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.

  • 0 votes

    Climate Variability

    • The Spatial Pattern and Mechanisms of Heat Content Change in the North Atlantic

      • M. S. Lozier, S. Leadbetter, R. G. Williams, V. Roussenov, M. S. C. Reed, N. J. Moore
        Original article citation: Science doi:10.1126/science.1146436 (2008)

      • Categories: Climate Variability, Regional Climate, and Anthropogenic change
      • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 01/17/2008 04:23PM GMT

        Uneven warming of the North Atlantic Ocean during the last half-century may be caused by changes in the natural climate system, concludes a new analysis by Susan Lozier and co-workers. Since the observed variations in regional heat gain and loss are great enough to mask an underlying greenhouse warming trend, the authors warn it is too early to know whether the changes in heat content are partly due to anthropogenic climate change. A Research Highlight summarizing this paper will appear next week on the Nature Reports Climate Change site.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

  • 0 votes

    Cryosphere

    • Vertical structure of recent Arctic warming

      • Rune G. Graversen, Thorsten Mauritsen, Michael Tjernström, Erland Källén, Gunilla Svensson
        Original article citation: Nature 451," 53 - 56, (2008).

      • Categories: Cryosphere and Atmospheric Sciences
      • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 01/17/2008 04:14PM GMT

        Rune Graversen and colleagues use statistical analyses to try and understand what processes are important in the recent warming of the Arctic. One of their findings is that a substantial part of the warming is seen at altitude, rather that at the surface - and that means ice-albedo feedbacks can't be as important as previously suggested. This suprising result was picked up in several news stories, some of which may have described it a bit misleadingly, as Oliver Morton discussed on the Climate Feedback blog: http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2008/01/arctic_amplification_1.html
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

  • 0 votes

    Climate Impacts

    • Net carbon dioxide losses of northern ecosystems in response to autumn warming

      • Shilong Piao, Philippe Ciais, Pierre Friedlingstein, Philippe Peylin, Markus Reichstein, Sebastiaan Luyssaert, Hank Margolis, Jingyun Fang, Alan Barr, Anping Chen, Achim Grelle, David Y. Hollinger, Tuomas Laurila, Anders Lindroth, Andrew D. Richardson, Timo Vesala
        Original article citation: Nature 451," 49 - 52, (2008).

      • Categories: Climate Impacts, Biology, and Earth Sciences
      • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 01/17/2008 04:06PM GMT

        Spring and autumn temperatures at northern latitudes are increasing, leading to longer growing seasons, but this doesn't necessarily mean that the growing plants can sequester more atmospheric carbon. In fact, Shilong Piao, Philippe Ciais an colleagues find here that warming in autumn makes plants release more carbon than they take up. John Miller discussed the paper in a News and Views piece in the same issue of Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7174/full/451026a.html
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

  • 0 votes

    Policy

    • The 2°C scenario—A sustainable world energy perspective

      • W KREWITT, S SIMON, W GRAUS, S TESKE, A ZERVOS, O SCHAFER
        Original article citation: Energy Policy 35," (2007).

      • Categories: Policy, Technology, Society, and Energy
      • Recommended by : Hal Levin on 09/20/2007 04:03AM GMT

        Uses backcasting from a process involving stakeholders including academics, NGOs, and the renewable energy industry. Uses carbon emission targets as starting point. Provides a perspective on current energy policy discussions that contrasts the IEA World Energy Outlook projections with more "realistic" projections without being overly optimistic. Uses conservative assumptions to modify projections based on business-as-usual scenarios. Focuses on regional and global scale and on all forms of energy production.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

  • 0 votes

    Energy

    • N2O release from agro-biofuel production negates global warming reduction by replacing fossil fuels

      • Paul Crutzen
        Original article citation: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (2007)

      • Categories: Energy
      • Recommended by : Dave Reay on 08/16/2007 10:32AM GMT

        In this paper Crutzen and his co-authors provide a novel and thought-provoking analysis of the apparent reduction in climate forcing achieved by substituting fossil fuels with biofuels given elevated N2O emissions. Biofuel production as a means to reduce net anthropogenic CO2 emissions is a booming business around the world. Analyses such as those contained within this paper are therefore of great importance when establishing the efficacy of such biofuel expansion.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

  • 1 vote

    Climate Impacts

  • 1 vote

    Earth Sciences

    • Large seasonal swings in leaf area of Amazon rainforests

      • R. B. Myneni, W. Yang, R. R. Nemani, A. R. Huete, R. E. Dickinson, Y. Knyazikhin, K. Didan, R. Fu, R. I. Negron Juarez, S. S. Saatchi, H. Hashimoto, K. Ichii, N. V. Shabanov, B. Tan, P. Ratana, J. L. Privette, J. T. Morisette, E. F. Vermote, D. P. Roy, R. E. Wolfe, M. A. Friedl, S. W. Running, P. Votava, N. El-Saleous, S. Devadiga, Y. Su, V. V. Salomonson
        Original article citation: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104,"

      • Categories: Earth Sciences
      • Recommended by : Arindam Samanta on 07/09/2007 09:05PM GMT

        A very interesting and relevant paper on the distictive behaviour of the Amazonian rainforests to seasonal trends. This supports certain vital theories about the Amazonian climatic system.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

  • 0 votes

    Climate Prediction

    • Carbon-cycle feedbacks increase the likelihood of a warmer future

      • H. Damon Matthews, David W. Keith
        Original article citation: Geophys. Res. Lett. 34," (2007).

      • Categories: Climate Prediction, Policy, and Extreme Events
      • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:21PM GMT

        In this paper published last month in GRL, Matthews and Keith use coupled climate-carbon models to assess the likely impacts of carbon-cycle feedbacks on future warming scenarios. By incorporating carbon-cycle feedbacks into the models, they show that feedback mechanisms can lead to dramatic increases in extreme warming probabilities. For example, for CO2 stabilization at 550 ppm, the probability of exceeding 2°C warming by end of century increases by a factor of between 1.7 and 3 when feedbacks are included. The authors suggest that the effects of positive carbon-cycle feedbacks on the likelihood of extreme future warming should be accounted for in climate policy-related decision making
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

  • 0 votes

    Ocean Sciences

    • Mesoscale Eddies Drive Increased Silica Export in the Subtropical Pacific Ocean

      • C. R. Benitez-Nelson, R. R. Bidigare, T. D. Dickey, M. R. Landry, C. L. Leonard, S. L. Brown, F. Nencioli, Y. M. Rii, K. Maiti, J. W. Becker, T. S. Bibby, W. Black, W.-J. Cai, C. A. Carlson, F. Chen, V. S. Kuwahara, C. Mahaffey, P. M. McAndrew, P. D. Quay, M. S. Rappe, K. E. Selph, M. P. Simmons, E. J. Yang
        Original article citation: Science 316," (2007).

      • Categories: Ocean Sciences
      • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:21PM GMT

        This recent paper by Claudia Benitez-Nelson and colleagues in Science is interesting because it shows that mesoscale eddies, large patches of swirling water soem 100-200m across, actually play a critical role in releasing oceanic carbon back to the atmosphere. It was previosuly assumed that they helped to transport carbon from the surface to deeper waters.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

  • 1 vote

    Biodiversity & Ecology

    • 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.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

site resources

search & explore