Comment in 2022

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.