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The march from an Archaean microbial world to the modern reign of more complex life was slow but not steady. Instead, the rise of the animals may have resulted from an intricate back-and-forth between evolving life and the Earth's environment.
Decadal climate variability has long received limited attention. With the slow-down in surface warming since the late 1990s, the decadal scale has rightly become a focus of attention: for assessing climate change and its impacts, it is of critical importance.
The recent slow-down in the rate of warming, averaged over the surface of the entire planet, has incited much discussion. As climate scientists are tracking down the causes, we must not forget that average surface temperatures are only one indicator of climate change.
Climate models projected stronger warming over the past 15 years than has been seen in observations. Conspiring factors of errors in volcanic and solar inputs, representations of aerosols, and El Niño evolution, may explain most of the discrepancy.
What happens to manuscripts after they are submitted to our online manuscript tracking system is a source of much speculation. To learn how we decide what is published in Nature Geoscience, read on.
Scientific climate information can save lives and livelihoods, yet its application is not always straightforward. Much of the available information does not describe the risk of threshold events, and misunderstandings can leave society less resilient to climate shocks.
