The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has served as a key index linking basin-scale climate variability to marine ecosystem changes in the North Pacific. However, recent apparent breakdowns of PDO–ecosystem correlations have raised concerns about the stability of the mode and its continued relevance in a warming climate. Here we show that basin-wide warming now overwhelms PDO...
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommends describing low-probability outcomes using negative verbal probability terms such as unlikely, rather than positive terms such as a small probability. However, we propose that this choice of probability terms might undermine public perception and understanding of climate science. Across eight preregistered experiments...
Mesoscale horizontal stirring (MHS) is ubiquitous in the oceans, influencing heat and carbon transport, phytoplankton blooms and fish larvae dispersal. The current generation of Earth system models lacks sufficient resolution to properly resolve MHS-relevant small-scale phenomena, such as oceanic mesoscale eddies, leaving it largely unknown how MHS will change in response to...
Sea levels respond to climate change on timescales from decades to millennia. To isolate the sea-level contribution of historical and near-term GHG emissions, we use a dedicated scenario and modelling framework to quantify global and regional sea-level rise commitments of twenty-first century cumulative emissions. Under current climate policies, emissions until 2050 lock in 0.3 m...
Meat consumed in cities is largely produced in rural regions. Supply chain opacity and complexity hinder understanding of (and the ability to address) the distributed impacts of urban meat consumption on rural communities and environments. Here we combine supply chain models with spatial carbon accounting to quantify and map the GHG emissions from beef, chicken and pork...
In an interconnected world, climate change impacts can cascade across sectors and regions, creating systemic risks. Here we analyse cascading climate change impacts on the EU, originating from outside the region, and identify critical intervention points for adaptation. Using network analysis, we integrate stakeholder-co-produced impact chains with quantitative data for 102...
Recent studies have argued that air temperatures over many mountain glaciers are decoupled from their surroundings, leading to a local cooling which could slow down melting. Here we use a compilation of on-glacier meteorological observations to assess the extent to which this relationship changes under warming. Statistical modelling of the potential temperature decoupling of the...
Effective coastal exposure assessments are crucial for adaptively managing threats from sea-level rise (SLR). Despite recent advances, global and regional assessments are constrained by omitting critical factors such as land-use change, failing to disaggregate potential impacts by land uses and oversimplifying land subsidence. Here we address these gaps by developing context...
Wildland fires in seasonally snow-covered areas can have lasting effects on both the snowpack and carbon stocks. Here, using long-term satellite data, we show that from 1982 to 2018, the burned area in the Arctic has significantly increased, while the duration of snow cover has significantly decreased. An XGBoost machine learning model and causal analysis confirmed the role of...
Climate change has large economic costs for society. An important effect is the disruption of natural resource supply by climate-mediated disturbances such as wildfires, pest outbreaks and storms. Here we show that disturbance-induced losses for Europe’s timber-based forestry could increase from the current €115 billion to €247 billion under severe climate change. This would...
Over the last decade, attribution science has shown that climate change is responsible for substantial death, disability and illness. However, health impact attribution studies have focused disproportionately on populations in high-income countries, and have mostly quantified the health outcomes of heat and extreme weather. A clearer picture of the global burden of climate change...
Extreme heat may affect added sugar consumption through the increased intake of drinks and frozen desserts, but such an impact is rarely quantified. Here, using individual transaction-level data for US households in 2004–2019, we find that added sugar consumption is positively related to temperature, notably within 12–30 °C at a rate of 0.70 g °C−1. This is primarily driven by...
In 2023, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) reached record highs, partly due to a strong El Niño. Based on historical responses to elevated global mean SSTs, oceanic CO2 uptake in 2023 should have increased (−0.11 ± 0.04 PgC yr−1), driven by reduced outgassing in the tropical Pacific Ocean. However, using observation-based estimates of ocean CO2 fugacity, we show here that the...
Tropical deforestation induces local warming and is a potential human health risk, having been linked to elevated human heat stress and reduced safe outdoor working hours. Here we show deforestation-induced local warming is associated with 28,000 (95% confidence interval: 23,610–33,560) heat-related deaths per year using a pan-tropical assessment. Analysis of satellite data shows...
While public attitudes regarding climate change have been widely explored in the global north, survey work is still limited in the global south countries. Here we analysed survey data (n = 8,400) from Chile, Colombia, India, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Vietnam to understand climate knowledge, trusted information sources and policy preferences. Our results indicate that...
Multiple tropical cyclones can be present concurrently within one ocean basin, and these clusters can induce compound hazards within a short time window. While the western North Pacific has historically been home to most tropical cyclone clusters, how climate change might affect this is unclear. Here we use observations and high-resolution climate model simulations to develop a...
Phytoplankton are critical to the Antarctic marine food web and associated biological carbon pump, yet long-term shifts in their community composition are poorly understood. Here, using a machine learning framework and combining pigment samples and environmental samples from austral summertime 1997–2023, we show declines in diatoms and increases in haptophytes and cryptophytes...