News & Views

The North Atlantic is exceptional in cooling during the twentieth century while the world warmed. Here we look back on an influential 2015 study that linked this cooling to a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and consider the wider implications that this may have for climate, ecosystems and society.

Carbon pricing can be a cost-effective way to cut carbon dioxide emissions, but only if it is politically sustainable. Two recent papers document how carbon pricing can create winners and losers, while also showing how these shortcomings can be addressed by careful policy design.

Warming oceans will alter not only how much phytoplankton grow, but what they are made of and how they function within marine food webs. Now a mechanistic model shows how environmental change reshapes cellular composition, offering a path towards more physiologically grounded marine ecosystem projections.

The massive carbon store in soils is vulnerable to anthropogenic warming. Now, a study shows that climate-driven changes in precipitation can mediate soil carbon responses to warming, with drought amplifying soil carbon losses.

Climate change will expose new ice-free areas of Antarctica. Now a study explores how climate change might spur the first ‘gold rush’ on the unexploited continent.

Melting beneath floating Antarctic ice shelves is a major driver of ice-shelf mass loss and is projected to increase over the coming century. High-resolution maps of Antarctic basal-melt rates reveal stronger melt within narrow basal channels than previously recognized, making some ice shelves more vulnerable to additional melt channelization.

Policy and planning increasingly depend on large ensembles of climate and energy scenarios, but these collections can be biased and hard to interpret. A new weighting framework aims to make these ensembles more transparent, balanced and decision relevant.

Planning for climate action in food systems requires disaggregated spatial information on greenhouse gas emissions and removals. Now, a study on the major emission sources for global croplands yields such emissions estimates, identifies the locations of hotspots and assesses mitigation trade-offs with food productivity.

Early life stages are particularly critical for human brain development. A large-scale study in China shows that heat exposure in early life is associated with increased risks of delayed neurodevelopment in preschool children.

It is essential to understand the best way to frame a persuasive message aimed at increasing concern about climate change and support for pro-environmental action. Now a Registered Report presents a large-scale study that tests and compares the effectiveness of ten widely cited messaging strategies.

Whether erosion is accelerating or decelerating along Arctic rivers has been unclear, but each trend has distinct implications for the vast amount of carbon stored in permanently frozen soils. Now, research demonstrates that warming air temperatures are driving divergent outcomes for Arctic rivers, causing some to erode their banks more rapidly while others slow down.

Both green industrial policy (‘carrots’) and carbon pricing (‘sticks’) are seen as important instruments for decarbonization, but the sequencing strategy matters. Researchers now demonstrate that carrots alone — without sticks — are unlikely to reach long-term net-zero targets in the USA.

Anthropogenic climate change is exacerbating soil moisture droughts globally, but most studies only consider surface layers. Now, a study reveals that global soil moisture droughts are often also found in deeper layers, and that in a warming climate deep soil moisture droughts are projected to become longer lasting and more severe.

As artificial light encroaches upon cities and countryside, natural darkness recedes and circadian rhythms shift in regions worldwide. Now, a study reveals that bright nights are negatively impacting the carbon sinks of ecosystems.

Human greenhouse gas emissions are raising temperatures and sea levels, collapsing ice sheets and acidifying oceans. Now, research maps out the range of emissions pathways that can limit these changes.

Marine diatoms, tiny algae that underpin ocean food webs, face rising ocean temperatures. Now, a study shows that genome duplication helps diatoms adapt faster to warming, reshaping our understanding of phytoplankton resilience in a changing ocean.

The impacts of permafrost thaw are widespread across tundra landscapes. Now, research across a series of thermokarst landscapes on the Tibetan Plateau shows that abrupt permafrost thaw increases plant-available phosphorus, alters the vegetation community and tips the balance of belowground nutrient competition.

The rise of generative AI presents both risks and opportunities for shaping climate discourse. New findings suggest it can help lower climate scepticism and bolster support for climate action.

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.

Many of us have experienced heatwaves and survived unscathed — or so we thought. Research now shows that exposure to heatwaves affects the rate at which we age.