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The Greenland ice sheet is a large contributor to sea-level rise primarily because of the increased speed of its glaciers in the southeast and northwest. This study looks at a previously stable ice stream in northeast Greenland, and finds that it is thinning due to regional warming. This region drains 16% of the ice sheet but has not figured in model projections of sea-level rise, indicating an under-estimation of Greenland contributions.

Warming temperatures and interactions between plants are the main drivers of changes in Arctic plant communities in response to climate change, and there is no evidence of overall biotic homogenization.

Understanding climatic adaptation in fish is limited by a lack of large-scale, long term acclimation studies. Here, Sandblom et al. show that fish exposed to a 5-10 °C increase in water temperature next to a nuclear power plant display contrasting upper and lower cardiorespiratory thermal compensation limits.

Analyses of the relationships between temperature, moisture and seven key plant functional traits across the tundra and over time show that community height increased with warming across all sites, whereas other traits lagged behind predicted rates of change.

Climate warming increases evapotranspiration (ET) more in boreal peatlands than in forests. Observations show that peatland ET can exceed forest ET by up to 30%, indicating a stronger warming response in peatlands. Earth system models do not fully account for peatlands and hence may underestimate future boreal ET.

Oceanographic observations indicate sustained warming and enhanced basal melt since 2016 below the Fimbulisen ice sheet in East Antarctica, associated with increased subpolar westerlies and reduced sea ice.

Mid- to high-latitude developed countries are projected to experience increased migration inflows, and low-latitude countries with low development status are likely to see increasing migration outflows, based on climate indices, migration and socio-economic data, and a statistical approach.

Satellite data suggest that contemporary climate warming has already resulted in increased productivity and shrub biomass over much of the Arctic, but plot-level evidence for vegetation transformation remains sparse. Now research provides plot-scale evidence linking changes in vascular plant abundance to local summer warming in widely dispersed tundra locations across the globe.

Volatile organic compounds from plants are an integral part of atmospheric chemistry and ecosystem interactions, especially in an Arctic region impacted by climate change. Observed increases in insect herbivores leads to a substantial increase in VOC emissions, showing a link between warming and plant impacts.

Climate change can alter when and how animals grow, breed, and migrate, but it is unclear whether this allows populations to persist. This global study shows that shifts in seasonal timing are key to helping vertebrate species maintain population growth under global warming.

Both marine- and land-terminating glaciers in southeast Greenland have experienced dramatic recent retreat. An 80-year record of historical aerial photographs and satellite imagery shows that many land-terminating glaciers in this region retreated more rapidly in the 1930s than today, whereas marine-terminating glaciers have retreated faster in the 2000s.

A review of Earth system changes associated with past warmer climates provides constraints on the environmental changes that could occur under warming of 2 °C or more over pre-industrial temperatures.

During periods of glaciation, the Northern Hemisphere was swathed by large ice sheets. A review of ice-sheet retreat during the last two deglaciations shows that land-based ice sheets responded rapidly to rising summer insolation, whereas marine-based ice sheets underwent a delayed, but more abrupt, response.

Modelling shows that the Antarctic Ice Sheet exhibits multiple temperature thresholds beyond which ice loss would become irreversible, and once melted, the ice sheet can regain its previous mass only if the climate cools well below pre-industrial temperatures.

Relative economic benefits of achieving temperature targets have not properly accounted for damages at higher temperatures. Here the authors integrate dynamic cost-benefit analysis with a damage-cost curve and show that the Paris Climate Agreement constitutes the economically optimal policy pathway for the future.

High-resolution speleothem records and an isotope-enabled climate model suggest distinct responses of East Asian summer monsoon δ¹⁸O to various kinds of interstadials, driven by nuanced shifts of Westerlies modulated by high-latitude warming intensity.

Changes in ocean circulation are the most plausible explanation for the early Southern Hemisphere deglacial warming and its lead over Northern Hemisphere temperature.

Research in the tropics is unevenly distributed across regions and biomes. Here, the authors find that moist broadleaf forests account for 73% of all tropical citations but cover 29% of the land area, while drier, climate-vulnerable areas with fewer trees remain under-sampled and under-cited.

It is hard to study weather-induced impacts on consumption as supply-chain effects cause a nonlinear economic response. Here consumption risks due to weather-induced production disruptions along supply chains are assessed considering income inequality within and across countries.

The outlet glaciers that comprise the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS) have experienced accelerated retreat in recent years, yet their longterm stability remains unclear. Here, via cosmogenic surface exposure and radiocarbon ages, the authors investigate the stability of the NEGIS for the past 45 kyr.

Climate change is likely to damage economies worldwide. Here the authors show that this strongly reduces incentives to invest causing additional losses, whereas if investors include climate-change mitigation in their action portfolio they can avoid damages for themselves and the global economy.

Combining two global datasets, the authors show that peak vegetation growth has been increasing linearly for the past 30 years, with similar proportions of NDVI variation attributable to expanding croplands, rising CO₂ and intensifying nitrogen deposition.

The impact of late Pleistocene climate change on ecosystems has been hard to assess. Here, the authors sequence ancient DNA from Hall’s Cave, Texas and find that both plant and vertebrate diversity decreased with cooling, and though plant diversity recovered with rewarming, megafauna went extinct.

Here, the authors develop a retinal laser treatment that precisely activates protective heat shock proteins and cellular recycling mechanisms in pig eyes, safely avoiding tissue damage through accurate, real-time temperature control.

The demise of the Laurentide ice sheet during the early Holocene epoch allows rates of ice sheet decay under natural conditions to be assessed. Analysis of terrestrial and marine records of the deglaciation along with a climate model reveal two periods of rapid melting during the final retreat of this ice sheet, with rates of sea level rise of up to 1.3 cm per year.

There are discernible differences in climate impacts between 1.5 °C and 2 °C of warming. The extent of countries' near-term mitigation ambition will determine the success of the Paris Agreement's temperature goal.

Temperature sensitivity of bulk soil carbon stocks is controlled by the compositional distribution between mineral-associated and particulate carbon, according to analyses of global soil carbon pools.

Northern Hemisphere photosynthesis is thought to respond positively to temperature variations, yet the strength of this relationship may change over time. Here, using a combination of satellite data and models, the authors assess the temporal change of this relationship over the past three decades.

The North Water polynya is a unique but vulnerable ecosystem, home to Indigenous people and Arctic keystone species. New palaeoecological records from Greenland suggest human abandonment c. 2200–1200 cal yrs BP occurred during climate-forced polynya instability, foreshadowing future ecosystem declines.

New cave records from monsoon regions improve the Greenland ice core chronological framework around the Heinrich Stadial 2 by an order of magnitude, suggesting a more active role of low-latitude hydroclimate in millennial-scale climate oscillations.

It is unclear whether species’ responses to climate change tend to be adaptive or sufficient to keep up with climate change. Here, Radchuk et al. perform a meta-analysis showing that in birds phenology has advanced adaptively in some species, though not all the way to the new optima.

Shen and colleagues demonstrate an improved design for community biogas production and distribution system to overcome common obstacles and achieve full co-benefits in developing economies.

Quantification of microbial metabolic heat production in organic permafrost soils across Greenland reveals that the impacts of climate change on organic soils, and associated carbon storage, can be accelerated by microbial activity.

Analysing a database of >1,800 field studies in the terrestrial Arctic, the authors identify large spatial biases in sampling, with nearly one-third of all citations derived from sites located within 50 km of two research stations.

Bird numbers are declining globally, with sharp decreases in alpine and Arctic regions. Increases in primary productivity in the Arctic (known as greening) are linked to increased nest predation, highlighting how changing climate conditions can affect food web dynamics.

Greenland ice sheet melt is currently the largest single contributor to sea-level rise. This work combines observations and theory to show that Greenland ice sheet imbalance with recent climate (2000–2019) has already committed at least 3.3% ice volume loss, equivalent to 274 mm of global sea-level rise.

Pre-satellite era observations of Antarctic glaciers are rare. A unique record of aerial expedition images of East Antarctic outlet glaciers since the 1930s reveal long-term stability and moderate thickening.

A Greenland ice core reveals that Arctic atmospheric nitrate since the Industrial Revolution has been controlled not only by NOx emissions but also by atmospheric acidity, affecting its gas-particle partitioning, lifetime, and long-range transport.