Research articles

The authors use 12 years of broadscale survey data across 838 temperate and tropical coastal sites to investigate shifts in marine taxa range edges at the community level. They show that while some species respond rapidly to change, evidence for mass poleward migration is limited.

Foreign investments in recent years drive the expansion of fossil fuel electricity generation in emerging economies, yet necessary quantification still lacks. This Article shows how overseas coal-fired power plants could drive future trajectories of CO₂ emissions in host countries.

Lake surface water temperatures have increased over recent decades, mainly driven by atmospheric conditions. Here the authors demonstrate that heat events drive a disproportionately large part of this lake surface warming and increases in lake heatwaves.

The authors analyse data from 272 Chinese cities, projecting that compound heatwaves will cause higher burdens for all major cardiopulmonary diseases than daytime or nighttime heatwaves, especially under scenarios with higher emissions and ageing and in areas with high summer temperature variability.

The authors resurvey data from the present, late 1960s and late 1990s to understand the evolution of European Drosophila fly populations. They show that genetic changes in temperate regions have accelerated in line with warming and come from pre-existing rather than new variation.

Climate change affects the energy demand for heating and cooling in cities, which in turn leads to additional urban warming. Here, the authors show that when including such two-way biophysical feedbacks, the cooling (heating) energy demand more than doubles (is halved) under high emissions.

Tropical aboveground biomass carbon is a crucial, yet complex, component of the terrestrial C budget. Here remote observations demonstrate that fire emissions and post-fire recovery in non-forested African biomes dominate the interannual variability of aboveground biomass carbon, which acts as a moderate net C sink.

The authors consider environmental niche models for the current and future distribution of fishing fleets and gear from 82 countries. Despite overall redistribution of fleets to the poles, they show that most nations—particularly tropical ones—may struggle to track expected fish stock shifts.

Existing studies show carbon footprint inequality between and within countries, but awareness of this inequality is unclear. This study finds widespread underestimation of carbon footprint inequality and its associations with climate policy support and perceived fairness.

Healthcare emissions negatively affect the environment and health, posing ethical questions between health and environmental impacts. A focus group study in US health systems revealed a willingness to make environmentally informed health decisions and identified barriers to making such decisions.

Biogas is promoted as an alternative fuel with the potential to lower net CO₂ emissions. However, here the authors calculate that growing biogas feedstock crops on drained peatlands may produce three times more CO₂ than burning natural gas.

Increases in crop and timber production are necessary to meet rising needs. Here the authors predict how current forestry land is likely to face increased competition from agriculture as climate change shifts land-use suitability.

The authors link a recent collapse of a commercially valuable snow crab stock to borealization of the Bering Sea that is >98% likely to have been human induced.

The authors investigate the carbon storage response of wetland drainage in the context of rate-limiting phenol oxidase activity. They show divergent responses to short- and long-term drainage in Sphagnum versus non-Sphagnum wetlands determined by plant traits and plant–microbe interactions.

The authors demonstrate that integrating phenology data with evolutionary relationships can improve predictions of change. They show how including phylogenetic structure in plant responses to temperature produces better estimates and reveals markedly different responses across species.

Food choices greatly affect global GHG emissions, but the contributions of different groups, across or within countries, are highly unequal. Adopting the global planetary health diet could yield co-benefits by reducing both emissions and inequality among populations.

The Paris Agreement requires reaching net-zero carbon emissions, but a debate exists on how fast this can be achieved. This study establishes scenarios with different feasibility constraints and finds that the institutional dimension plays a key role for determining the feasible peak temperature.

While experiments in younger trees support increased production under higher CO₂, it is unclear whether more mature trees can respond similarly. Here, the authors show increased production of biomass in a 180-year-old Quercus robur L. woodland under 7 years of free-air CO₂ enrichment (FACE).

The rate of Arctic coastal permafrost erosion is predicted to increase up to 3 times by 2100. Here the authors model how organic matter released from coastal permafrost erosion will reduce the CO₂ sink capacity of the Arctic Ocean and lead to positive feedbacks on climate.

Scientists play a crucial role in addressing climate change. Using a large-scale international survey, this study explores scientists’ beliefs about climate change and their perceived barriers to climate change engagement.