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User-recommended papers allows you to suggest a paper you would like to see on Climate Change. When these papers appear on our site, users may comment and vote on them. To recommend a paper please use this form. Please note that you cannot recommend a paper you have authored. The editors will reject any self-recommendations. All comments and recommendation are checked by the editors and may be edited prior to publication on the site.

• 4 votes

  Biodiversity & Ecology

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  • Ecology: Global warming and amphibian losses

    • Ross A. Alford, Kay S. Bradfield, Stephen J. Richards
      Original article citation: Nature 447," (2007).

    • Categories: Biodiversity & Ecology and Climate Impacts
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:19PM GMT
      
      Ross Alford and co-authors question whether global warming is really contributing to amphibian declines and extinctions by promoting outbreaks of a chytrid fungus, as suggested by Alan Pounds and colleagues in a 2006 Nature paper. Using data collected from declining and non-declining frog populations near northern Queensland, Australia, Alford and colleagues present evidence that multiyear warm periods may be more important in amphibian declines than single warm years.
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• 6 votes

  Anthropogenic change

  • • 5+ votes

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  • Global and regional drivers of accelerating CO2 emissions

    • M. R. Raupach, G. Marland, P. Ciais, C. Le Quere, J. G. Canadell, G. Klepper, C. B. Field
      Original article citation: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences doi:10.1073/pnas.0700609104 (2007)

    • Categories: Anthropogenic change, Society, and Energy
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:20PM GMT
      
      Perhaps unsurprising, but this paper by Raupach and coauthors shows that worldwide CO2 emissions increased more rapidly between 2000 and 2004 than predicted by even the worst case IPCC scenarios. The study shows that no region was decarbonizing its energy supply during this period and that CO2 emissions are accelerating worldwide, with China in the lead.
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• 3 votes

  Biodiversity & Ecology

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  • Combined climate and carbon-cycle effects of large-scale deforestation

    • G. Bala, K. Caldeira, M. Wickett, T. J. Phillips, D. B. Lobell, C. Delire, A. Mirin
      Original article citation: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104," (2007).

    • Categories: Biodiversity & Ecology and Mitigation
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:20PM GMT
      
      This paper, from last month which we covered as a research highlight, has some interesting implications. Bala and colleagues modelled the temperature up to 2100 in a deforested world compared with a regular forested world. They found that removal of forests at high latitudes would actually temper global warming, as more sunlight would be reflected. The authors urge against chopping down trees to mitigate climate change, however, owing to their many other benefits!
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• 2 votes

  Atmospheric Sciences

  • • 2+ votes

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  • Intense hurricane activity over the past 5,000 years controlled by El Niño and the West African monsoon

    • Jeffrey P. Donnelly, Jonathan D. Woodruff
      Original article citation: Nature 447," (2007).

    • Categories: Atmospheric Sciences, Paleoclimate, and Extreme Events
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:19PM GMT
      
      In this recent Nature paper, Jeffrey Donnelly and Jonathan Woodruff of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution looked at the relationship between the number of hurricanes over the past 5,000 years and changes in the El Nino Southern Oscillation and the West African monsoon. They analyzed sediment from a Caribbean lagoon that contains preserved records of past hurricane landfalls and found that variations in El Niño and the African jet stream significantly influenced hurricane activity during this period. This suggests that climate change is not the only factor determining hurricane variability.
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• 2 votes

  Climate Impacts

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  • Thermal Stress and Coral Cover as Drivers of Coral Disease Outbreaks

    • John F. Bruno, Elizabeth R. Selig, Kenneth S. Casey, Cathie A. Page, Bette L. Willis, C. Drew Harvell, Hugh Sweatman, Amy M. Melendy
      Original article citation: Plos Biol 5," (2007).

    • Categories: Climate Impacts, Ocean Sciences, and Biodiversity & Ecology
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:19PM GMT
      
      A nice piece of work by John Bruno of the University of North Carolina, US and colleagues, which we've covered as a highlight on NRCC. They use high-res satellite imagery of ocean temperature with epidemiological inspections of corals to track the spread of white disease along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef over 6 years. It's the first conclusive evidence of a link between the frequency of warm years and the severity of the disease on corals.
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• 2 votes

  Biodiversity & Ecology

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  • Projected Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Global Diversity of Birds

    • Walter Jetz, David S. Wilcove, Andrew P. Dobson
      Original article citation: Plos Biol 5," (2007).

    • Categories: Biodiversity & Ecology and Climate Impacts
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:20PM GMT
      
      This recent paper by ecologist Walter Jetz and colleagues suggests that a combination of continuing climate change and land use change could be bad news for over 1,000 bird species worldwide. Over 50 species could potentially face future extinction, according to their study based on models created by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment(MEA) project.
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• 2 votes

  Anthropogenic change

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  • Stream denitrification across biomes and its response to anthropogenic nitrate loading

    • Patrick J. Mulholland, Ashley M. Helton, Geoffrey C. Poole, Robert O. Hall, Stephen K. Hamilton, Bruce J. Peterson, Jennifer L. Tank, Linda R. Ashkenas, Lee W. Cooper, Clifford N. Dahm, Walter K. Dodds, Stuart E. G. Findlay, Stanley V. Gregory, Nancy B. Grimm, Sherri L. Johnson, William H. McDowell, Judy L. Meyer, H. Maurice Valett, Jackson R. Webster, Clay P. Arango, Jake J. Beaulieu, Melody J. Bernot, Amy J. Burgin, Chelsea L. Crenshaw, Laura T. Johnson, B. R. Niederlehner, Jonathan M. O’Brien, Jody D. Potter, Richard W. Sheibley, Daniel J. Sobota, Suzanne M. Thomas
      Original article citation: Nature 452," 202 - 205, (2008).

    • Categories: Anthropogenic change and Earth Sciences
    • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 04/03/2008 03:41PM GMT
      
      In a Nature News & Views article that we've reprinted this month (http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0804/full/452162a.html), Sybil Seitzinger explains how this 'study of unparalleled scale' replaces a muddy mix of data on the ability of river sediment bacteria to convert nitrate pollutants into nitrogen gas and the the greenhouse gas N2O. It turns out that the more nitrates we load into rivers, the worse they sponge it up.
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• 1 vote

  Atmospheric Sciences

  • • 1+ votes

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  • Observational evidence for an ocean heat pump induced by tropical cyclones

    • Ryan L. Sriver, Matthew Huber
      Original article citation: Nature 447," (2007).

    • Categories: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Impacts, and Ocean Sciences
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:18PM GMT
      
      Ryan Sriver and Matthew Huber of Purdue University, Indiana, present substantive evidence in this Nature paper that tropical cyclones play a critial role in mixing the upper layers of the ocean. Ocean mixing transports heat from the tropics to cooler regions, so this has climate implications. The concept isn't new, but it's a solid piece of work as they have more data and longer sampling periods than previous studies. They also auggest that climate change could increase cyclone-induced mixing and heat transport in the future.
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• 1 vote

  Regional Climate

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  • Airborne measurements indicate large methane emissions from the eastern Amazon basin

    • John B. Miller, Luciana V. Gatti, Monica T. S. d'Amelio, Andrew M. Crotwell, Edward J. Dlugokencky, Peter Bakwin, Paulo Artaxo, Pieter P. Tans
      Original article citation: Geophys. Res. Lett. 34," (2007).

    • Categories: Regional Climate and Biodiversity & Ecology
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:20PM GMT
      
      This paper by John B. Miller of NOAA and colleagues verifies that the eastern Amazon basin is emitting large quantities of the potent greenhouse gas methane. It suggests that scientists currently underestimate the tropics as a methane source.
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• 1 vote

  Biodiversity & Ecology

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  • A climate-driven switch in plant nitrogen acquisition within tropical forest communities

    • B. Z. Houlton, D. M. Sigman, E. A. G. Schuur, L. O. Hedin
      Original article citation: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104," (2007).

    • Categories: Biodiversity & Ecology and Climate Impacts
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:21PM GMT
      
      This paper by Houlzon and aollegaues published last month in PNAS suggests that the physiological response of individual plant species will determine how the tropical forest community as whole responds to climate-driven changes in nitrogen avilaibility. Basically, they measured isotope natural abundances in a variety of plants with diverse growth strategies to show that they relied on a common source of inorganic nitrogen and that they changed their primary supply of nitrogen rapidly in response and in unison to changes in precipitation.
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