Research articles

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.

Verification of reported fossil fuel emissions is critical for tracking the progress of the Paris Agreement. Here, a simple model suggests the stability of the sensitivity of net carbon exchange to climate and carbon dioxide forcing and validates reported global emissions with improved accuracy.

The authors define the time of emergence—the time at which climate change signals emerge from the noise of ecosystem variability—for the great tit Parus major. They show that the time of emergence differs across levels, occurring earlier at the population level rather than at the trait or vital rate levels.

Fossil fuel companies need to align their activities with the climate goals and reduce their production rapidly. This research based on an updated methodology shows that these companies would produce more than their cumulative production budgets by 2050 if the recent trend continues.

The authors use niche modelling and landscape genetic approaches to understand population-level climate change vulnerability for three alpine species. Their approach reveals similar population-level vulnerability for the studied keystone species and its two beneficiary species.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is expected to collapse with warming. Here the authors assess whether solar geoengineering could prevent such a collapse and find that this would be possible only with early deployment under low and medium emissions, highlighting the need for emissions mitigation.

The biocontrol technology (wMel) used to mitigate mosquito-borne viruses is adversely affected by heat stress. The authors integrate empirical data on mosquito population dynamics and wMel thermal sensitivity to show that the technology is generally robust to near-term climate change.

Changes in tree cover can change surface temperatures in multiple ways. Here, the authors show an asymmetric direct biophysical effect of tree cover change, as the cooling due to tree cover gain is greater in magnitude than the warming from tree cover loss in most forests.

Planned relocation can be an adaptation approach to avoid damages from increasing natural hazards yet concerns over maladaptive outcomes remain. Based on flood-related relocation cases, this study highlights the importance of community engagement in enabling sustainable livelihoods.

Climate-induced extreme events could lead to drastic socioeconomic consequences, including altered cooperation behaviours. With survey experiments among Iraqi and Syrian refugees, this study finds drought experience could reduce altruism and group identity function as the key moderator.

The impacts of microclimate on future plant population dynamics are poorly understood. The authors use large-scale transplant climate change experiments to show the contribution of forest microclimates to population dynamics and project the distributions of 12 common understorey plants.

Climate-induced extreme events could disrupt the operation of ports globally, which could affect maritime transport, trade and supply chains. The authors estimate wider impact on the trade and economic activities across different sectors, finding that globally large economic cost is at-risk.