Theory and the future of land-climate science

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Byrne, Michael P., Hegerl, Gabriele C., Scheff, Jacob, Adam, Ori, Berg, Alexis, Biasutti, Michela, Bordoni, Simona, Dai, Aiguo, Geen, Ruth, Henry, Matthew, Hill, Spencer A., Hohenegger, Cathy, Humphrey, Vincent, Joshi, Manoj ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2948-2811, Konings, Alexandra G., Laguë, Marysa M., Lambert, F. Hugo, Lehner, Flavio, Mankin, Justin S., McColl, Kaighin A., McKinnon, Karen A., Pendergrass, Angeline G., Pietschnig, Marianne, Schmidt, Luca, Schurer, Andrew P., Scott, E. Marian, Sexton, David, Sherwood, Steven C., Vargas Zeppetello, Lucas R. and Zhang, Yi (2024) Theory and the future of land-climate science. Nature Geoscience, 17 (11). 1079–1086. ISSN 1752-0894

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Abstract

Climate over land—where humans live and the majority of food is produced—is changing rapidly, driving severe impacts through extreme heat, wildfires, drought and flooding. Our ability to monitor and model this changing climate is being transformed through new observational systems and increasingly complex Earth system models. But fundamental understanding of the processes governing land climate has not kept pace, weakening our ability to interpret and utilize data from these advanced tools. Here we argue that for land-climate science to accelerate forwards, an alternative approach is needed. We advocate a parallel scientific effort, one emphasizing robust theories, that aims to inspire current and future land-climate scientists to better comprehend the processes governing land climate, its variability and extremes and its sensitivity to global warming. Such an effort, we believe, is essential to better understand the risks people face, where they live, in an era of climate change.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Data availability statement: The model data used to produce Fig. 1 are provided by the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling and can be accessed at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/. Funding information: We thank the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for generously funding a workshop on land-climate science at the University of St Andrews (6–8 June 2022), which inspired this Perspective. M.P.B. was supported by the UKRI Frontier Research Guarantee scheme (grant number EP/Y027868/1), S.A.H. was funded by NSF award no. 2123327 and A.D. was funded by NSF award no. AGS-2015780.
Uncontrolled Keywords: earth and planetary sciences(all),sdg 15 - life on land,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1900
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climatic Research Unit
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 29 Nov 2024 01:51
Last Modified: 29 Nov 2024 01:51
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/97823
DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01553-8

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