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Comparing single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq data from multiple batches is challenging due to technical artifacts. Here, the authors propose a method that disentangles technical and biological effects, facilitating batch-confounded chromatin and gene expression state discovery and enhancing the analysis of perturbation effects on cell populations.

The effect of a cumulative emission of carbon on peak global mean surface temperature is better constrained than the effect of stabilizing the atmospheric composition. The approach is also insensitive to the timing or peak rate of emissions. Using carbon cycle models, it is shown that a trillion tonnes of carbon emissions (about half of which has already been emitted since industrialization began) will produce a most likely peak warming of 2 degrees Celsius.

Neuroendocrine carcinomas (NECs) arise from different anatomic sites, but have similar histological and clinical features. Here, the authors show that the epigenetic landscape of a range of NECs converges towards a common epigenetic state, while distinct subtypes occur within neuroendocrine prostate cancer contributing to intratumor heterogeneity in clinical samples.

MIRA facilitates accurate inference of cell state trees and regulatory mechanisms driving cell fate decisions using single-cell multimodal data profiling gene expression and chromatin accessibility.

An analysis of climate change mitigation policies in an idealized integrated assessment framework highlights the importance of economic growth, and investment in technologies such as large-scale carbon dioxide removal, to limit peak warming.

To enable net-negative CO₂ emissions, the repayment of previously accrued carbon debt by establishing the responsibility for the net removal of CO₂ by carbon-emitting parties through carbon removal obligations is necessary.

This Perspective considers the extent to which early action to reduce emissions of short-lived climate pollutants, such as methane and black carbon, would help to limit global warming. Although decreasing emissions of these pollutants would have short-term benefits, simultaneous CO₂ reductions are urgently required to mitigate the risk of dangerous climate change in the longer term.

Studies of in situ woody surface methane exchange in upland tropical, temperate and boreal forest trees find that methane uptake can result in a net tree methane sink that is globally significant and demonstrates an additional climate benefit provided by trees.

The 2021 Pacific Northwest Heatwave challenged standard attribution methods. The authors use a weather model that predicted the event to quantify human impact on the heat, suggesting that such models could be used broadly to assess changing weather risk.

A combination of the level and rate of human-induced warming allows estimation of remaining emission budgets to peak warming across a broad range of scenarios, suggests an analysis of emissions budgets expressed in terms of CO₂-forcing-equivalent emissions.

Recent reports of a lower climate sensitivity to CO₂ emissions have been used to suggest that the need for mitigation is not as urgent as previously thought. This Perspective investigates how quickly committed peak warming would increase ifmitigation is delayed. Peak warming is found to increase in line with cumulative CO₂ emissions, faster than current observed warming.

A study using a newly developed framework shows how future peak temperature is related to cumulative emissions of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and sustained emissions of shorter-lived species such as methane, and suggests an approach for limiting future warming to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels.

The global-mean temperature evolution over the course of the twenty-first century is uncertain. Simulations with an ensemble of thousands of climate models that reproduce observed warming over the past 50 years suggest that a mid-range greenhouse-gas emissions scenario without mitigation could lead to a warming of between 1.4 and 3 K by 2050, relative to 1961–1990.

The Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai eruption in January 2022 injected large amounts of water vapour into the atmosphere. Here, the authors show that this can cause additional warming over the next years, which increases the likelihood of exceeding 1.5 °C warming over a short time period.

An ensemble of climate model simulations, as well as hydrological modelling and flood risk mapping, are used to show the role of anthropogenic warming on the extreme rainfall that caused the 2013/14 floods in southern England.

Modelling studies suggest that management of solar radiation could produce stabilized global temperatures and reduced global precipitation. An analysis of a large-ensemble simulation of 54 temperature-stabilization scenarios suggests that it may not be possible to achieve climate stabilization through management of solar radiation simultaneously in all regions.

This study presents a new use of a widely used metric known as the global warming potential (GWP) to compare the impact of cumulative climate pollutants such as CO₂ versus short-lived climate pollutants, such as methane and black carbon.

If CO₂ emissions after 2015 do not exceed 200 GtC, climate warming after 2015 will fall below 0.6 °C in 66% of CMIP5 models, according to an analysis based on combining a simple climate–carbon-cycle model with estimated ranges for key climate system properties.

The politically defined threshold of dangerous climate change is an increase of 2 degrees Celsius in the mean global temperature. Simulations here show that when carbon dioxide and a full suite of positive and negative radiative forcings are considered, total emissions from 2000 to 2050 of about 1,400 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide yield a 50% probability of exceeding this threshold by the end of the twenty-first century. 'Business as usual' emissions will probably meet or exceed this 50% probability.

Including passive CO₂ uptake as an anthropogenic removal in greenhouse gas accounting systems could undermine the Paris Agreement; measures to address this include acknowledging the need for Geological Net Zero and disaggregated accounting for carbon sinks.

Openshaw and colleagues find myeloid inflammation and complement activation signatures in patients with long COVID who were previously hospitalized.

Climate modellers need to start saying what changes can be ruled out as unlikely, rather than simply ruled in as possible.

The fact that cumulative carbon dioxide emissions are more important than annual emission rates calls for a fresh approach to climate change mitigation. One option would be a mandatory link between carbon sequestration and fossil fuel extraction.

Who will pay for the damaging consequences of climate change?

Climate change studies rarely yield consensus on the probability distribution of exposure, vulnerability, or possible outcomes, and therefore the evaluation of alternative policy strategies is difficult. This Perspective highlights the importance of decision-making tools designed for situations where generally agreed-upon probability distributions are not available and stakeholders show different degrees of risk tolerance.

Understanding how the overall risks of extreme events are changing in a warming world requires both a thermodynamic perspective and an understanding of changes in the atmospheric circulation.

Anyone with a home PC could join climate modellers in their attempt to forecast how the Earth's climate will evolve in the next century.

This Perspective explores whether policymakers can learn from adaptive management techniques to make climate policies 'anti-fragile', embracing and benefitting from scientific uncertainty, rather than simply being robust to it.

Following a groundswell of voluntary net-zero targets by companies, regulators are increasingly introducing mandatory rules. If governments can overcome the barriers to rigour, coherence and fairness, such mandatory ‘ground rules’ have the potential to overcome the obstructionism that holds back a just climate transition.

Human emissions of greenhouse gasses — and related warming — have been shown to be an influence on global and regional warming and on broad-scale precipitation changes. But so far, assessing the human imprint on specific weather events has proven difficult. Now, publicly contributed climate simulations are used to show that increased greenhouse gas emissions substantially increased the risk of flood occurrence during the catastrophic 2000 England and Wales floods.