Sea‐level rise (SLR) and subsidence are expected to increase the risk of flooding and reliance on flood defenses for cities built on deltas. Here, we combine reliability analysis with hydrodynamic modeling to quantify the effect of projected relative SLR on dike failures and flood hazards for Shanghai, one of the most exposed delta cities. We find that flood inundation is likely to occur in low‐lying

The use of residential heating devices is a key source of black carbon and other short‐lived climate forcer emissions in Arctic and other high‐latitude regions, with important impacts to the Arctic climate and human health. The types of combustion technologies and fuels used vary by region, which impacts the emission profiles of these pollutants and thus the magnitude of Arctic climate responses. Using

The quantification of climate change impacts on hydrology is subjected to multiple uncertainty sources. Large ensembles of hydrological simulations based on multimodel ensembles (MMEs) have been commonly applied to represent overall uncertainty of hydrological impacts. However, as increasing numbers of global climate models (GCMs) are being developed, how many GCMs in MMEs are sufficient to characterize

As global mean sea level (GMSL) continues to rise, thresholds corresponding to coastal inundation impacts are exceeded more frequently. This paper aims to relate sea‐level rise (SLR) observations and projections to their physical on‐the‐ground impacts. Using a large coastal city as an example, we show that in Sydney, Australia, frequencies of minor coastal inundation have increased from 1.6 to 7.8

The artificial impoundment of water behind dams causes global mean sea level (GMSL) to fall as reservoirs fill but also generates a local rise in sea level due to the increased mass in the reservoir and the crustal deformation this mass induces. To estimate spatiotemporal fluctuations in sea level due to water impoundment, we use a historical data set that includes 6,329 reservoirs completed between

Scientists are increasingly engaging with stakeholders to codesign scenarios of land use change necessitating methods to translate the resulting qualitative scenarios into quantitative simulations. We demonstrate a transparent method for translating participatory scenarios to simulations of land use and land cover (LULC) change using the New England Landscape Futures (NELF) project as a case study

Port infrastructure is critical to the world’s economy and has seen major expansion over the last few decades. In the future there are likely to be further demands for port capacity which will require additional port area while existing ports will need upgrading in response to sea‐level rise to maintain current levels of operability. This analysis considers potential changes to 2050 under four climate‐based

As energy saving and emission reduction become a global action, the disparity in energy intensity between different regions is a new rising problem that stems a country’s or region’s energy‐saving potential. Here, we collect China’s provincial panel data (1995–2017) of primary and final energy consumption to evaluate China’s unequal and polarized regional pattern in energy intensity, decompose the

Increases in Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD) have been hypothesized as the primary driver of future fire changes. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) models agree that western U.S. surface temperatures and associated dryness of air as defined by the VPD will increase in the 21st century for representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5. However, we find that averaged over

Forest pathogens are important drivers of tree mortality across the globe, but it is exceptionally challenging to gather and build unbiased quantitative models of their impacts. Here we harness the rare data set matching the spatial scale of pathogen invasion, host, and disease heterogeneity to estimate infection and mortality for the four most susceptible host species of Phytophthora ramorum , an

Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering (SAG) is suggested as a potential way to reduce the climate impacts of global warming. Using simulations from the Geoengineering Large Ensemble project that employed stratospheric sulfate aerosols injection to keep global mean surface temperature and also the interhemispheric and equator‐to‐pole temperature gradients at their 2020 values (present‐day climate) under

In spite of their recurrent seasonal patterns, every year river floods affect millions of people and kill thousands. Knowing the average timing and magnitude of floods can help to better prepare for disasters by improving the humanitarian assistance and the management of resources, to ultimately reduce the overall flood impacts. This work presents a physically based modelling framework to estimate

Climate is an essential element in agricultural production and climate change inevitably have an impact on agriculture. Assessing the economic consequences of climate change requires comprehensive assessments of the impact chain from climate to crops and the economy. In our previous study, we derived a dose‐response function to estimate the response of crop yields to climate variables through a systematic

Long‐range water planning is complicated by factors that are rapidly changing in the 21st century, including climate, population, and water use. Here, we analyze climate factors and drought projections for Texas as an example of a diverse society straddling an aridity gradient to examine how the projections can best serve water stakeholder needs. We find that climate models are robust in projecting

With the increasing pressure from population growth and economic development, northern China (NC) faces a grand challenge of water scarcity, which can be further exacerbated by climatic and societal changes. The South‐to‐North Water Diversion (SNWD) project is designed to mitigate the water scarcity in NC. However, few studies have quantified the impact of the SNWD on water scarcity within the context

Many river basins in the Global South are undergoing rapid development with major implications for the interdependent water‐energy‐food‐environmental (WEFE) ‘nexus’ sectors. A range of views on the extent to which such natural‐human systems should be developed typically exist. The perceived best investments in river basins depend on how one frames the planning problem. Therefore, we propose an approach

We present a new set of global and local sea‐level projections at example tide gauge locations under the RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emissions scenarios. Compared to the CMIP5‐based sea‐level projections presented in IPCC AR5, we introduce a number of methodological innovations, including: (i) more comprehensive treatment of uncertainties; (ii) direct traceability between global and local projections;

This study compares recent CO, NOx, NMVOC, SO2, BC and OC anthropogenic emissions from several state‐of‐the‐art top‐down estimates to global and regional bottom‐up inventories and projections from five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) in several regions. Results show that top‐down emissions derived in several recent studies exhibit similar uncertainty as bottom‐up inventories in some regions for

We analyse projected changes in climate extremes (extreme temperatures and heavy precipitation) in the multi‐model ensembles of the 5th and 6th Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIP5 and CMIP6). The results reveal close similarity between both ensembles in the regional climate sensitivity of the projected multi‐model mean changes in climate extremes, i.e. their projected changes as a function

Whilst India becomes one of the largest carbon emitters in the world with a high emission growth rate, existing studies fail to capture the recent trends and the key driving factors behind it. Here, by using multi‐regional input‐output analysis and structural decomposition analysis, we measure the contribution of factors to the changes of India's domestic consumption and trade‐related emissions. This

The potential links between climate and conflict are well studied, yet disagreement about the specific mechanisms and their significance for societies persists. Here, we build on assessment of the relationship between climate and organized armed conflict to define crosscutting priorities for future directions of research. They include (1) deepening insight into climate‐conflict linkages and conditions

Investigation of the pressing impacts of climate change on drought is vital for sustainable societal and ecosystem functioning. The magnitude of how much the drought will change and the way how droughts would affect society and the environment are inadequately addressed over East Africa. This study aimed at assessing future drought changes using an ensemble of five Global Climate Models (GCMs) in the

Various transboundary river basins are facing increased pressure on water resources in near future. However, little is known ab out the future drivers globally, namely, changes in natural local runoff and natural inflows from upstream parts of a basin, as well as local and upstream water consumption. Here we use an ensemble of four global hydrological models forced by five global climate models and

The lack of capacity for climate change adaptation at the subnational level has been highlighted as a key barrier to implementing the UNFCCC National Adaptation Plans. At the same time, the adaptive capacity of local governance is highly context sensitive, making a “one‐size fits all” approach inappropriate. Thus, a versatile methodological approach for application in various local contexts is required

Research on heatwaves has gained significant impetus over the past decade due to a warming planet and rapid 21st century urbanization. This study examines driving factors influencing heatwave trends and interannual variability across Southern California (SoCal) from 1950–2020. Inland urban areas of Los Angeles county are the most susceptible to heatwaves with strong increasing trends in frequency,

Extreme droughts, heat waves, fires, hurricanes, floods, and landslides cause the largest losses in the United States, and globally, from natural hazards linked to weather and climate. There is evidence that the frequency of such extremes is increasing, particularly for heat waves, large fires, and intense precipitation, making better understanding of the probability and consequences of these events

Wildfires are ecosystem‐level drivers of structure and function in many vegetated biomes. While numerous studies have emphasized the benefits of fire to ecosystems, large wildfires have also been associated with the loss of ecosystem services and shifts in vegetation abundance. The size and number of wildfires are increasing across a number of regions, and yet the outcomes of large wildfire on vegetation

The Upper Basin of the Colorado River in the southwestern United States supports municipal, industrial, agricultural, and recreational activities worth an estimated $300 billion/year within the state of Colorado alone. The allocation of water to these activities is fundamentally shaped by water rights that in turn distribute risks among a diverse suite of sectors and stakeholders. In this study, we

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) are commonly used by decision makers in order to derive climate policies. IAMs are currently based on climate‐economics interactions, whereas the role of social system has been highlighted to be of prime importance on the implementation of climate policies. Beyond existing IAMs, we argue that it is therefore urgent to increase efforts in the integration of social

Climate change may have major influences on surface runoff, which would consequently result in important implications for terrestrial ecosystems and human well‐being. At global scale there is limited understanding of these issues with respect to the warming targets stipulated in the Paris Agreement. Here we use a well‐established hydrological model (Variable Infiltration Capacity [VIC]) forced with

Glacier mass loss is recognized as a major contributor to current sea level rise. However, large uncertainties remain in projections of glacier mass loss on global and regional scales. We present an ensemble of 288 glacier mass and area change projections for the 21st century based on 11 glacier models using up to 10 general circulation models and four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) as

In environmental management and sustainability there is an increasing interest in measurement and accounting of beneficial impact – as an incentive to action, as a communication tool, and to move towards a positive, constructive approach focused on opportunities rather than problems. One approach uses the metaphor of a “handprint”, complementing the notion of environmental footprints, which have been

We quantify historical and projected trends in the population exposure to climate extremes as measured by the United States National Center for Environmental Information Climate Extremes Index (CEI). Based on the analyses of the historical observations, we find that the U.S. has already experienced a rise in the occurrence of aggregated extremes in recent decades, consistent with the climate response

Water scarcity in the Arab region is intensifying due to population growth, economic development and the impacts of climate change. It is manifest in groundwater depletion, freshwater ecosystem degradation, deteriorating water quality, low levels of water storage per capita and added pressures on transboundary water resources. High‐income Arab countries have sought to circumvent the ever‐present challenges

China's environmental protection tax (EPT) has been implemented since the beginning of 2018 to control environmental issues (e.g., air pollution). The current EPT law indicates that tax revenues are given to provincial governments without return. However, tax revenue redistribution is the key to achieving a so‐called “double dividend”; that is, an environmental tax could benefit both the environment

The mechanisms causing European heatwaves in recent years, particularly their differences among several heatwaves, are poorly understood. Here, atmospheric circulation anomalies and soil moisture‐temperature coupling during the summer 2018 heatwave are comprehensively examined and compared with the 2003 and 2010 heatwaves using ERA5 reanalysis, model simulations and eddy covariance flux measurements

Lakes—quintessential features of Earth's surface prized from perspectives of water security, aquatic ecosystems, and recreation alike—are shrinking in water‐limited regions of all of Earth's inhabited continents. Here we assessed Landsat‐derived long‐term decrease in global lake area relative to historical lake extent aiming to determine the role of recent Anthropocene levels of irrigated agriculture

Declining water tables are causing wells to run dry in California, but the prevalence and spatial distribution of wells that have run dry is not known beyond anecdotal and voluntary reports. Here, we apply a new, simple and measurement‐driven method to calculate a localized water table; we show, for the first time using observations, that up to one‐in‐five wells now runs dry in California's Central

The Arctic Ocean is rapidly changing. With warming waters, receding sea ice and changing circulation patterns, it has been hypothesized that previously closed ecological pathways between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans will be opened as we move towards a seasonally ice‐free Arctic. The discovery of Pacific diatom Neodenticula seminae in the Atlantic suggests that a tipping point may have already been

Fast socio‐economic development in agriculture and urbanization resulted in increasing nutrient export by rivers, causing coastal eutrophication in China. In addition, climate change may affect hydrology, and as a result nutrient flows from land to sea. This study aims at a better understanding of how future socio‐economic and climatic changes may affect coastal eutrophication in China. We modeled

AGU's open‐access transdisciplinary science journal Earth's Future continued to grow in size and stature in 2019, with ~40% acceptance rate for ~280 new submissions that were evaluated by a similar number of external reviewers; their names are listed here.

Two major reports assessing global systemic risks have been published recently, presenting large‐scale panel data on the risk perceptions of different key communities, most notably business leaders and global change scientists. While both of these global communities agree on ranking environmental risks the highest, followed by societal, geopolitical, technological, and economic risks, business leaders

The U.S.‐China trade conflict has already considerably reshaped China's food imports, and should the conflict continue, it might have substantial impacts on global food supply dynamics as well as China's food supply sources. We address these implications by analyzing recent trends in China's food imports and associated use of land and water resources. We show that China's limited land and water availability

In recent decades, a striking number of countries have suffered from consecutive disasters: events whose impacts overlap both spatially and temporally, while recovery is still under way. The risk of consecutive disasters will increase due to growing exposure, the interconnectedness of human society, and the increased frequency and intensity of nontectonic hazard. This paper provides an overview of

Flood risk to urban communities is increasing significantly as a result of the integrated effects of climate change and socioeconomic development. The latter effect is one of the main drivers of rising flood risk has received less attention in comparison to climate change. Economic development and population growth are major causes of urban expansion in flood‐prone areas, and a comprehensive understanding

Extreme rainfall and flooding associated with landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs) have large societal impacts, both in fatalities and economic losses. This study examines the response of TC rainfall to climate change projected under future anthropogenic greenhouse emissions, focusing on Hurricane Irene, which produced severe flooding across the Northeastern United States in August 2011. Numerical simulations

Deep uncertainty describes situations when there is either ignorance or disagreement over (1) models used to describe key system processes and (2) probability distributions used to characterize the uncertainty of key variables and parameters. Future projections of Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) mass loss remain characterized by deep uncertainty. This complicates decisions on long‐lived coastal protection

Riverine flooding associated with landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs) in the western North Pacific basin is responsible for some of the most severe socioeconomic losses in East Asian countries. However, little is known about the spatial and temporal patterns of TC flooding and its climate controls, which constrain the predictive understandings of flood risk in this highly populated region. We provide

Surface water bodies and their changes in the landscape are critical for societies and ecosystems. However, the global change in surface water area over the last decades remains unclear, as recent studies using the same satellite data disagree on its direction. Here, we reanalyze reported maps of global water classification based on that data in order to estimate the changes in long‐term average surface

As part of the climate policy to meet the 2 °C target, actions in all economic sectors, including agriculture, are required to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions. While there has been an ever‐increasing focus on agricultural greenhouse gas (AGHG) emissions, limited attention has been paid to their economic drivers in the globalized world economy and related mitigation potentials. This paper makes

Famines have long been associated with drought. With the severity of droughts growing in association with climate change, there is increasing pressure to do a better job predicting famines and delivering international aid to avert human suffering and civil instability. We examine recent advances in remote sensing technology, focusing on the latency, historical availability and spatial and temporal

This paper argues that urban systems issues are design problems on a grand scale and that various disciplines aiming to address them can have only a partial view of the problem. It is necessary to draw boundaries around the detailed analyses of specific issues, but a way to map the wider system, to contextualize and more deeply understand how they are interrelated, is still lacking. Four complexity

The Arctic is undergoing a rapid transition toward a seasonal ice regime, with widespread implications for the polar ecosystem, human activities, as well as the global climate. Here we focus on how the changing ice cover impacts transborder exchange of sea ice between the exclusive economic zones of the Arctic states. We use the Sea Ice Tracking Utility, which follows ice floes from formation to melt

Atmospheric oscillations are known to drive the large‐scale variability of hydrometeorological extremes in Europe, which can trigger flood events and losses. However, to date there are no studies that have assessed the combined influence of different large‐scale atmospheric oscillations on the probabilities of flood losses occurring. Therefore, in this study we examine the relationship between five

Sea-level rise sits at the frontier of usable climate climate change research, because it involves natural and human systems with long lags, irreversible losses, and deep uncertainty. For example, many of the measures to adapt to sea-level rise involve infrastructure and land-use decisions, which can have multigenerational lifetimes and will further influence responses in both natural and human systems

Extremely high temperatures pose an immediate threat to humans and ecosystems. In recent years, many regions on land and in the ocean experienced heat waves with devastating impacts that would have been highly unlikely without human-induced climate change. Impacts are particularly severe when heat waves occur in regions with high exposure of people or crops. The recent 2018 spring-to-summer season

Regional emissions of methane and their attribution to a variety of sources presently have large uncertainties. Measurements of radiocarbon (14C) in methane (CH4) may provide a method for identifying regional CH4 emissions from fossil versus biogenic sources because adding 14C-free fossil carbon reduces the 14C/C ratio (Δ14CH4) in atmospheric CH4 much more than biogenic carbon does. We describe an

Surface water, which is changing constantly, is a crucial component in the global water cycle, as it greatly affects the water flux between the land and the atmosphere through evaporation. However, the influences of changing surface water area on the global water budget have largely been neglected. Here we estimate an extra water flux of 30.38 ± 15.51 km3/year omitted in global evaporation calculation

The goal of this study is to reframe the analysis and discussion of extreme heat projections to improve communication of future extreme heat risks in the United States. We combine existing data from 31 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 models to examine future exposure to extreme heat for global average temperatures of 1.5, 2, 3, and 4 °C above a preindustrial baseline. We find that

Water, food, energy, and the ecosystems they depend on interact with each other in highly complex and interlinked ways. These interdependencies can be traced particularly well in the context of a river basin, which is delineated by hydrological boundaries. The interactions are shaped by humans interacting with nature, and as such, a river basin can be characterized as a complex, coupled socioecological