Mine tailings are voluminous and often-toxic wastes, whose management is a global safety and sustainability challenge. This Review summarizes major tailings storage facility disasters and impacts, emphasizing the need for risk reduction approaches for management and policy.

The future of the land carbon sink depends on the temperature response of ecosystem respiration. This Review explores observational and experimental evidence for a unimodal temperature response of respiration and the implications for carbon sequestration predictions.

Degradation and loss of blue carbon ecosystems contributes to climate change, weakens coastal protection and threatens biodiversity. This Perspective outlines the actions required to achieve goals to restore and protect these ecosystems.

Increasing light emissions threaten human and ecological health. This Review outlines existing measurements and projections of light pollution trends and impacts, as well as developments in ground-based and remote sensing techniques that are needed to improve them.

Tectonic processes can lead to the formation of semi-enclosed seas and the deposition of extensive salt deposits. This Review explores the drivers and impacts of the Mediterranean Messinian salinity crisis, including previously unconsidered impacts on the global carbon cycle.

Grapes produced for winemaking are highly susceptible to change in climate, particularly extreme heat and drought. This Review examines the changing geography of existing and emerging winegrowing regions, and recommends adaptation measure to increasing heat and modified drought, pest and disease pressure.

With continued anthropogenic warming, an ice-free Arctic (sea ice area <1 million km2) is inevitable. This Review outlines the various characteristics of an ice-free Arctic, highlighting that future emission trajectories will determine where, how frequently, and for how long the Arctic will be ice-free each year.

Regions with low electricity generation and minor reliance on fossil fuels have potential to avoid fossil fuel dependence and directly transition to renewable energy systems. This Perspective explores the capacity of African countries to transition in such a way while meeting growing electricity demands.

Sonification uses non-speech audio to convey complex data patterns in both space and time, overcoming visual and language barriers to science communication. This Comment outlines how data sonification is primed to aid interpretations of multi-dimensional Earth and environmental data streams.