Nature Climate Change
Nature Climate Change is a monthly journal dedicated to publishing high-quality research papers that describe the most significant and cutting-edge research on the causes, impacts and wider implications of global climate change. The journal publishes climate research across the physical, biological and social sciences and strives to integrate and communicate interdisciplinary research. The journal aims to play a leading role in: providing accessibility to a broad audience to research published both within and outside the journal; raising the visibility of climate change research in related research communities as well as the mainstream media; and offering a forum for discussion of the challenges faced by researchers and policy makers (and other interested parties) in understanding the complex mechanisms and impacts associated with the Earth’s changing climate.
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Perspectives on climate change in South Asia
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 26 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02442-7
Home to roughly a quarter of the world’s population, South Asia is a hotspot for global warming impacts. In this Viewpoint, nine researchers from South Asia discuss the progress made in understanding and responding to climate change in the region.Cost-effective adaptation of electric grids
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 25 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02421-y
Reducing the wildfire risk of electric grids requires assessing and comparing various adaptation measures. A study shows that a grid technology innovation cuts the risk more cost-effectively than conventional approaches such as burying power lines.Dynamic grid management reduces wildfire adaptation costs in the electric power sector
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 25 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02436-5
Extreme events are increasingly becoming severe risks to the electric grid, yet there is limited understanding of the cost-effectiveness of adaptation investments. This research demonstrates that dynamic grid management could reduce large capital spending and limit wildfire risks in the USA.Wildland fires delay Arctic snow cover formation
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 24 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02444-5
Wildland fires in snow-dominated regions such as the Arctic can have profound effects on snowpack characteristics. Satellite observations reveal a delay in snow cover formation in the Arctic following major wildland fires. Machine learning and causal analyses suggest that this delay is linked to fire-induced reductions in albedo and increases in surface temperature.Managing development choices is essential to reduce coastal flood risk in China
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 24 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02418-7
Future exposure to coastal flooding in China is driven more by growing populations and economic activity rather than by rising seas and intensifying storm surges. Policymakers must anticipate these multiple risk drivers to better inform spatial planning and development strategies and to ensure effective, sustainable coastal adaptation.Development policy affects coastal flood exposure in China more than sea-level rise
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 24 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02439-2
Coastal risk assessment under future climate change is important for effective adaptation, but multidimensional analyses are still rare. Here the researchers find that inappropriate development policies could have a greater effect on exposure to flooding than sea-level rise up to 2100 in China.Upstream data need to prove soil carbon as a climate solution
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 23 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02429-4
Causal approaches employed at the scale of commercial agriculture are required to build high-quality evidence that climate-smart agricultural interventions result in real emissions reductions and removals. Such project-scale empirical data are additionally required to demonstrate and advance the viability of process-based models and digital measurement, reporting and verification as tools to scale soil carbon accounting.Delayed formation of Arctic snow cover in response to wildland fires in a warming climate
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 23 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02443-6
Wildland fires are becoming more frequent in high-latitude regions. Here the authors show that these fires delay the formation of snow cover in the Arctic, which will be exacerbated under future warming due to increases in burned areas.Climate change raises costs for European forestry
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 22 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02409-8
Natural disturbances, such as windthrows, pest outbreaks and wildfires, pose a major economic threat for the forestry sector. By coupling spatially explicit ecological and economic forest models, this study assesses the costs of natural disturbances under current and future climate conditions for all of Europe.Twenty years of city climate collaboration
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 22 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02447-2
C40 is a global network of mayors united in a commitment to climate change action. Since its inception in 2005, C40 has grown to include nearly 100 of the world’s cities, maintaining high standards that focus on inclusivity, collaboration and science-based approaches to combat climate change. We interviewed members of the C40 organization, including mayors of its member cities, to ask about the history, success and challenges of C40, and their plans for future action.Private sector investments in climate change adaptation
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 22 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02423-w
Private sectors play an important role in global adaptation efforts, yet we have a limited understanding of their investment patterns. With firm adaptation expenditure data across five coastal urban areas, this research shows how adaptation investment differs across regions and sectors.Global coastal human settlement retreat driven by vulnerability to coastal climate hazards
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 22 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02435-6
Coastal settlement retreat reflects human behavioural adaptation to increasing coastal climate hazards. Using night-time light data over 1992–2019, this study finds that over half of global coastal settlements have retreated, driven by insufficient infrastructure protection and adaptive capacity.Emerging risks along Arctic coastlines
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 19 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02441-8
Nearly one-third of the global shoreline is in the Arctic, a region undergoing some of the most rapid warming and substantial environmental transitions due to climate change. While Arctic research has largely focused on terrestrial and open-ocean systems, there is now an urgent need to focus on the unique challenges associated with changing coastal ecosystems.Progress and future directions in constraining uncertainties in sea-level projections using observations
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 19 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02437-4
Sea-level rise poses a substantial risk to coastal communities and economies, thus accurate predictions are needed to enable planning and adaptation. This Perspective provides an overview of uncertainties in model projections of sea-level rise, and how observations can be used to reduce these.The promise and limitations of using GenAI to reduce climate scepticism
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 19 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02425-8
ChatGPT provides a way of teaching people about climate change. This research reveals that conversations between climate sceptics and ChatGPT reduced climate scepticism, but these effects are modest, inconsistent across studies and prone to decay over time.Future of climate–city research
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 18 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02451-6
Cities will face increasing risk along with intensified climate shocks but can also act as key agents for mitigation and adaptation. We hope to see more research that could lead to enhanced climate action by providing comprehensive, equitable and practical solutions.Rising cost of disturbances for forestry in Europe under climate change
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 18 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02408-9
Climate change will raise the severity and frequency of forest disturbance, damaging the economic value of timber. Researchers show Europe’s timber-based forestry could lose up to €247 billion, yet in some regions the increase in forest productivity could offset these shocks.Health losses attributed to anthropogenic climate change
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 17 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02399-7
The authors assess the growing field of climate change health impact attribution. They show literature bias towards direct heat effects and extreme weather in high-income countries, highlighting the lack of global representation in current efforts.The expanding role of climate assessments as legal evidence
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 11 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02434-7
The role of climate science is changing — fast. Once positioned to inform policy, scientific assessments are increasingly being used in courtrooms to substantiate claims of harm, causation and state responsibility. Climate knowledge has now become legal evidence in the fight for climate justice.Neglecting land–atmosphere feedbacks overestimates climate-driven increases in evapotranspiration
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 11 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02428-5
How evapotranspiration changes with warming is not well understood. Here the authors show that when often-neglected land–atmosphere feedbacks are considered, evapotranspiration increases less than currently projected by offline models.