Communications Earth & Environment最新文献

The Last Ice Area-located to the north of Greenland and the northern Canadian Arctic Archipelago-is expected to persist as the central Arctic Ocean becomes seasonally ice-free within a few decades. Projections of the Last Ice Area, however, have come from relatively low resolution Global Climate Models that do not resolve sea ice export through the waterways of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Nares Strait. Here we revisit Last Ice Area projections using high-resolution numerical simulations from the Community Earth System Model, which resolves these narrow waterways. Under a high-end forcing scenario, the sea ice of the Last Ice Area thins and becomes more mobile, resulting in a large export southward. Under this potentially worst-case scenario, sea ice of the Last Ice Area could disappear a little more than one decade after the central Arctic Ocean has reached seasonally ice-free conditions. This loss would have profound impacts on ice-obligate species.

Biological carbon removal has been proposed as a 'win-win' for climate, sustainability and public opinion, but research on public perceptions is lacking explicit evidence on trade-offs between options. Here we explore perceptions using small group deliberation (n60) plus a nationally representative survey (n2027) in the UK's four jurisdictions. We find a strong preference for carbon removal to play a substantial role in meeting national climate targets, stemming from persistent scepticism about emissions reductions and behaviour change. However, such support was tempered with caution about whether certain biological techniques - biochar, peatland restoration, and perennial biomass crops - would be "worth it". In particular, concerns were raised about life-cycle emissions, as well as land competition with urgent housing needs, and scientific uncertainty around novel techniques such as biochar. While we find that responses to carbon removal tend to shift the burden of responsibility for climate action away from individuals, we also identify region-specific discourses, highlighting the importance of local context in shaping public views.

Stratospheric aerosol injection is a proposed method for offsetting greenhouse gas-induced warming by introducing scattering aerosols into the lower stratosphere to reflect sunlight. Here we explore a potentially more efficient alternative: weakening the Earth's greenhouse effect by deploying absorptive aerosols in the upper stratosphere (~10 hPa). These aerosols warm the carbon dioxide emission level-where outgoing longwave radiation is most sensitive to temperature-thereby enhancing top-of-atmosphere infrared emission without altering atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Idealized climate model simulations indicate that this approach can reduce global temperatures an order of magnitude more efficiently per unit aerosol mass than conventional scattering-based interventions. Although based on simplified model experiments lacking interactive aerosol processes and operational constraints, our results identify a distinct physical mechanism for climate intervention, arguing for further research into the impacts-especially potential unintended side effects-of injecting absorptive aerosols into the upper stratosphere as an alternative solar radiation management strategy.

Bioarchaeology not only provides insights into human, animal, and environmental ecology, but also generates huge amounts of stable and radiogenic isotope data that are not well recognised by other disciplines. Here, we present potential avenues for the integration and interpretation of archaeological isotope data into environmental studies. We emphasise the large spatio-temporal scales on which isotope patterns can be observed, for example using isoscapes, the limitations and potential pitfalls that come with isotope data from archaeological research, and future cross-disciplinary collaborations between bioarchaeology and other palaeo-disciplines.

The snow and glaciers of the Peruvian Andes provide vital water supplies in a region facing water scarcity and substantial glacier change. However, there remains a lack of understanding of snow processes and quantification of the contribution of melt to runoff. Here we apply a distributed glacio-hydrological model over the Rio Santa basin to disentangle the role of the cryosphere in the Andean water cycle. Only at the highest elevations (>5000 m a.s.l.) is the snow cover continuous; at lower elevations, the snowpack is thin and ephemeral, with rapid cycles of snowfall and melt. Due to the large catchment area affected by ephemeral snow, its contribution to catchment inputs is substantial (23% and 38% in the wet and dry season, respectively). Ice melt is crucial in the mid-dry season (up to 44% of inputs). Our results improve estimates of water fluxes and call for further process-based modelling across the Andes.

Foliar exchange of methane and nitrous oxide is a significant yet poorly understood component of global greenhouse gas budgets. To address this knowledge gap, we investigated foliar methane and nitrous oxide fluxes in Salix bebbiana, under varying light conditions (0-2000 μmol·m^-2·s^-1), soil aeration, and nitrogen availability, manipulated via biochar incorporation and nitrogen additions. Using rapid spectroscopic gas analysers, we observed consistent net foliar methane oxidation and nitrous oxide emission across all light conditions, demonstrating saturating light response patterns. Maximum flux rates were significantly more sensitive to soil conditions than carbon dioxide or water vapour exchange. Analysis revealed foliar methane and nitrous oxide fluxes overwhelmingly regulated by internal leaf processes like xylem transport, with modulation by external light intensity. These predictable light-response patterns provide a basis for scaling leaf-level methane and nitrous oxide fluxes, enhancing accuracy in predicting biogenic greenhouse gas fluxes within ecosystem and biosphere models.

Large-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is required to meet net-zero targets. Enhanced rock weathering, in which crushed silicate minerals are spread on cropland soils, is a promising approach, but the logistics of its supply chain are poorly understood. Here, we use a numerical spatio-temporal allocation model that links potential rock extraction sites in the United Kingdom with croplands, modelling deployment pathways over the period 2025-2070. We find that expanding individual quarries (up to 20 times larger than the current average) and prioritising supply timing and location can increase carbon-removal efficiency by 20%, cut transport demand by 60% and reduce the number of operating quarries four-fold, while enabling up to 700 million tonnes of carbon dioxide removal by 2070. However, these large sites may face stronger local opposition and planning challenges, underscoring the critical role of policy in enabling feasible deployment.

Forest diversity and dynamics are governed by the interactions between organismal function and the abiotic and biotic environment. Functional traits have been widely employed in forest ecology to estimate key functional tradeoffs related to tree performance in a given environment. Hyperspectral reflectance data are utilized in ecology to predict functional trait values at the individual tree or pixel scale on broad spatial extents, but the diversity of functions captured by these traits is limited. Here, we demonstrate a novel integration of reflectance and to gene expression data for processes of interest to ecologists. We show linkages between the expression of ecologically important genes and reflectance data and the potential to transform the depth at which ecologists can rapidly estimate functional diversity.

Climate-induced hazards are becoming more frequent and severe, causing escalating economic losses worldwide. Consequently, climate change adaptation is increasingly necessary to protect people, nature and the economy. However, little is known about who is adapting and how much they spend on adaptation measures, especially in the private sector. This article focuses on firms-the backbone of economic development, yet understudied in climate adaptation research. Here we present insights from a unique panel dataset detailing businesses' adaptation investments across 28 European countries (2018-2022), 5 hazard types, and 19 economic sectors. Our descriptive analysis reveals low but increasing adaptation investments across Europe (0.15-0.92% of national gross domestic product, annually increasing by 30.6-37.4%). Moreover, we highlight considerable differences in adaptation intensity across sectors, including low adaptation intensity in manufacturing and retail trade. Additionally, our econometric analysis indicates that public adaptation spending crowds in private investments in adaptation, highlighting opportunities to facilitate autonomous adaptation.

Questions about when early members of the genus Homo adapted to extreme environments like deserts and rainforests have traditionally focused on Homo sapiens. Here, we present multidisciplinary evidence from Engaji Nanyori in Tanzania's Oldupai Gorge, revealing that Homo erectus thrived in hyperarid landscapes one million years ago. Using biogeochemical analyses, precise chronometric dating, palaeoclimate simulations, biome modeling, fire history reconstructions, palaeobotanical studies, faunal assemblages, and archeological evidence, we reconstruct an environment dominated by semidesert shrubland. Despite these challenges, Homo erectus repeatedly occupied fluvial landscapes, leveraging water sources and ecological focal points to mitigate risk. These findings suggest archaic humans possessed an ecological flexibility previously attributed only to later hominins. This adaptability likely facilitated the expansion of Homo erectus into the arid regions of Africa and Eurasia, redefining their role as ecological generalists thriving in some of the most challenging landscapes of the Middle Pleistocene.