Highlights from Nature Climate Change in 2015

Catching up on a year's worth of articles from Nature Climate Change. It's like binge-watching your favorite program. There are a lot of great "episodes", but here are some that stood out for me:

Central US experience a greater frequency of floods most likely due to a greater frequency of heavy rainfall events and rain-on-snow events.

Mallakpour, I. and G. Villarini. 2015. The changing nature of flooding across the central United States. Nature Climate Change 5:250-254.

Growing season length is increasing almost everywhere.

Buitenwerf, R., L. Rose, and S. I. Higgins. 2015. Three decades of multi-dimensional change in global leaf phenology. Nature Climate Change 5:364-368.

Increasing CO2 decreases plant N:P, while warming and water increase it. 

Yuan, Z. Y. and H. Y. H. Chen. 2015. Decoupling of nitrogen and phosphorus in terrestrial plants associated with global changes. Nature Climate Change 5:465-469.

Temperature is more tightly coupled with greenhouse gases than insolation. "This confirms the existence of a positive feedback operating in climate change whereby warming itself may amplify a rise in GHG concentrations." Note the new analytical techniques here to evaluate complex systems.

van Nes, E. H., M. Scheffer, V. Brovkin, T. M. Lenton, H. Ye, E. Deyle, and G. Sugihara. 2015. Causal feedbacks in climate change. Nature Climate Change 5:445-448.

Microbial decomposition generates heat that thaws permafrost faster.

Hollesen, J., H. Matthiesen, A. B. Møller, and B. Elberling. 2015. Permafrost thawing in organic Arctic soils accelerated by ground heat production. Nature Climate Change 5:574-578.

European forests are more efficient with their water use, but longer growing season, warmer temperatures, and increased leaf area lead to transpiring more water. Frank, D. C., B. Poulter, M. Saurer, J. Esper, C. Huntingford, G. Helle, K. Treydte, N. E. Zimmermann, G. H. Schleser, A. Ahlström, et al. 2015. Water-use efficiency and transpiration across European forests during the Anthropocene. Nature Climate Change 5:579-583.

Tall, leafy trees are most likely to get nailed by drought in the future. McDowell, N. G. and C. D. Allen. 2015. Darcy's law predicts widespread forest mortality under climate warming. Nature Climate Change 5:669-672.