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.

  • 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

    • 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

    • Drought sensitivity shapes species distribution patterns in tropical forests

      • Bettina M. J. Engelbrecht, Liza S. Comita, Richard Condit, Thomas A. Kursar, Melvin T. Tyree, Benjamin L. Turner, Stephen P. Hubbell
        Original article citation: Nature 447," (2007).

      • Categories: Climate Impacts and Biodiversity & Ecology
      • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:21PM GMT

        This paper, by Bettina Engelbrecht of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and collegues, was published in Nature in early May. Based on a nice set of field experiments, the study suggests that changes in soil moisture availability caused by climate change, together with forest fragmentation, are likely to alter tropical species distributions, community structure and diversity in the future.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

    • Rapid and Recent Changes in Fungal Fruiting Patterns

      • A. C. Gange, E. G. Gange, T. H. Sparks, L. Boddy
        Original article citation: Science 316," (2007).

      • Categories: Biodiversity & Ecology, Regional Climate, and Climate Impacts
      • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:20PM GMT

        We have covered this paper as a highlight in NRCC. It's a really nice piece of work for a few reasons. Firstly, the study of 52,000 records of fungi from southern England shows that some fungi have now started to fruit twice a year as a result of climate change and that the fruiting season for fungi in southern England has more than doubled in the last half century. Secondly, the work was done by a father-and-son team of fungal enthusiasts. The father has been avidly spotting mushrooms for the past 50 years. And lastly, they took lots of great images of fungi, which are well worth checking out. Gets my vote!
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

    • 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.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

    • 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.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

    • 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.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

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