This study evaluates the lifetime of soil moisture perturbations using an atmosphere-land GCM. We find memory of up to 9 months for root zone soil moisture. Interactions with other surface states result in significant but short-lived anomalies in surface temperature and more stable anomalies in leaf carbon content. As these anomalies can recur repeatedly, e.g. due to interactions with a deep-soil moisture reservoir, we conclude that soil moisture initialization may impact climate predictions.

The debate about a safe and just operating space for humanity and the possible pathways towards and within it requires an analysis of the inherent dynamics of the Earth system and of the options for influencing its evolution. We present and illustrate with examples a conceptual framework for performing such an analysis not in a quantitative, optimizing mode, but in a qualitative way that emphasizes the main decision dilemmas that one may face in the sustainable management of the Earth system.

A conceptual model for the global temperature response to CO₂ emissions is presented. Based on observation data, projections of future warming are computed for instructive emission scenarios. Delays in the initiation of global emission reduction is found to be the most important factor driving global warming over the next 2 centuries. The model is intended as a tool for communicating the issue to non-climatologists, students, policy makers, and the general public.

We introduce a novel technique to bias correct climate model output for impact simulations that preserves its physical consistency and multivariate structure. The methodology considerably improves the representation of extremes in climatic variables relative to conventional bias correction strategies. Illustrative simulations of biosphere–atmosphere carbon and water fluxes with a biosphere model (LPJmL) show that the novel technique can be usefully applied to drive climate impact models.

We draw on the premise that climate conflict reflects a continuum of conditional forces that often coalesce around the notion of vulnerability to show how vulnerability is portrayed in the discursive formation of climate conflict relations. Comparing three discourse types, we illustrate that a turn towards contextual vulnerability thinking will help advance a constructivist theory-informed climate conflict scholarship that recognises historicity, specificity and variability.

The 2014 USGS data could decrease from 67 Gt phosphate rock (PR) reserves to 58.5 Gt marketable PR (PR-M) if data on PR-ore are transferred to PR-M. The 50 Gt PR-M estimate for Moroccan reserves is reasonable. Geoeconomics suggests that large parts of resources and geopotential become future reserves. As phosphate is essential for food production and reserve data alone are unsufficient for assessing long-run supply security, an international standing committee may assess future PR accessibility.

We introduce GENIEem-PLASIM-ENTSem (GPem), a climate-carbon cycle emulator, showing how model emulation can be used in integrated assessment modelling to resolve regional climate impacts and systematically capture uncertainty. In a case study, we couple GPem to FTT:Power-E3MG, a non-equilibrium economic model with technology diffusion. We find that when the electricity sector is decarbonised by 90 %, further emissions reductions must be achieved in other sectors to avoid dangerous climate change.

We compare the statistical properties of solar, volcanic and combined forcings over the range from 1 to 1000 years to see over which scale ranges they additively combine, a prediction of linear response. The main findings are (a) that the variability in the Zebiac–Cane model and GCMs are too weak at centennial and longer scales; (b) for longer than ≈ 50 years, the forcings combine subadditively; and (c) at shorter scales, strong (intermittency, e.g. volcanic) forcings are nonlinear.

A prototype model LandPro was developed to study climate change impact on land use in West Africa. LandPro considers climate and socioeconomic factors in projecting anthropogenic future land use change (LULCC). The model projections reflect that relative impact of climate change on LULCC in West Africa is region dependent. Results from scenario analysis suggest that science-informed decision-making by the farmers in agricultural land use can potentially reduce crop area expansion in the region.

The impact of deforestation is to warm the tropics and cool the extratropics, and the magnitude of the impact depends on the spatial extent and the degree of forest loss. That also means location matters for the impact of deforestation on temperature because such an impact is largely determined by the climate condition of that region. For example, under dry and wet conditions, deforestation can have quite different climate impacts.

According to groundwater flow and mass transport simulations, nitrate concentration for year 2050 would increase mainly due to the attainment of equilibrium conditions of the aquifer system related to actual nitrogen loadings, and to the increase in nitrogen loadings due to changes in agricultural practices. Impact of climate change on the groundwater recharge would contribute only slightly to that increase.

Sea level will continue to rise for centuries. We investigate the option of delaying sea-level rise by pumping ocean water onto Antarctica. Due to wave propagation ice is discharged much faster back into the ocean than expected from pure advection. A millennium-scale storage of > 80 % of the additional ice requires a distance of > 700 km from the coastline. The pumping energy required to elevate ocean water to mitigate a sea-level rise of 3 mm yr⁻¹ exceeds 7 % of current global primary energy supply.

This paper evaluates the model predictions of leaf area index in the current climate, compared against satellite observations. It also summarizes the predicted changes in leaf area index in the future, and identifies whether some of the uncertainty in future predictions can be decreased.

Using regression analysis, near-surface temperatures from several gridded data sets were investigated for the presence of components attributable to external climate forcings and to major internal climate variability modes, over the 1901–2010 period. The spatial patterns of local temperature response and their combination in globally averaged temperature were shown and discussed, with special focus on highlighting the inter-dataset contrasts.

A generalized linear method specifically designed to assess the reciprocal forcing between climate fields is applied to the latest available observational global data sets of precipitation, evapotranspiration, vegetation and soil moisture. The analysis evidences a robust coupling between soil moisture and precipitation and strong links with volcanic eruptions and El Niño cycles, mediated by the feedbacks of evapotranspiration and vegetation.

There is a need for further integrated research on developing a set of sustainable development objectives, based on the proposed framework of planetary boundary indicators. This paper organises the research questions in four key categories. It subsequently discusses how different categories of scientific disciplines and in particular models can contribute to the necessary analysis.

We analyse scaling in temperature signals for the late quaternary climate, and focus on the effects of regime shifting events such as the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles and the shifts between glacial and interglacial conditions. When these events are omitted from a scaling description the climate noise is consistent with a 1/f law on timescales from months to 10⁵ years. If the events are included in the description, we obtain a model that is inherently non-stationary.