on a particular weekday was twice that of another day. In addition, for many stations, the...
There is a complex relationship between health systems, climate change, and human health. Health systems produce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions every time a patient receives care. This contributes to climate change and potentially damages human health, thereby increasing health system usage. To break this cycle, countries need to develop low-carbon, climate-resilient health...
Comprehensive assessments of scientific knowledge are essential to inform efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. The Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), released in late 2023, adopted clear diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) goals and trainings, which helped diversify expert participation, broaden the types of...
Mitigation and adaptation are both urgently needed to effectively address climate change and reduce its effects. This is particularly pertinent in the agricultural sector, a major contributor to emissions and highly vulnerable to climate impacts. Our study investigates how farmers perceive and respond to mitigation and adaptation information. We develop and test animated video...
Cities are increasingly creating climate action plans (CAPs), but it is unclear what potential these have for cities to sufficiently address the climate crisis. We conducted a review of 157 CAPs published by U.S. cities between 2018 and early 2023 to assess the current state of the practice. Through a qualitative content analysis of these plans, we analyzed explicit planned...
While our current understanding of the impacts of volcanic eruptions on the atmosphere and climate has significantly advanced, uncertainties persist regarding the climate and societal response to major volcanic events of the Common Era, especially during the high medieval period (1000–1300 CE). This study focuses on a sparsely documented medieval eruption from the late 12th...
Everyday behavior of individual citizens plays a central role in reducing global green-house gas emissions and combating climate change. A popular tool to measure and quantify the impact of these behaviors on the climate are so-called carbon footprints (CFPs). In an increasing number of behavioral climate research studies, CFPs are also used as the outcome variable for...
The discourse on climate change transcends scientific discussions and policy debates, often incorporating moral language and ethical considerations. This study explores framing strategies in political persuasion and the underlying moral foundations associated with climate change by combining computational methods and critical discourse analysis of tweets from 111th-117th U.S...