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Reducing the risk of maladaptation is critical to successful climate adaptation, yet such dichotomy hampers nuanced assessments of adaptation outcomes. The authors provide a framework to assess relevant dimensions of adaptation outcomes on a continuum and apply it to various adaptation options.

Atmospheric observations can quantify anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, but variability in net land carbon exchange delays the detection of changes. Now, research improves understanding of this variability and allows earlier detection of emissions changes.

Satellite-based analysis indicates that the relative change in cloud droplet number concentration with relative change in aerosol concentration is sublinear, contrary to common assumptions. The revised nonlinear method predicts that in heavily polluted regions the additional warming due to improvements in air quality will occur two to three decades later than predicted by the linear method.

Cloud droplet number concentrations are often assumed to depend linearly on atmospheric aerosols (in log–log space). Here the authors show that this relationship is instead sigmoid, which delays additional warming due to air pollution mitigation by 20–30 years in heavily polluted regions.

Verification of reported fossil fuel emissions is critical for tracking the progress of the Paris Agreement. Here, a simple model suggests the stability of the sensitivity of net carbon exchange to climate and carbon dioxide forcing and validates reported global emissions with improved accuracy.

The stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is uncertain on a rapidly warming planet. Geoengineering through solar radiation modification could halt global warming and potentially delay the demise of the ice sheet. But in high-greenhouse-gas-emission scenarios, collapse of the ice sheet ensues despite such intervention.

Climate change has been identified as a driver of instability and conflict around the world. However, how climate change and the transition to a net-zero world might alter the character of military operations is often overlooked.

The authors define the time of emergence—the time at which climate change signals emerge from the noise of ecosystem variability—for the great tit Parus major. They show that the time of emergence differs across levels, occurring earlier at the population level rather than at the trait or vital rate levels.

Fossil fuel companies need to align their activities with the climate goals and reduce their production rapidly. This research based on an updated methodology shows that these companies would produce more than their cumulative production budgets by 2050 if the recent trend continues.

The authors use niche modelling and landscape genetic approaches to understand population-level climate change vulnerability for three alpine species. Their approach reveals similar population-level vulnerability for the studied keystone species and its two beneficiary species.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is expected to collapse with warming. Here the authors assess whether solar geoengineering could prevent such a collapse and find that this would be possible only with early deployment under low and medium emissions, highlighting the need for emissions mitigation.

With climate change impacts increasingly being felt by more of the world’s population, adaptation efforts are urgently needed. However, similar to the unequal distribution of climate change impacts, the ability of societies to adapt is also heterogeneous.

Studies on sea-level rise often claim to be useful for local decision-makers and adaptation planning. We asked researchers and practitioners to discuss the different ways in which science can inform local to global decision-making and what researchers can do to improve the utility of their findings.

A net-zero change in tree cover is often considered to have no impact on the biophysical effects of forests. Satellite observations now reveal an asymmetric influence of gross tree-cover gain versus loss on land surface temperature. Neglecting this influence might lead to biases in quantifying the biophysical effects of forests.

Climate change might alter mosquito-borne disease risk, but research now suggests that one emerging mosquito control approach might be largely resistant to warming temperatures.