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To prevent floods from becoming disasters, social vulnerability must be integrated into flood risk management. This Comment advocates that the welfare of different societal groups should be included by adding recovery capacity, impacts of beyond-design events, and distributional impacts.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas emitted by both human activity and the natural environment. Due to its relatively short atmospheric lifetime, controlling methane emissions is increasingly recognised as a powerful climate mitigation strategy.
In their Comment in @CommsEarth, Manuel Morales and colleagues argue that we must act now to protect green agricultural policies in the EU to ensure food security in the future.
Indigenous food systems ensure ecological and socio-economic sustainability but remain marginalized in science and policy. We argue that better documentation, deeper understanding, and political recognition of indigenous knowledge can help transform food systems.
Rapid warming of coastal waters in the Northwest Atlantic is affecting local fisheries and ecosystems. Our article revealed the role of the Gulf Stream in this warming, thereby helping to define environmental management in New England and inspiring students in Brazil.
The floating ice shelves around Antarctica are key to buttressing land-based ice. Observations, simulations and analyses from around Antarctica now identify mechanisms that lead to basal melting of these vulnerable shelves.
A recent study dating Viking presence in America to a precise year was only possible thanks to long-term conservation of archaeological finds. It also arose from curiosity, interdisciplinarity and recognition of emerging techniques. These factors highlight the importance of archiving materials and asking the right questions in research on the entanglements of climate and history.
Having shed new light on an old mystery—how nine Russian mountaineers perished in the Urals in 1959—Alexander Puzrin and Johan Gaume got hooked. Three expeditions later it is clear that avalanches are not exceptional at Dyatlov Pass.
When an earthquake in southern France caused the ground to rupture—a phenomenon not known during the last 25 years in the region—the earthquake science community worked together to determine the implications for hazard assessment. Now we must maintain that spirit of co-operation for the future.
Two founding fathers of climate science and climate modelling were honoured with the Nobel prize in physics this year. They led early climate research towards both fundamental and societally relevant research, which is now as vital as it was then.
Disasters occur when hazards meet vulnerability. We must acknowledge the human-made components of both vulnerability and hazard and emphasize human agency in order to proactively reduce disaster impacts.
Soils are essential to life on Earth but are rapidly degrading worldwide due to unsustainable human activities. We argue that soil degradation constitutes a key Earth system process that should be added to the planetary boundaries framework.
The pandemic has badly affected the most diverse career stage in UK Earth sciences: early career researchers. Disrupted careers must be rescued with contingency plans, remote networks, a focus on mental health and mentor support if we are to retain diversity and talent.
Adaptation to climate change must be ramped up urgently. This Comment proposes three avenues to transform ambition to action: improve tracking of actions and progress, upscale investment especially in critical areas, and accelerate learning through practice.
About 74,000 years ago Earth’s climate abruptly transitioned to particularly severe cold and dry conditions, which lasted for several millennia. An incomplete eruption record may be why volcanic eruptions were dismissed as the trigger.
Devastating disasters that are predicted but ignored are known as Black Elephants—a cross between a Black Swan event and the proverbial elephant in the room. It’s time we acknowledged the looming natural hazard risks that no one wants to talk about.
Media attention to an article on Greenland’s dynamic ice loss provided a Comms Earth author with a way out of pandemic isolation, a broader perspective of her work, and a heavy responsibility to communicate accurately. She found the experience time-consuming, but rewarding.
Greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution have changed the composition of the atmosphere, and thereby initiated global warming and reduced air quality. Our editorial board members note the need for a deeper understanding of atmospheric fluxes and processes to tackle climate and human health issues.
Our relationship with the landscape has developed through time and more and more the environment is responding to human-driven changes. Now is the time to steer this relationship towards a sustainable future, suggest our Editorial Board Members.
Oceans and cryosphere are immediately affected by human-induced climate change. Our Editorial Board members present viewpoints on the most pressing and fruitful avenues of research on frozen and liquid water, and the transition from one to the other.
