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Climate change represents one of the most pressing societal and scientific challenges of our time. While much of the current research on climate change focuses on future prediction, some of the strongest signals of warming can already be seen in Arctic and alpine areas, where temperatures are rising faster than the global average, and in the oceans, where the combination of rising temperatures and acidification due to increased CO2 concentrations has had catastrophic consequences for sensitive marine organisms inhabiting coral reefs. The scientific papers highlighted as part of this anniversary issue represent some of the most impactful advances in our understanding of the consequences of anthropogenic climate change. Here, we reflect on the legacy of these papers from the biotic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biobanks have become an integral part of health and bioscience research. However, the ultra-low temperature (ULT) storage methods that biobanks employ [ULT freezers and liquid nitrogen (LN2)] are associated with carbon emissions that contribute to anthropogenic climate change. This paper aims to provide a 'Roadmap' for reducing carbon emissions associated with ULT storage in biobanking. The Roadmap offers recommendations associated with nine areas of ULT storage practice: four relating to ULT freezers, three associated with LN2 storage, and two generalised discussions regarding biosample management and centralisation. For each practice, we describe (a) the best approaches to mitigate carbon emissions, (b) explore barriers associated with hindering their implementation, and (c) make a series of recommendations that can help biobank stakeholders overcome these barriers. The recommendations were the output of a one year, UK-based, multidisciplinary research project that involved a quantitative Carbon Footprinting Assessment of the emissions associated with 1 year of ULT storage (for both freezers and LN2) at four different case study sites; as well as two follow up stakeholder workshops to qualitatively explore UK biobank stakeholder perceptions, views, and experiences on how to consider such assessments within the broader social, political, financial, technical, and cultural contexts of biobanking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religions play a key role in shaping our worldviews, values, and behaviours and this includes our interactions with the environment. Fuelled by the development of the technocratic paradigm, Christianity has historically received a bad reputation for perpetuating anti-environmental views. Nonetheless, the development of ecotheological strands and the emergence of faith-based organisations focusing on climate justice have aided in producing the much-needed environmental reformulations. As such, this paper seeks to provide a broad overview of the role of Christianity in shaping worldviews, from those hindering environmental action to more contemporary ecotheological approaches discussing climate change, particularly Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato si'. Christianity's preparedness to navigate climate change will be theorised in relation to empirical evidence and the work of European faith-based organisations, as well as the methodological opportunities that the field of ecolinguistics can offer to inform effective communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic climate change is changing the Earth system processes that control the characteristics of natural hazards both globally and across Australia. Model projections of hazards under future climate change are necessary for effective adaptation. This paper presents BARPA-R (the Bureau of Meteorology Atmospheric Regional Projections for Australia), a regional climate model designed to downscale climate projections over the Australasian region with the purpose of investigating future hazards. BARPA-R, a limited-area model, has a 17 km horizontal grid spacing and makes use of the Met Office Unified Model (MetUM) atmospheric model and the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) land surface model. To establish credibility and in compliance with the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) experiment design, the BARPA-R framework has been used to downscale ERA5 reanalysis. Here, an assessment of this evaluation experiment is provided. Performance-based evaluation results are benchmarked against ERA5, with comparable performance between the free-running BARPA-R simulations and observationally constrained reanalysis interpreted as a good result. First, an examination of BARPA-R's representation of Australia's surface air temperature, precipitation, and 10 m winds finds good performance overall, with biases including a 1 ∘ C cold bias in daily maximum temperatures, reduced diurnal temperature range, and wet biases up to 25 mm per month in inland Australia. Recent trends in daily maximum temperatures are consistent with observational products, while trends in minimum temperatures show overestimated warming and trends in precipitation show underestimated wetting in northern Australia. Precipitation and temperature teleconnections are effectively represented in BARPA-R when present in the driving boundary conditions, while 10 m winds are improved over ERA5 in six out of eight of the Australian regions considered. Secondly, the paper considers the representation of large-scale atmospheric circulation features and weather systems. While generally well represented, convection-related features such as tropical cyclones, the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ), the Northwest Cloudband, and the monsoon westerlies show more divergence from observations and internal interannual variability than mid-latitude phenomena such as the westerly jets and extratropical cyclones. Having simulated a realistic Australasian climate, the BARPA-R framework will be used to downscale two climate change scenarios from seven CMIP6 global climate models (GCMs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon dioxide, the leading contributor to anthropogenic climate change, is released mainly via fossil fuel combustion, mostly for energy generation. Carbon capture technologies are employed for reducing the emissions from existing huge point sources, along with capturing them from direct air, to reduce the existing concentration. This paper provides a quantitative analysis of the various subtypes of carbon capture technologies with the aim of providing an assessment of each from technological, social, geo-political, economic, and environmental perspectives. Since the emissions intensity and quantity, along with the social–political–economic conditions, vary in different geographic regions, prioritising and finding the right type of technology is critical for achieving ambitious net-zero targets. Four main types of carbon capture technology were analysed (adsorption, absorption, membrane, and cryogenic) under four scenarios depending on the jurisdiction. The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (also known as the TOPSIS method) was used to establish a quantitative ranking of each, where weightages were allocated according to the emissions status and economics of each depending on the jurisdiction. Furthermore, forecasting the trends for technology types vis à vis carbon neutral targets between 2040 and 2050 was carried out by applying regression analysis on existing data and the emissions footprint of major contributing countries. The study found the membrane score to be the highest in the TOPSIS analysis in three of the four scenarios analysed. However, absorption remains the most popular for post-combustion capture despite having the highest energy penalty per ton of CO2 capture. Overall, capture rates are well short of projections for carbon neutrality; the methodology put forward for prioritising and aligning appropriate technologies and the region-by-region analysis will help highlight to technocrats, governments, and policymakers the state of the art and how to best utilise them to mitigate carbon emissions—critical in achieving the net-zero goals set at various international agreements on climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavy rainfall in eastern Africa between late 2019 and mid 2020 caused devastating floods and landslides throughout the region. These rains drove the levels of Lake Victoria to a record-breaking maximum in the second half of May 2020. The combination of high lake levels, consequent shoreline flooding, and flooding of tributary rivers caused hundreds of casualties and damage to housing, agriculture, and infrastructure in the riparian countries of Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. Media and government reports linked the heavy precipitation and floods to anthropogenic climate change, but a formal scientific attribution study has not been carried out so far. In this study, we characterize the spatial extent and impacts of the floods in the Lake Victoria basin and then investigate to what extent human-induced climate change influenced the probability and magnitude of the record-breaking lake levels and associated flooding by applying a multi-model extreme event attribution methodology. Using remote-sensing-based flood mapping tools, we find that more than 29 000 people living within a 50 km radius of the lake shorelines were affected by floods between April and July 2020. Precipitation in the basin was the highest recorded in at least 3 decades, causing lake levels to rise by 1.21 m between late 2019 and mid 2020. The flood, defined as a 6-month rise in lake levels as extreme as that observed in the lead-up to May 2020, is estimated to be a 63-year event in the current climate. Based on observations and climate model simulations, the best estimate is that the event has become more likely by a factor of 1.8 in the current climate compared to a pre-industrial climate and that in the absence of anthropogenic climate change an event with the same return period would have led lake levels to rise by 7 cm less than observed. Nonetheless, uncertainties in the attribution statement are relatively large due to large natural variability and include the possibility of no observed attributable change in the probability of the event (probability ratio, 95 % confidence interval 0.8–15.8) or in the magnitude of lake level rise during an event with the same return period (magnitude change, 95 % confidence interval 0–14 cm). In addition to anthropogenic climate change, other possible drivers of the floods and their impacts include human land and water management, the exposure and vulnerability of settlements and economic activities located in flood-prone areas, and modes of climate variability that modulate seasonal precipitation. The attribution statement could be strengthened by using a larger number of climate model simulations, as well as by quantitatively accounting for non-meteorological drivers of the flood and potential unforced modes of climate variability. By disentangling the role of anthropogenic climate change and natural variability in the high-impact 2020 floods in the Lake Victoria basin, this paper contributes to a better understanding of changing hydrometeorological extremes in eastern Africa and the African Great Lakes region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic climate change is changing the earth system processes that control the characteristics of natural hazards both globally and across Australia. Model projections of hazards under future climate change are necessary for effective adaptation. This paper presents BARPA-R (the Bureau of Meteorology Atmospheric Regional Projections for Australia), a regional climate model designed to downscale climate projections over the Australasian region with the purpose to investigate future hazards. BARPA-R, a limited area model, has a 17 km horizontal grid-spacing and makes use of the Met Office Unified Model (MetUM) atmospheric model and the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) land surface model. To establish credibility and in compliance with the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) experiment design, the BARPA-R framework has been used to downscale ERA-5 reanalysis. Here, an assessment of this evaluation experiment is provided. First, an examination of BARPA-R's representation of Australia's surface air temperature, rainfall and 10-m winds finds good performance overall, with biases including a 1K cold bias in daily maximum temperatures, reduced diurnal temperature range, and wet biases up to 25 mm/month in inland Australia. Recent trends in diurnal maximum temperatures are consistent with observational products, while trends in minimum temperatures show overestimated warming and trends in rainfall show underestimated wetting in northern Australia. Rainfall and temperature teleconnections are effectively represented in BARPA-R when present in the driving boundary conditions, while 10-metre winds are improved over ERA5 in six out of eight of the Australian regions considered. The second section of the paper considers the representation of large-scale atmospheric circulation features and weather systems. While generally well represented, convection-related features such as tropical cyclones, the SPCZ, Northwest Cloud-Bands and the monsoon westerlies show more divergence from observations and internal interannual variability than mid-latitude phenomena such as the westerly jets and extra-tropical cyclones. Having simulated a realistic Australasian climate, the BARPA-R framework will be used to downscale two climate change scenarios from seven CMIP6 GCMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Ongoing climate change is causing temperatures to rise in both summer and winter, allowing insect pests to invade new areas and potentially causing economic and human health problems. Low winter temperatures are thought to be one of the main barriers to the colonization of higher latitudes. Climate models predict that winter temperatures will increase more than summer temperatures in temperate regions, which may allow insects from warmer regions to colonize the colder, higher latitudes in the future. Understanding how climate change will affect insect distributions is critical for many areas of human activity. This paper presents a method to assess the potential of insects to colonize colder regions under a warming winter scenario. The method is based on exposing insects to laboratory simulations of a warming winter climate. The applicability of the method is tested using the example of a Mediterranean pest, Sesamia nonagrioides, whose ability to colonize Central Europe is assessed. The results indicate that S. nonagrioides could survive Central European winters even under the current state of warming or under a warmer climate predicted for the near future. The presented method may be particularly useful in pest management to estimate overwinter survival and distribution of pests due to climate change. Ongoing climate change and anthropogenic pressure are having a profound influence on insects, causing species diversity to decline and populations to shrink. Insect pests invade new areas and cause economic and human health problems. Low temperatures in winter are thought to be one of the main barriers to the successful colonization of higher latitudes. Climate models predict that winter temperatures will increase more than summer temperatures in temperate and polar regions, potentially allowing species from warmer climates to colonize higher latitudes. Understanding how climate change will affect the distribution of insects is critical to many areas of human activity. One possible but seldom used way to predict likely range shifts of insects due to climate change is through simulation experiments. Here, I present and test a method to assess the potential of insect species from warmer regions to survive winters in colder regions under a warming winter scenario. The method is based on laboratory simulations of warming winters. The applicability of the method is demonstrated using the example of a Mediterranean pest, Sesamia nonagrioides, whose ability to survive Central European winters under a warming winter scenario is assessed. The method presented here is relatively simple, with potentially high accuracy of estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) strives to increase the number of natural World Heritage Sites to protect it from the onslaught of climate change and anthropogenic disturbances. The international community at the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015 recognized reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries as one of the best low cost panacea for global environmental problems. India, in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) promised to increase its forest cover as an effort toward the mitigation of climate change. All these efforts are directed toward saving our Earth from the worst impacts of global warming. In the midst of these efforts, the conservation of Western Ghats is one of the central hotspots of biodiversity and deserves special attention. Thus, this paper looks into the questions how the Heritage Tag and Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) report causes intricacies in the conservation of Western Ghats? And why local inhabitants are so much apprehensive about the conservation of their region? This study proves that negligence in addressing the concerns and participation of affected stakeholders, from the framing of the conservation projects to its implementation, leads anti-conservation movements. Additonally, such conservation projects will never break ground and will remain on paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Due to their Arctic habitat and elusive nature, little is known about the narwhal (Monodon monoceros) and its foraging behaviour. Understanding its ability to catch prey is essential for understanding its ecological role, but also to assess its ability to withstand climate changes and anthropogenic activities. Narwhals produce echolocation clicks and buzzing sounds as part of their foraging behaviour and these can be used as indicators of prey capture attempts. However, acoustic data are expensive to store on the tagging devices and require complicated post-processing. The main goal of this paper is to predict prey capture attempts directly from acceleration and depth data. The aim is to apply broadly used statistical models with interpretable parameters. The ultimate goal is to be able to estimate prey consumption without the more demanding acoustic data. Results: We predict narwhal buzzing activity using mixed-effects logistic regression models with 83 features extracted from acceleration and depth data as explanatory variables. The features encompass both instantaneous values as well as delayed values to capture behavioural patterns lasting several seconds. The data correlations were not strong enough to predict the exact timing of the buzzes, but were reliably able to detect buzzes within a few seconds. Most of the of the buzz predictions were within 2 s of an observed buzz (68%), increasing to 94% within 30 s. Conversely, 46% of the observed buzzes were within 2 s of a predicted buzz, increasing to 82% within 30 s. Additionally, the model performed well, although with a tendency towards underestimation of the number of buzzes per dive. In total, we predicted 17, 557 buzzes versus 25, 543 observed across data from 10 narwhals. Classifying foraging and non-foraging dives yielded a precision of 86% and a recall of 91%. Conclusion: We conclude that narwhal foraging estimation through acceleration and depth data is a valid alternative or supplement to buzz recordings, even when using somewhat simple statistical methods, such as logistic regression. The methods in this paper can be extended to foraging detection in similar marine species and can aid instrument development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coasts are highly dynamic and geomorphologic complex systems that evolve under the increasing pressure of climate change and anthropogenic activities, having direct or indirect impacts on the coastal environment. Among the major adverse effects, coastal erosion represents one of the most pressing global issues, especially in flat and low-lying coastal areas that appear to be particularly susceptible to beach erosion and related shoreline retreat. This Special Issue collects a set of twelve papers on "Shoreline Dynamics and Beach Erosion". Of course, this collection of papers does not cover all the broad number of topics concerning the dynamics and spatial-temporal evolution of shorelines and beach systems, but, in our opinion, they contribute to the growing body of knowledge. Coastal systems of variable complexity located in different geographic and climatic contexts are investigated from various points of view by using multi- and interdisciplinary approaches, as well as new experimental ones. The major topics covered concern the morphodynamics and hydrodynamics of coastal systems, the driving factors of coastal erosion, and the use of models/indexes to study coastal vulnerability and the mitigation of human/natural pressures affecting coastal ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Degrowth advocates argue for structural transformations in how economies and societies prioritize material wealth accumulation to reduce the negative effects of future anthropogenic climate change. Degrowth proponents argue that human economic activity could be lessened, and societies transformed to prioritize improved wellbeing, reducing the threat of climate change. This paper explores implications of alternative patterns of economic growth with transformational policy pathways (i.e., redistribution) to assess what effects economic growth and broader policies have on changing patterns of human development across both the Global North and South. Using the International Futures model, this article shows that negative growth and societal transformations in the Global North are possible without dramatically damaging long-term global socioeconomic development, though these interventions do not solve the global climate crisis, reducing future cumulative carbon emissions by 10.5% through 2100. On the other hand, a global negative growth scenario will significantly reduce future cumulative carbon emissions (45%) but also dramatically undermines the pursuit of global development goals, like the elimination of poverty. Even with global policies that significantly increase cash transfers to the poor and retired, dramatically improve income inequality, and eliminate military spending, the Global Negative Growth Big Push scenario leads to an increase of 15 percentage points in global extreme poverty by 2100. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavy rainfall in East Africa between late 2019 and mid 2020 caused devastating floods and landslides throughout the region. These rains drove the levels of Lake Victoria to a record-breaking maximum in the second half of May 2020. The combination of high lake levels, consequent shoreline flooding, and flooding of tributary rivers caused hundreds of casualties and damage to housing, agriculture and infrastructure in the riparian countries of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Media and government reports linked the heavy precipitation and floods to anthropogenic climate change, but a formal scientific attribution study has not been carried out so far. In this study, we characterise the spatial extent and impacts of the floods in the Lake Victoria basin, and then investigate to what extent human-induced climate change influenced the probability and magnitude of the record-breaking lake levels and associated flooding, by applying a multi-model extreme event attribution methodology. Using remote sensing-based flood mapping tools, we find that more than 29 thousand people living within a 50 km radius of the lake shorelines were affected by floods between April and July 2020. Precipitation in the basin was the highest recorded in at least three decades, causing lake levels to rise by 1.21 m between late 2019 and mid 2020. The flood, defined as a 6-month rise in lake levels as extreme as that observed in the lead-up to May 2020, is estimated to be a 63-year event in the current climate. Based on observations and climate model simulations, the best estimate is that the event has become more likely by a factor of 1.8 in the current climate compared to a pre-industrial climate, and that in the absence of anthropogenic climate change an event with the same return period would have led lake levels to rise by 7 cm less than observed. Nonetheless, uncertainties in the attribution statement are relatively large due to large natural variability, and include the possibility of no observed attributable change in the probability of the event (probability ratio, 95% confidence interval 0.8 - 15.8) or in the magnitude of lake level rise during an event with the same return period (magnitude change, 95% confidence interval 0 - 14 cm). In addition to anthropogenic climate change, other possible drivers of the floods and their impacts include human land and water management, the exposure and vulnerability of settlements and economic activities located in flood-prone areas, and modes of climate variability that modulate seasonal precipitation. The attribution statement could be strengthened by using a larger number of climate model simulations, as well as by quantitatively accounting for non-meteorological drivers of the flood and potential unforced modes of climate variability. By disentangling the role of anthropogenic climate change and natural variability in the high-impact 2020 floods in the Lake Victoria basin, this paper contributes to a better understanding of changing hydrometeorological extremes in East Africa and the African Great Lakes region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Degrowth advocates argue for structural transformations in how economies and societies prioritize material wealth accumulation to reduce the negative effects of future anthropogenic climate change. Degrowth proponents argue that human economic activity could be lessened, and societies transformed to prioritize improved wellbeing, reducing the threat of climate change. This paper explores implications of alternative patterns of economic growth with transformational policy pathways (i.e., redistribution) to assess what effects economic growth and broader policies have on changing patterns of human development across both the Global North and South. Using the International Futures model, this article shows that negative growth and societal transformations in the Global North are possible without dramatically damaging long-term global socioeconomic development, though these interventions do not solve the global climate crisis, reducing future cumulative carbon emissions by 10.5% through 2100. On the other hand, a global negative growth scenario will significantly reduce future cumulative carbon emissions (45%) but also dramatically undermines the pursuit of global development goals, like the elimination of poverty. Even with global policies that significantly increase cash transfers to the poor and retired, dramatically improve income inequality, and eliminate military spending, the Global Negative Growth Big Push scenario leads to an increase of 15 percentage points in global extreme poverty by 2100. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has been unequivocally linked to human impact. Human actions have affected the environment and its inhabitants in a variety of ways around the globe and the response of various species can provide insight to what the future holds if we do not begin to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Monkeys are especially important as they function as ecosystem engineers, having a significant impact on plants and other animals in their habitats. Despite their importance, primates in South America and Africa remain understudied, yet are especially at risk as these regions have already undergone significant habitat loss. These regions are also Biodiversity Hotspots with the highest numbers of primate species on Earth. This systematic literature review assesses the current state of knowledge on how monkeys have changed their behavior in response to anthropogenic climate change. For this review, we scanned 3,461 titles, and 100 papers were read in full; seven of 100 papers provided relevant data. These studies primarily reported fertility changes and food substitutions when species were exposed to harsh conditions. The paucity of results from this review demonstrates that more research is needed on this topic. The effects of climate change on primates and their habitats must also be studied in conjunction with other anthropogenic stressors. As humans encroach on wildlife habitats, policies must be implemented to protect the habitats that are still viable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The task of quantifying spatial and temporal variations in terrestrial water, energy, and vegetation conditions is challenging due to the significant complexity and heterogeneity of these conditions, all of which are impacted by climate change and anthropogenic activities. To address this challenge, Earth Observations (EOs) of the land and their utilization within data assimilation (DA) systems are vital. Satellite EOs are particularly relevant, as they offer quasi‐global coverage, are non‐intrusive, and provide uniformity, rapid measurements, and continuity. The past three decades have seen unprecedented growth in the number and variety of land remote sensing technologies launched by space agencies and commercial companies around the world. There have also been significant developments in land modeling and DA systems to provide tools that can exploit these measurements. Despite these advances, several important gaps remain in current land DA research and applications. This paper discusses these gaps, particularly in the context of using DA to improve model states for short‐term numerical weather and sub‐seasonal to seasonal predictions. We outline an agenda for land DA priorities so that the next generation of land DA systems will be better poised to take advantage of the significant current and anticipated shifts and advancements in remote sensing, modeling, computational technologies, and hardware resources. Plain Language Summary: Satellite remote sensing measurements have enabled the monitoring of the Earth's land surface with unprecedented scale and frequency. These measurements allow us to monitor the changes on the land surface and understand the contribution of human activities toward them. The information from such observations is combined with the modeled estimates through data assimilation (DA) algorithms. This article discusses the progress made in the development of land DA systems and the major gaps that remain. The paper also outlines priorities that we need to consider in the development of next generation land DA systems so that the potential of land remote sensing measurements can be fully realized. Key Points: Land data assimilation has shown significant promise for short‐term forecasting applicationsSignificant gaps remain in the current land data assimilation systems related to observation utilization and modelsCoordinated development with the modeling and observational community and adoption of technological enhancements are needed in the future [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Existing food production systems and dietary behaviours are not healthy nor sustainable due to the higher environmental footprint of animal-derived foods. Alternative dietary choices could provide better outcomes. We investigated Generation Z (Gen Z)'s alternative food preferences within a planetary health framework which combines human and ecological well-being. The paper is based on data from a 2021 cross-national survey conducted in the main Australian cities, which explored Gen Z's attitudes towards meat consumption in relation to climate change and alternatives to animal-based proteins. Climate change is seen as a result of human activities by 86% of the survey participants. More than a third (38%) of them believe that livestock production and the consumption of animal-sourced foods are contributing significantly to climate change and environmental deterioration. The remaining majority (62%), however, has a low awareness and understanding of the food systems' impacts, disbelieving that diet is a major contributor to climate change. We discuss how these findings will shape Australia's Gen Z, climate change and the future of alternative proteins. Scientific evidence shows that current food systems are impacting the planet in ways that are unsustainable and detrimental to human health. Various technological advances have been made in response, one of them being the development of new food products known as novel alternative proteins, including cultured meat, plant-based meat analogues, algae- and insect-based foods. The future of these alternative proteins to a large extent depends on consumer acceptance from young people. This study investigates the attitudes of Australia's adult Generation Z (Gen Z), born between 1995 and 2003, regarding climate change and more sustainable food choices. Gen Z is a diverse, important and trendsetting group known for organising globally on causes related to climate, social justice and health. The study of Australia's Gen Z is based on a 2021 cross-national survey in the main Australian cities. It shows that, although 86% of the participants perceive climate change as anthropogenic, only 38% believe that livestock-based foods are contributing significantly to global warming and environmental deterioration. The paper discusses the implications for Gen Z and novel alternative proteins given that the majority of Australia's young people has low awareness of the environmental impacts of food systems and dietary choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world is witnessing massive land degradation caused by climate change and various anthropogenic activities. There has been a significant increase in habitat restoration efforts, with demand for seeds to restore these degraded ecosystems in some cases outstripping supply. Traditionally, seeds for restoration activities have mainly been sourced through collections from the wild, but with the growing seed demand, this is increasingly becoming unsustainable. In order to ensure responsible restoration practice, restoration practitioners need to explore other options of economical, ethical and sustainable sourcing of seeds. Ex situ seed banks can leverage their technical and infrastructural capacity to play a greater and more direct role in supporting biodiversity and ecosystem conservation and restoration, particularly through the supply of quality ecologically and genetically suitable seed. In this paper, we review whether ex situ seed banks possess the capacity and competence for supporting habitat restoration and the challenges they are likely to face in these efforts. The review focuses on seed collecting, field-based seed bulking, seed handling and storage, seed quality control as well as experience and capacity in facilitating germplasm exchange. The availability of high-quality germplasm collections of documented provenance and with broad genetic diversity is arguably the greatest resource and asset that seed banks have in supporting habitat restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a response to comments made by researchers from the Universidad de Sevilla regarding a paper on extending climate justice to animals. The authors of the response agree with the commenters that the Iberian Lynx population has increased due to conservation efforts, but they clarify that their paper was not intended as a critique of these measures. The purpose of their paper is to discuss how to help wild animals cope with climate change, using the Iberian Lynx as an illustrative case. They argue that while the population has increased, the species is still at risk of extinction due to climate change. The authors also address the commenters' mention of the lack of originality in their proposed conservation measures, stating that their intention was to examine the moral implications of intervention strategies. Overall, the authors emphasize the importance of climate justice for animals, including the Iberian Lynx. [Extracted from the article]

Blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima Torr.) is the dominant shrub on three million hectares across the transition zone between the western North American warm and cold deserts. This paper presents a study of blackbrush population structure at the stand level at sixteen sites across the species range. New stand-level information is then integrated with what is already known about blackbrush population ecology to explore the stand-level consequences of several unusual features of blackbrush life history, including its masting reproductive strategy, its interactions with heteromyid rodents that are both seed predators and dispersers, and its ability to form 'seedling banks' of growth-suppressed individuals, often within the crowns of adult conspecifics. It complements earlier work showing that blackbrush stands are organized at both the inter-clump and intra-clump levels. Each clump represents an establishment nexus where younger individual genets replace older genets over an extended time period. Inter-clump structure is thus determined by the rate of establishment of new clumps rather than new individuals. This has resulted in contrasting stand structures in response to rodent community composition, disturbance regimes, and climatic variability at the leading and trailing edges of current blackbrush distribution in the eastern Mojave Desert and Colorado Plateau regions. Because blackbrush likely disperses too slowly to track anthropogenic climate change, assisted migration with wild-collected seeds may be necessary to promote its continued survival and dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Anthropogenic climate change is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity. Extreme temperature events associated with longer-term climate change are increasing in frequency, duration and intensity. The effects of climatic extremes on ectotherms, such as insects, have been well-studied in recent years. However, the effects of extreme temperatures on other arthropod groups, such as spiders, has received much less attention. Spiders are important organisms as predators in natural and agricultural ecosystems. In this paper, we describe spider responses to extreme temperatures and highlight the most important knowledge gaps that urgently need to be filled to better understand how vulnerable spiders are to climate change and climatic extremes. Unlike insects, traits such as body size and niche breadth may differ markedly in male and female spiders. Therefore, we argue that research needs to address the effects of heat exposure on the physiology, behavior and ecology of male and female spiders across multiple taxa. Observed declines in some terrestrial insects have been widely reported in recent years, with climate change, along with other anthropogenic threats, being implicated. Longer-term data on trends in spider abundance, where available, may also shed possible light on the role of climate change. Climatic extremes, such as heat waves, are increasing in frequency, intensity and duration under anthropogenic climate change. These extreme events pose a great threat to many organisms, and especially ectotherms, which are susceptible to high temperatures. In nature, many ectotherms, such as insects, may seek cooler microclimates and 'ride out´ extreme temperatures, especially when these are transient and unpredictable. However, some ectotherms, such as web-building spiders, may be more prone to heat-related mortality than more motile organisms. Adult females in many spider families are sedentary and build webs in micro-habitats where they spend their entire lives. Under extreme heat, they may be limited in their ability to move vertically or horizontally to find cooler microhabitats. Males, on the other hand, are often nomadic, have broader spatial distributions, and thus might be better able to escape exposure to heat. However, life-history traits in spiders such as the relative body size of males and females and spatial ecology also vary across different taxonomic groups based on their phylogeny. This may make different species or families more or less susceptible to heat waves and exposure to very high temperatures. Selection to extreme temperatures may drive adaptive responses in female physiology, morphology or web site selection in species that build small or exposed webs. Male spiders may be better able to avoid heat-related stress than females by seeking refuge under objects such as bark or rocks with cooler microclimates. Here, we discuss these aspects in detail and propose research focusing on male and female spider behavior and reproduction across different taxa exposed to temperature extremes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Location, specific topography, and hydrographic setting together with climate change and strong anthropogenic pressure are the main factors shaping the biogeochemical functioning and thus also the ecological status of the Baltic Sea. The recent decades have brought significant changes in the Baltic Sea. First, the rising nutrient loads from land in the second half of the 20th century led to eutrophication and spreading of hypoxic and anoxic areas, for which permanent stratification of the water column and limited ventilation of deep-water layers made favourable conditions. Since the 1980s the nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea have been continuously decreasing. This, however, has so far not resulted in significant improvements in oxygen availability in the deep regions, which has revealed a slow response time of the system to the reduction of the land-derived nutrient loads. Responsible for that is the low burial efficiency of phosphorus at anoxic conditions and its remobilization from sediments when conditions change from oxic to anoxic. This results in a stoichiometric excess of phosphorus available for organic-matter production, which promotes the growth of N2 -fixing cyanobacteria and in turn supports eutrophication. This assessment reviews the available and published knowledge on the biogeochemical functioning of the Baltic Sea. In its content, the paper covers the aspects related to changes in carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus (C, N, and P) external loads, their transformations in the coastal zone, changes in organic-matter production (eutrophication) and remineralization (oxygen availability), and the role of sediments in burial and turnover of C, N, and P. In addition to that, this paper focuses also on changes in the marine CO2 system, the structure and functioning of the microbial community, and the role of contaminants for biogeochemical processes. This comprehensive assessment allowed also for identifying knowledge gaps and future research needs in the field of marine biogeochemistry in the Baltic Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tropical inland capture fisheries are susceptible to a series of vulnerabilities such as habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, pollution, overfishing, invasive species and anthropogenic climate change. A comprehensive review of the impact of climatic uncertainties on Indian inland fisheries has not been adequately attempted yet. Recent approaches emphasizing ecosystem-based management in a regional context, specific to inland fisheries for combating climatic changes, have not been reported to date. The paper presents a critical bibliometric review of the climatic vulnerabilities faced by Indian inland fishery resources and various adaptive and mitigation strategies put forward by the country for the sustainability of the resources. In this communication, a systematic review of the impact of climate change and other stressors on various inland ecosystems of the subcontinent and the ecosystem-based management strategies adopted in India is presented and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the effect of an organic fertilizer, namely, "vermicompost tea" (VCT), on the germination of seeds of the rare wild species Scorzonera tau-saghyz Lipsch. et & G.G. Bosse was studied. S. tau-saghyz is an alternative rubber plant to Hevea brasiliensis, and it was widely distributed and grew well in the northwestern spur of the Tien Shan in the pre-war years (1931–1943). In recent decades, the number of wild species of S. tau-saghyz in natural populations has declined sharply due to climate change and the impact of anthropogenic factors. In this context, it has become necessary to restore the number of wild species. One of the critical phases in the restoration of surviving S. tau-saghyz populations and domestication is seed germination. The approaches that have been explored to increase seed germination, such as stratification and seed dressing with ethyl mercuric chloride, have not yielded good results. The current study covered 4 and 8 h short-term seed treatments with 1, 5 and 10% VCT. The priming of S. tau-saghyz seeds with 10% VCT was found to significantly increase germination from 39.0 (in the control) to 76.7% and to improve seedling vigor, mean germination time, and seedling weight. The combination of soaking the seeds in 10% VCT for 8 h and cultivating the seedlings in soil with 20% vermicompost further improved both germination and seedling growth. The vermicompost incorporation lengthened the main root, which normally accumulates rubber, and it increased its crude biomass by 1.6 times compared to that of the control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the final report of the European Union OMC expert group on strengthening cultural heritage resilience for anthropogenic climate change, the impacts of climate change, particularly extreme weather events, on cultural heritage in Europe have become increasingly evident in recent years and are progressing at an unprecedented speed and scale. Archaeological sites, museum collections, and historical buildings and structures are affected, among others, by rising temperatures or by heavy storms and precipitation events. Deep scientific knowledge about future climate projections is required to develop appropriate preservation strategies and measures to protect and adapt cultural heritage. In this paper we present the first set of results of the KERES project. The project focuses on the impacts of future extreme climate events on the built heritage and historic gardens. An ensemble of climate simulations is used to analyze changes in both climatology and extreme events for several climate variables at two cultural heritage sites in Germany. In this study, a methodology was developed to guide climate scientists on how to better tailor climate information for the needs of stakeholders in the cultural heritage sector. It would help the stakeholders to integrate the results of climate projections into the prevention and emergency management, in particular for the risk assessment of extreme events. The effects of interpolation from a model grid to a location of cultural heritage site and advantages of an ensemble approach have been demonstrated in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satellite data have been extensively used to characterize the trends in environmental and ecological parameters in response to climate change and anthropogenic activities due to the long-term and continuous data record from a global perspective. Nevertheless, trends estimated from different satellite data can be different and even contradict to each other, resulting in inconsistent scientific conclusions about Earth system dynamics. Previous studies were mainly focused on detecting trends or their spatial distribution characteristics, with much less attention to the factors leading up to uncertainties in the results. To address this problem, this review provides a comprehensive analysis of the main factors leading up to the uncertainty of results. The spatial-scale, temporal-scale, platform/sensor-related characteristics, and trend detection algorithms were considered. Their effects as well as the causes of such effects were discussed. And the way to minimize these effects was also suggested. Based upon above, the future development direction was pointed out to obtain more reliable trend estimates from satellite observations. This paper aims to deepen the consciousness and understanding of the detected trends which are not related to actual changes of the Earth surface but caused by perspectives taken for data selection and analysis. Although our discussion on these factors is very preliminary, efforts made here shall provide a first-step guideline that future work can be built up on, with the overarching aim of capturing the real trend of environmental changes using satellite remote sensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine access in the Arctic Ocean is increasing due to the relentless retreat of sea ice driven by anthropogenic climate change. Longer seasons of marine navigation allow increasing marine use by a diversity of stakeholders and vessels. Progress has been made in protecting the Arctic Ocean through cooperation among the Arctic states and proactive advances within international organizations, notably the International Maritime Organization. Measures addressing Arctic marine safety and environmental protection have been developed and adopted. This paper reviews 12 strategic goals or pathways forward for implementing policy measures developed in an array of organizations to protect the future Arctic Ocean. Ten high-priority recommendations, all near-term action items that are believed achievable, are also advanced toward protecting Arctic people and the marine environment in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Location, specific topography and hydrographic setting together with climate change and strong anthropogenic pressure are the main factors shaping the biogeochemical functioning and thus also the ecological status of the Baltic Sea. The recent decades have brought significant changes in the Baltic Sea. First, the rising nutrient loads from land in the second half of the 20th century led to eutrophication and spreading of hypoxic and anoxic areas, for which permanent stratification of the water column and limited ventilation of deep water layers made favourable conditions. Since the 1980s the nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea have been continuously decreasing. This, however, has so far not resulted in significant improvements in oxygen availability in the deep regions, which has revealed a slow response time of the system to the reduction of the land-derived nutrient loads. Responsible for that is the low burial efficiency of phosphorus at anoxic conditions and its remobilization from sediments when conditions change from oxic to anoxic. This results in a stoichiometric excess of phosphorus available for organic matter production, which promotes the growth of N2-fixing cyanobacteria and in turn supports eutrophication. This assessment reviews the available and published knowledge on the biogeochemical functioning of the Baltic Sea. In its content, the paper covers the aspects related to changes in carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus (C, N and P) external loads, their transformations in the coastal zone, changes in organic matter production (eutrophication) and remineralization (oxygen availability), and the role of sediments in burial and turnover of C, N and P. In addition to that, this paper focuses also on changes in the marine CO2 system, structure and functioning of the microbial community and the role of contaminants for biogeochemical processes. This comprehensive assessment allowed also for identifying knowledge gaps and future research needs in the field of marine biogeochemistry in the Baltic Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional construction materials which rely on a fossil-based, nonrenewable extractive economy are typically associated with an entrenched linear economic approach to production. Current research indicates the clear interrelationships between the production and use of construction materials and anthropogenic climate change. This paper investigates the potential for emerging high-performance biobased construction materials, produced sustainably and/or using waste byproducts, to enable a more environmentally sustainable approach to the built environment. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is employed to compare three wall assemblies using local biobased materials in Montreal (Canada), Nairobi (Kenya), and Accra (Ghana) vs. a traditional construction using gypsum boards and rockwool insulation. Global warming potential, nonrenewable cumulative energy demand, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, and freshwater consumption (FWC) are considered. Scenarios include options for design for disassembly (DfD), as well as potential future alternatives for electricity supply in Kenya and Ghana. Results indicate that all biobased alternatives have lower (often significantly so) life-cycle impacts per functional unit, compared to the traditional construction. DfD strategies are also shown to result in −10% to −50% impact reductions. The results for both African countries exhibit a large dependence on the electricity source used for manufacturing, with significant potential for future decarbonization, but also some associated tradeoffs in terms of acidification and eutrophication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind energy is a rapidly expanding renewable technology with massive global investments; however, operating turbines are associated with bat strikes globally, and evidence suggests that without intervention, wind farm collisions could drive some common species to extinction. One widely regarded method for reducing strike mortality is operational mitigation, or curtailment, where turbine operation is restricted at low wind speeds. Despite an increasing number of studies in the Northern Hemisphere demonstrating curtailment effectiveness, no empirical studies have yet been conducted in Australia. This paper reports the findings of a curtailment study implemented at the Cape Nelson North wind farm in southwest Victoria, Australia. Conservation detection dog teams conducted mortality surveys between January and April in 2018 (before; pre‐curtailment) and 2019 (after; during curtailment). Results were consistent with similar studies in the USA and Europe, as curtailment significantly reduced pooled species mortality by 54%. Bat calls did not decline during the study period, and thus were not an explanation for the reduction in fatalities. This study demonstrates that curtailment is a valid method for reducing bat turbine collision in south‐eastern Australia. Consideration should be given to curtailment as a means to reduce bat turbine impacts in Australia, particularly at sites with known endangered and threatened populations, as we act to reduce anthropogenic climate change and its time‐sensitive negative consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defossilization of the current energy system is a major requirement to decelerate anthropogenic climate change. However, a defossilized energy system is vastly more complex than current fossil-based energy systems: The integration of distributed energy resources and sector-coupling increases connectivity, demands interdisciplinary workflows, and creates a need for more sophisticated design processes. Inspired by the semiconductor and automotive industries, digitalization of the design process using platform-based design (PBD), coupled with the energy hub concept, can improve cost-effective energy systems design and accelerate the industry's contributions to achieving net-zero emissions. PBD is an efficient and effective methodology to manage and de-risk the complexity of integrated energy system design, leading to affordable and reliable solutions due to the inherent techno-economic analysis underlying the decision-making process. Combining the PBD framework with the energy hub concepts establishes a powerful design workflow for developing holistic energy systems from a single building up to the district and city scales. The fundamental tenets of this workflow, as discussed in this paper, are (1) the separation of functions from architectures, (2) the identification of abstraction levels at which systems can be analyzed and optimized, and (3) the ability to repurpose components at all levels of abstraction to aid design reuse and allow performance feedback at every stage of the process. We argue that PBD can become the next frontier in energy system design. PBD, as presented in this paper, is not limited to the energy sector, and it can also be a sub-process of an even more holistic infrastructure design. Spatial planning, architecture, and civil engineering can all be further integrated with the PBD concept, allowing societies to reach ambitious sustainability goals faster, at lower cost, and with greater resilience. • Innovative design methodologies to effectively navigate energy system transformation. • Novel framework combining platform-based design (PBD) and the Energy Hub concept. • Inspiration provided by the digitalization process of the semiconductor and automotive industries. • Proposal of a new "design-build-operate" workflow for the energy sector. • Augmentation of scalability, risk mitigation, and time-to-market reduction for energy systems. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security plays an important role in maintaining national stability and sustainable development of human society, and its research has become a hot issue at present. Shandong is the main grain producing area in China, and its grain production plays an important role in national food security. Accordingly, this paper is based on the county climate change, grain yield, sown area, fertilizer use, total power of rural machinery, and total population data in Shandong Province from 1995 to 2020. The evolution process of the food security pattern was studied by the methods of spatial analysis and comprehensive evaluation, the influencing factors of food security were quantitatively analyzed, and the adaptive countermeasures to alleviate the food security risks in this region were discussed. The results show that: Grain production increased by 30.62% from 1995 to 2020. The total population and per capita food availability also increased. Since 2000, more than a quarter of counties have experienced a high risk of food insecurity. The spatial agglomeration of grain production was enhanced, and the local agglomeration characteristics were significantly different. The average temperature in the growing season, the sown area, and the total power of agricultural machinery had a significant positive impact on grain production, while the annual average temperature had a significant negative impact on grain production. Improving the food supply system, strengthening the protection of cultivated land, improving the efficiency of fertilizer utilization, and increasing investment in agricultural science and technology can effectively alleviate food security risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vegetation is the main component of the terrestrial Earth, and it plays an imperative role in carbon cycle regulation and surface water/energy exchange/balance. The coupled effects of climate change and anthropogenic forcing have undoubtfully impacted the vegetation cover in linear/non-linear manners. Considering the essential benefits of vegetation to the environment, it is vital to investigate the vegetation dynamics through spatially and temporally consistent workflows. In this regard, remote sensing, especially Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), has offered a reliable data source for vegetation monitoring and trend analysis. In this paper, two decades (2000 to 2020) of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) NDVI datasets (MOD13Q1) were used for vegetation trend analysis throughout Iran. First, the per-pixel annual NDVI dataset was prepared using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) by averaging all available NDVI values within the growing season and was then fed into the PolyTrend algorithm for linear/non-linear trend identification. In total, nearly 14 million pixels (44% of Iran) were subjected to trend analysis, and the results indicated a higher rate of greening than browning across the country. Regarding the trend types, linear was the dominant trend type with 14%, followed by concealed (11%), cubic (8%), and quadratic (2%), while 9% of the vegetation area remained stable (no trend). Both positive and negative directions were observed in all trend types, with the slope magnitudes ranging between −0.048 and 0.047 (NDVI units) per year. Later, precipitation and land cover datasets were employed to further investigate the vegetation dynamics. The correlation coefficient between precipitation and vegetation (NDVI) was 0.54 based on all corresponding observations (n = 1785). The comparison between vegetation and precipitation trends revealed matched trend directions in 60% of cases, suggesting the potential impact of precipitation dynamics on vegetation covers. Further incorporation of land cover data showed that grassland areas experienced significant dynamics with the highest proportion compared to other vegetation land cover types. Moreover, forest and cropland had the highest positive and negative trend direction proportions. Finally, independent (from trend analysis) sources were used to examine the vegetation dynamics (greening/browning) from other perspectives, confirming Iran's greening process and agreeing with the trend analysis results. It is believed that the results could support achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by serving as an initial stage study for establishing conservation and restoration practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lizards in the Neotropical genus Iguana are heavily traded for the international pet trade, with unusual colour morphs and rare species commanding high prices. Recent research aimed to understand the taxonomy and phenotypic variation of Iguana in the Lesser Antilles, with those populations now severely threatened by this trade. Although the entire Iguana genus has been on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Appendix II since 1977, current levels of trade regulation are proving to be inadequate for the Caribbean Iguana populations, which are declining. This paper presents the case for immediately halting regional commercial trade to safeguard the most vulnerable island populations. We further provide recommendations for trade regulations of other species complexes where the nomenclature used in legislation and the trade industry fall temporarily out of step with new taxonomic changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Species diversity assessments are an important step to evaluate the conservation status of a community, both in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. These assessments are pivotal if related to both, the constant increase of human pressure on ecosystems and the anthropogenic climate change occurring nowadays. Sharks and rays are globally threatened, and the situation is particularly alarming in the Mediterranean Sea where more than 50% of species are listed at risk of extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In this paper, we revise and discuss the chondrichthyan species richness of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Through an accurate review of published taxonomic studies, historical data on species occurrence, analyses of scientific survey data and biodiversity databases and other scientific papers, we produced a revised list of species whose presence in the Mediterranean Sea is confirmed or highly probable and discussed on current taxonomic and occurrence disputes on the species that are instead rarer or claimed to be locally extinct. We listed a total of 88 species, representing 30 families and 48 genera that are currently present in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. This number includes 48 shark species, 38 batoids, and 2 chimaeras. The review represents a reference for future conservation assessments of cartilaginous fish in the region and a guide for decision-makers when promoting the sustainable exploitation of fisheries resource within an ecosystem-based framework. This paper can help to set a baseline of the Mediterranean species and thus resolve some uncertainties regarding their conservation status, explaining the reasons for their prolonged absence in the reports. Indeed, failure to record over time may not be due to grubbing up, but because after careful review this species was not really part of the Mediterranean fauna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arctic Ocean freshwater storage increased since the mid‐1990s, but the cause was unknown. Jahn and Laiho (2020, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL088854) use ensemble runs of a coupled climate model to suggest that the observed increase is anthropogenic. The paper quantifies when the anthropogenic signals should emerge from the noise of natural variability. This result contextualizes research on the Arctic Ocean freshwater system and sketches an unprecedented opportunity. Future work should elucidate mechanisms, seek to observe the anthropogenic freshwater changes, and investigate the impacts on biogeochemistry and the North Atlantic Ocean circulation. Plain Language Summary: The Arctic is a region of clear man‐made climate change. Changes in the Arctic Ocean salinity and currents have been seen, but the cause was unknown. A new paper shows that the changes are probably due to man‐made climate change. The reason is they only occur in a climate model with man‐made climate forcing. This is an important result because it helps scientists focus their research into how the changes work. It also points to a valuable opportunity to watch the Arctic Ocean respond to man‐made climate change. There might be important future impacts on North Atlantic oceanography and North Atlantic climate that scientists can now look for. Key Points: A recent paper shows that observed increases in Arctic Ocean freshwater storage are anthropogenicThe paper anticipates future anthropogenic changes, which are testable predictions for observersThere are widespread impacts of anthropogenic freshwater change, both within the Arctic and the North Atlantic Oceans [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With growing water scarcity, jeopardized by climate change, springs are likely to perform a vital role in meeting the domestic water demand in future. This paper examines the water quality status of Kashmir valley springs in relation to their geographical location, regional hydrogeological conditions, anthropogenic activities and climate change. We analyzed data for 258 springs from the whole Kashmir valley using water quality index (WQI) and geographic information system techniques. WQI ranged from 23 (excellent water) to 537 (water unsuitable for drinking). The WQI indicated that 39.5% of the springs had excellent waters, 47.7% had good water, 5% had poor water, 1.6% had very-poor water, and 6.2% of the springs had water unfit for drinking purposes. The Piper diagram identified Ca–Mg–HCO3, Ca–Mg–SO4, and Na–HCO3 as the most predominant hydro-chemical facies, whereas Gibbs diagram revealed that the water of springs in the study region is mainly controlled by rock weathering dominance. The results of the study offer inputs about the water quality to be used by the concerned departments and agencies at a bigger scale for drinking purposes. Our findings therefore suggest that springs which are in thousands in Kashmir landscape have the potential to offer viable solution to the rising drinking water demand and therefore merit an attention for their protection and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With growing water scarcity, jeopardized by climate change, springs are likely to perform a vital role in meeting the domestic water demand in future. This paper examines the water quality status of Kashmir valley springs in relation to their geographical location, regional hydrogeological conditions, anthropogenic activities and climate change. We analyzed data for 258 springs from the whole Kashmir valley using water quality index (WQI) and geographic information system techniques. WQI ranged from 23 (excellent water) to 537 (water unsuitable for drinking). The WQI indicated that 39.5% of the springs had excellent waters, 47.7% had good water, 5% had poor water, 1.6% had very-poor water, and 6.2% of the springs had water unfit for drinking purposes. The Piper diagram identified Ca–Mg–HCO3, Ca–Mg–SO4, and Na–HCO3 as the most predominant hydro-chemical facies, whereas Gibbs diagram revealed that the water of springs in the study region is mainly controlled by rock weathering dominance. The results of the study offer inputs about the water quality to be used by the concerned departments and agencies at a bigger scale for drinking purposes. Our findings therefore suggest that springs which are in thousands in Kashmir landscape have the potential to offer viable solution to the rising drinking water demand and therefore merit an attention for their protection and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental problems may develop in groundwater basins when water levels change due to long-term wetter or drier climate or land development. A term related to water-level elevation is flow capacity, which develops in aquifers when the water table is at or very close to land surface. Non-capacity develops in systems where the water table is too deep for capillary water to reach the land surface. Flow capacity is the maximum amount of water that an aquifer can transmit. Sufficient moisture is not available for flow capacity to be established in most aquifers in arid zones and these aquifers are at non-capacity, but many aquifers in today's deserts were at flow capacity when paleoclimates were cooler and moister during the late Pleistocene. Climate change and anthropogenic activities can cause aquifers to move toward flow capacity but in the last 15,000 years, almost always toward non-capacity. This paper reviews environmental and geotechnical problems associated with the transition of groundwater basins from flow capacity to non-capacity, and vice versa. Five relevant topics are discussed and evaluated: (1) The effects of flow capacity and non-capacity on groundwater basins targeted for waste repositories; (2) The salt contamination of groundwater where flow capacity was present in the Late Pleistocene and is no longer present; (3) Trace element enrichment in salt crusts in playa sediments and environmental risks to groundwater when the flow systems transition from flow capacity to non-capacity; (4) The development and retention of environmental tracers in arid groundwater flow systems at flow capacity that cannot be explained under conditions of non-capacity; and (5) The relationship of flow capacity to fossil hydraulic gradients and non-equilibrium conditions where there is little groundwater extraction. A case example is provided with each of these topics to demonstrate relevance and to provide an understanding of topics as they relate to land management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Species loss is well-known as a defining challenge of our era. But in an era of increasing anthropogenic stressors, several ecosytems are at risk of collapsing because of human pressures. In the emergent literature on ecosystem collapse, few studies have focused on how ecosystem collapse is experienced by the communities living through it. In this paper I explore how communities understand ecosystem collapse, and possible ways of managing it, through a study of California's largest lake. The Salton Sea is at an ecological tipping point where it is rapidly shrinking and becoming more saline. This paper draws on 30 semistructured interviews in the Coachella and Imperial valleys around the lake, as well as observation of community meetings and archival material, to explore the following: How do people living around the Salton Sea view its collapse, including the failure to stop it? What measures do they see as having the potential to avert its collapse? These interviews indicate a clear understanding of the imminent decline, and a variety of conjectures about why nothing has been done, attributing this to its peripherality, power inequalities, the professionalization of Salton Sea solutions, and systematic incapacity on the part of the state of California. Respondents also surfaced three potential alternative pathways for restoration, as well as insights into the challenges of implementing them. The story of the Salton Sea, an ecosystem collapse in progress with no real action, may be repeated around the world, including in high-income jurisdictions like California, and it is important to understand the political and social contexts that determine whether or not a major effort is made to prevent collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Watersheds are the fundamental Earth surface functioning units that connect the land to aquatic systems. Many watershed-scale models represent hydrological processes but not biogeochemical reactive transport processes. This has limited our capability to understand and predict solute export, water chemistry and quality, and Earth system response to changing climate and anthropogenic conditions. Here we present a recently developed BioRT-Flux-PIHM (BioRT hereafter) v1.0, a watershed-scale biogeochemical reactive transport model. The model augments the previously developed RT-Flux-PIHM that integrates land-surface interactions, surface hydrology, and abiotic geochemical reactions. It enables the simulation of (1) shallow and deep-water partitioning to represent surface runoff, shallow soil water, and deeper groundwater and of (2) biotic processes including plant uptake, soil respiration, and nutrient transformation. The reactive transport part of the code has been verified against the widely used reactive transport code CrunchTope. BioRT-Flux-PIHM v1.0 has recently been applied in multiple watersheds under diverse climate, vegetation, and geological conditions. This paper briefly introduces the governing equations and model structure with a focus on new aspects of the model. It also showcases one hydrology example that simulates shallow and deep-water interactions and two biogeochemical examples relevant to nitrate and dissolved organic carbon (DOC). These examples are illustrated in two simulation modes of complexity. One is the spatially lumped mode (i.e., two land cells connected by one river segment) that focuses on processes and average behavior of a watershed. Another is the spatially distributed mode (i.e., hundreds of cells) that includes details of topography, land cover, and soil properties. Whereas the spatially lumped mode represents averaged properties and processes and temporal variations, the spatially distributed mode can be used to understand the impacts of spatial structure and identify hot spots of biogeochemical reactions. The model can be used to mechanistically understand coupled hydrological and biogeochemical processes under gradients of climate, vegetation, geology, and land use conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large old trees are recognized as keystone ecological entities in human dominated landscapes, often bestowing high socio-cultural and ecological values. Large old trees are in decline globally mainly due to negative anthropogenic factors and climate change. The conservation of large old trees and their socio-cultural and ecological values have attracted the attention of scientists and forestry practitioners. Although there were a certain number of research papers fucusing on large old trees have been published around the world, a comprehensive summary of the research status and viewpoints about large old trees in human settlements is still limited. In this review, we summarized the current research status and viewpoints of large old trees in hunan settlements in the aspects of their socio-cultural and ecological values, distribution patterns and drivers, cultural imperatives of protection and management practices, and the challenges for large old trees preservation. We hope that this review will provide some inspiration for the future studies, and provide valuable references for the sustainable protection of large old trees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global- and national-scale inventories of carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions are important tools as countries grapple with the need to reduce emissions to minimize the magnitude of changes in the global climate system. The longest time series dataset on global and national CO 2 emissions, with consistency over all countries and all years since 1751, has long been the dataset generated by the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center (CDIAC), formerly housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The CDIAC dataset estimates emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement manufacture, by fuel type, using the United Nations energy statistics and global cement production data from the United States Geological Survey. Recently, the maintenance of the CDIAC dataset was transferred to Appalachian State University, and the dataset is now identified as CDIAC-FF. This paper describes the annual update of the time series of emissions with estimates through 2017; there is typically a 2- to 3-year time lag in the processing of the two primary datasets used for the estimation of CO 2 emissions. We provide details on two changes to the approach to calculating CO 2 emissions that have been implemented in the transition from CDIAC to CDIAC-FF: refinement in the treatment of changes in stocks at the global level and changes in the procedure to calculate CO 2 emissions from cement manufacture. We compare CDIAC-FF's estimates of CO 2 emissions with other global and national datasets and illustrate the trends in emissions (1990–2015) using a decomposition analysis of the Kaya identity. The decompositions for the top 10 emitting countries show that, although similarities exist, countries have unique factors driving their patterns of emissions, suggesting the need for diverse strategies to mitigate carbon emissions to meditate anthropogenic climate change. The data for this particular version of CDIAC-FF are available at 10.5281/zenodo.4281271 (Gilfillan et al., 2020a). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of coastal upwelling systems is widely recognized. However, several aspects of the current and future behaviors of these systems remain uncertain. Fluctuations in temperature because of anthropogenic climate change are hypothesized to affect upwelling-favorable winds and coastal upwelling is expected to intensify across all Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems. To better understand how upwelling may change in the future, it is necessary to develop a more rigorous method of quantifying this phenomenon. In this paper, we use SST data and wind data in a novel method of detecting upwelling signals and quantifying metrics of upwelling intensity, duration, and frequency at four sites within the Benguela Upwelling System. We found that indicators of upwelling are uniformly detected across five SST products for each of the four sites and that the duration of those signals is longer in SST products with higher spatial resolutions. Moreover, the high-resolution SST products are significantly more likely to display upwelling signals at 25 km away from the coast when signals were also detected at the coast. Our findings promote the viability of using SST and wind time series data to detect upwelling signals within coastal upwelling systems. We highlight the importance of high-resolution data products to improve the reliability of such estimates. This study represents an important step towards the development of an objective method for describing the behavior of coastal upwelling systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the number of plant translocations has been rapidly increasing for two decades, no study is available to date that examines the directions and distances of plant displacements, which is essential (though not sufficient) information for considering translocations as a management tool to enable species to cope with the consequences of climate change.In this paper, we study the geographical and climatic directions and distances from source to host sites in 638 source‐and‐host site pairs of plant translocations that aimed to achieve viable populations in the last decades in the Western Palearctic (Europe and the Mediterranean). Translocation distances ranged from 0 to 661 km, but were generally short, most (82%) being <25 km, due to both ecological considerations and legal and administrative constraints. The host sites were not preferentially located in any geographical direction or in any altitude relative to the source sites. In contrast, on a climate compass constructed from a principal component analysis of seven bioclimatic variables, the host sites were slightly, but significantly, under colder climatic conditions than the source sites.This observation appears more to be the consequence of an effort to counteract already felt effects of climate change than to anticipate future changes. The climatic distance between source sites and actual host sites was generally smaller than between source sites and randomly selected host sites at a given distance or within a given geographical area, which may be the result of a desire to minimise climatic differences or differences in other ecological factors correlated with climatic differences.Synthesis. This study is the first to compare, geographically and climatically, the source sites of biological material and the host sites in translocations of wild plant species to obtain viable populations. Past translocations in the Western Palearctic are in line with mitigating the consequences of global warming on plant species because the host sites were in slightly cooler conditions than the source sites. Despite this, climate considerations seem to have little been taken into account in plant translocation projects and will certainly have to be much more so in a future with rapid anthropogenic climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models and metrics to measure ecological connectivity are now well-developed and widely used in research and applications to mitigate the ecological impacts of climate change and anthropogenic habitat loss. Despite the prevalent application of connectivity models, however, relatively little is known about the performance of these methods in predicting functional connectivity patterns and organism movement. Our goal in this paper was to compare different connectivity models in their abilities to predict a wide range of simulated animal movement patterns. We used the Pathwalker software to evaluate the performance of several connectivity model predictions based on graph theory, resistant kernels, and factorial least-cost paths. In addition, we assessed the efficacy of synoptic and patch-based approaches to defining source points for analysis. In total, we produced 28 different simulations of animal movement. As we expected, we found that the choice of connectivity model used was the variable that most influenced prediction accuracy. Moreover, we found that the resistant kernels approach consistently provided the strongest correlations to the simulated underlying movement processes. The results also suggested that the agent-based simulation approach itself can often be the best analytical framework to map functional connectivity for ecological research and conservation applications, given its biological realism and flexibility to implement combinations of movement mechanism, dispersal threshold, directional bias, destination bias and spatial composition of source locations for analysis. In doing so, we provide novel insights to guide future functional connectivity analyses. In future research, we could use the same model for several different species groups and see how this reliability depends on the species analyzed. This could bring to light other elements that play an essential role in predicting connectivity. • The connectivity method is what influences predictions the most. • Using a synoptic approach better predicts walker movements than a patch-based one. • Agent-based simulation approach may often be the best analytical framework to map functional connectivity. • Simulation model flexibility is a key factor in determining connectivity. • Resistant kernel-based has the best performance in predicting simulated movement patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regenerative agriculture is an alternative approach to farming that has been gaining traction and interest among farmers due to its potential to reduce input costs, improve soil health, and increase the resilience of farming systems. This paper undertakes a practice-based analysis of farmers, applying a lens of regenerative agriculture. Surveys were developed as a part of a broader project using an established methodological framework. Topics were developed and adapted with input from local stakeholders before being mailed out to three farming regions across Australia (the Western Australian Wheatbelt, the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia and Central West New South Wales). The research clustered farmers into two groups: those who are using best-practices that fall inside the scope of regenerative agriculture, and those who are not. The similarities and differences in farmer attributes, as well as self-reported knowledge levels and information sources used by each group are explored. Results indicate that a belief in anthropogenic climate change may be one of the primary divides between the two groups, and therefore a possible driver of best-practice implementation. The findings provide insight into perceptions of regenerative agriculture for Australian farmers, and may assist with knowledge dissemination amongst those managing our environment. • Results suggest a belief in anthropogenic climate change is likely to drive on farm practices. • Farmers are commonly using regenerative practices without identifying as regenerative. • Knowledge is a key driver of best practice. • Best practice farmers appear more likely to use modern information sources then conventional farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the zooarchaeological research carried out on Ctenomys (Rodentia: Ctenomyidae) bone remains recovered at Quebrada del Real 1 (ca. 7400–360 years BP), an archaeological site located in the Sierras of Córdoba upper mountain grassland range of Argentina. Here, we focus on the importance of Ctenomys implications to wild‐life management and conservation biology rather than its classical archaeological view as a subsistence resource. The primary aim was to provide critical information about the recent past biogeography of Ctenomys that may not be evident from modern fauna surveys. From the description of a highly specialised fossorial rodent extinct at the end of the Holocene, the study points out the extreme fragility of the Sierras of Córdoba high mountain environments under climate change and anthropogenic threat, drawing on data that are relevant to those who make decisions and write guidelines for wild‐life management. The analysis of the Ctenomys assemblage from Quebrada del Real 1 revealed information related to the management, conservation and restoration of the mountain top environments that cannot be ignored by conservation biologists and wild‐life managers, moreover when the causes that lead to the extinction of C. viarapaensis are the same ones affecting to modern plant and animal communities. The zooarchaeological record reflects past conditions to assess preindustrial ecological states of the upper mountain grassland range that otherwise would have never been known as a baseline for environmental management. Thus, applied zooarchaeology to conservation biology requires further exploration at Sierras of Córdoba in order to produce accurate knowledge about the high‐altitude ecosystems function, fragility and biodiversity loss, which is necessary to understand the present and improve the future of three million people who depend on the ecological services from these environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global and national scale inventories of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are important tools as countries grapple with the need to reduce emissions to minimize the magnitude of changes in the global climate system. The longest time series dataset on global and national CO2 emissions, with consistency over all countries and all years since 1751, has long been the dataset generated by the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center (CDIAC), formerly housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The CDIAC dataset estimates emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and cement manufacture, by fuel type, using the United Nations energy statistics and global cement production data from the United States Geological Survey. Recently, the maintenance of the CDIAC dataset has been transferred to Appalachian State University, and the dataset is now identified as CDIAC-FF. This paper describes the annual update of the time series of emissions with estimates through 2017; there is typically a 2 to 3 year time lag in the processing of the two primary datasets used for the estimation of CO2 emissions. We provide details on two changes to the approach to calculating CO2 emissions that have been implemented in the transition from CDIAC to CDAIC-FF: refinement in the treatment of changes in stocks at the global level, and changes in the procedure to calculate CO2 emissions from cement manufacture. We compare CDIAC-FF's estimates of CO2 emissions with other global and national datasets, and illustrate the trends in emissions (1990-2015) using a decomposition analysis of the Kaya Identity. The decompositions for the top 10 emitting countries show that, although similarities exist, countries have unique factors driving their patterns of emissions, suggesting the need for diverse strategies to mitigate carbon emissions to meditate anthropogenic climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Not including population changes lead to an average underestimation of the heat-health burden of 64 %. • Of the identified studies 45 % included changes in population size. • 23 % of studies included demographic change as changes in age structure. • Of the 15 studies using SSP-RCP scenarios 12 included implausible combinations. Anthropogenic climate change will have a detrimental impact on global health, including the direct impact of higher ambient temperatures. Existing projections of heat-related health outcomes in a changing climate often consider increasing ambient temperatures alone. Population growth and structure has been identified as a key source of uncertainty in future projections. Age acts as a modifier of heat risk, with heat-risk generally increasing in older age-groups. In many countries the population is ageing as lower birth rates and increasing life expectancy alter the population structure. Preparing for an older population, in particular in the context of a warmer climate should therefore be a priority in public health research and policy. We assess the level of inclusion of population growth and demographic changes in research projecting exposure to heat and heat-related health outcomes. To assess the level of inclusion of population changes in the literature, keyword searches of two databases were implemented, followed by reference and citation scans to identify any missed papers. Relevant papers, those including a projection of the heat health burden under climate change, were then checked for inclusion of population scenarios. Where sensitivity to population change was studied the impact of this on projections was extracted. Our analysis suggests that projecting the heat health burden is a growing area of research, however, some areas remain understudied including Africa and the Middle East and morbidity is rarely explored with most studies focusing on mortality. Of the studies pairing projections of population and climate, specifically SSPs and RCPs, many used pairing considered to be unfeasible. We find that not including any projected changes in population or demographics leads to underestimation of health burdens of on average 64 %. Inclusion of population changes increased the heat health burden across all but two studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]