Research articles

Fire impacts soil organic carbon stocks, in addition to aboveground biomass, yet changes are not well constrained. This study shows that more soil carbon is lost from drier ecosystems than humid ones and that the carbon sink is increasing in savannah–grassland regions with declining burned area.

To test the reproducibility of ocean acidification research, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of 373 studies on calcification of marine calcifiers across 24 years. While the size of negative effects declined over time, the results remained reproducible and their limitations were then explored.

Changes in air temperature are usually considered for quantifying changes in temperature extremes such as heatwaves. This study shows that the incidence of heat extremes in soils is increasing faster than air temperature in some regions, with implications for hydrological and biogeochemical processes.

The decarbonization of the global iron and steel industry is important for energy systems mitigation. Using a facility-level database, this Article presents cost-effective, region-specific strategies targeting plants with a large age-to-capacity ratio and/or high emissions intensity.

Recent decades have seen the increasing frequency of multiyear La Niña events. Here the authors find that there are two different types of multiyear La Niña that are each linked to different mechanisms related to warming in the western equatorial Pacific.

The authors estimate the intensity, duration and number of global marine heatwaves from 1993 to 2019, from the surface to 2,000 m. They show generally higher intensity of marine heatwaves at 50–200 m, but increased duration with depth, and predict ocean regions of higher biodiversity exposure.

Warming waters in a changing climate have led to declining oxygen levels in oceans and lakes; the impact on rivers has been less clear. This study shows that widespread deoxygenation in rivers in the United States and Central Europe may accelerate under climate change and influence water quality.

Climate policy requires proenvironment attitudes and voting by the public in democracies, yet economic conditions can impact such perceptions and behaviour. Higher exposure to globalization can lead to lower support for environmentalist parties and more climate scepticism.

Non-CO₂ emissions, including methane and nitrous oxide, are non-negligible contributors to global warming. A multimodel analysis incorporating recent advances in damage functions shows that the social cost of these greenhouse gases would increase substantially, although uncertainty remains.

Upslope migration is a recognized climate change response, but which traits support this migration is unclear. The authors use a global dataset of 807 insect species—flying and non-flying—to show that lagging upslope migration in terrestrial animals may be linked to oxygen demands.

Bulk materials are essential to modern society, but their production releases large amounts of GHG emissions. This Analysis shows that circular economy strategies have great potential for emissions mitigation, alongside reduced material demand.

The effect of global warming on Antarctic temperatures is difficult to quantify, due to short weather observations and large internal variability. Here the authors use ice cores to identify polar amplification that results in warming in Antarctica larger than the internal variability.

The authors analyse tree responses to an extreme heat and drought event across South America to understand long-term climate resistance. While no more sensitive to this than previous lesser events, forests in drier climates showed the greatest impacts and thus vulnerability to climate extremes.

The Arctic is estimated to be a source of atmospheric methane but the sink capacity may be underestimated. This study shows that methane uptake in well-drained Arctic soils is driven by soil moisture and carbon availability, indicating a potential increased methane sink under climate change.

Using 25 years of satellite chlorophyll a data, the authors demonstrate significant and widespread changes in the amplitude, timing, duration and seasonality of Southern Ocean phytoplankton blooms. Such changes threaten ecosystem services and can impact global climate by altering natural CO₂ uptake.

Climate change poses a substantial challenge to ski tourism due to the strong reductions in snow cover in many mountain regions. Here, the authors assess the risks to ski resorts in 28 European countries and the potential water demand and emissions associated with snowmaking.

The authors used an autonomous biophysical observatory to estimate the light intensity triggering seasonal zooplankton vertical migration under Arctic sea ice. Considering this trigger, they project future reductions in time spent in the under-ice habitat, with implications for Arctic ecosystems.

Cloud droplet number concentrations are often assumed to depend linearly on atmospheric aerosols (in log–log space). Here the authors show that this relationship is instead sigmoid, which delays additional warming due to air pollution mitigation by 20–30 years in heavily polluted regions.