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Machine learning methods allow for advances in many aspects of climate research. In this Perspective, the authors give an overview of recent progress and remaining challenges to harvest the full potential of machine learning methods.
The decarbonization of energy systems needs to be integrated with electric grid infrastructure, yet combined climate–grid studies are lacking. This Perspective discusses electric grid research that should be prioritized, and how researchers from different communities could better collaborate.
The authors link a recent collapse of a commercially valuable snow crab stock to borealization of the Bering Sea that is >98% likely to have been human induced.
Large animal conservation and rewilding are increasingly considered to be viable climate mitigation strategies. We argue that overstating animal roles in carbon capture may hinder, rather than facilitate, effective climate mitigation and conservation efforts.
The authors investigate the carbon storage response of wetland drainage in the context of rate-limiting phenol oxidase activity. They show divergent responses to short- and long-term drainage in Sphagnum versus non-Sphagnum wetlands determined by plant traits and plant–microbe interactions.
The authors demonstrate that integrating phenology data with evolutionary relationships can improve predictions of change. They show how including phylogenetic structure in plant responses to temperature produces better estimates and reveals markedly different responses across species.
Food choices greatly affect global GHG emissions, but the contributions of different groups, across or within countries, are highly unequal. Adopting the global planetary health diet could yield co-benefits by reducing both emissions and inequality among populations.
US healthcare contributes 8.5% of national greenhouse gas emissions, but its policies to guide mitigation and waste reduction are underdeveloped. We recommend national policies to streamline the adoption of best practices, address implementation challenges to achieve net-zero goals and serve as useful exemplars for other nations.
The erosion of melting permafrost in the coastal Arctic Ocean is projected to lower the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide, triggering unexpected carbon–climate feedbacks in the Arctic region.
Technological feasibility and project-level economic costs are only two important considerations in previous estimations of climate mitigation costs. Now a study shows how political and institutional constraints matter too.
A free-air CO2 enrichment experiment exposed a 180-year-old oak forest in central England to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations for 7 years. Increases in wood production and net primary productivity were observed in response to this CO2 enrichment, contrary to expectations that such responses are limited to young tree plantations.
The Paris Agreement requires reaching net-zero carbon emissions, but a debate exists on how fast this can be achieved. This study establishes scenarios with different feasibility constraints and finds that the institutional dimension plays a key role for determining the feasible peak temperature.
While experiments in younger trees support increased production under higher CO2, it is unclear whether more mature trees can respond similarly. Here, the authors show increased production of biomass in a 180-year-old Quercus robur L. woodland under 7 years of free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE).
The rate of Arctic coastal permafrost erosion is predicted to increase up to 3 times by 2100. Here the authors model how organic matter released from coastal permafrost erosion will reduce the CO2 sink capacity of the Arctic Ocean and lead to positive feedbacks on climate.