Communications Earth & Environment

🌍 As the world warms, cooling remains deeply unequal. Low-income countries face 2.4-2.7× more heat exposure than high-income countries but use <3% as much cooling electricity per person. By 2100, up to 63% of vulnerable people could face high heat stress 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s44...

🧪Soil fungi are an underexplored tool for climate mitigation, and synthetic biology could enhance their contributions to carbon sequestration as well as nutrient cycling, soil health, pollutant degradation, and ecosystem resilience. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🛢️Energy supply crises matter because their economic impacts extend beyond energy markets. This Comment argues that energy security should be understood by how energy systems transmit price shocks to the wider economy. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌱Rising irrigation demand and declining irrigation development potential could constrain future food production under climate change. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌱Carbon removals by intact African tropical moist forests nearly offset land‑use emissions across 18 tropical countries, underscoring the importance of environmental policies to protect this critical carbon sink. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌊The tropical Pacific shifts towards El Niño-like conditions under ongoing warming and does not recover for centuries after emissions cease. @adisen99.bsky.social @unimelb.edu.au @21stcenturyweather.bsky.social 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

When public support is a barrier to action, framing matters. A survey in Japan suggests that biodiversity conservation policies may attract broader backing than climate-focused measures. wildlife.org/conserving-b...

🌞🏠As people adapt to heat by spending more time indoors, using air conditioners, and seeking cooler basements, they may face higher radon exposure, a leading cause of lung cancer. Climate change adaptation should include indoor air quality and radon mitigation. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s44...

One of our top-rated articles on @altmetric.com this past week was published open access in @commsearth.nature.com. You can read 'Ocean thermal inertia sustains a tropical Pacific mean state shift under net zero' here: spklr.io/63329EVHRc

🌋The identification of previously unrecognized eruptions and improved correlations between ice cave deposits and other volcanic archives refine the eruptive history of Mount Melbourne. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

⛽🏭Oil and gas emissions in the USA have declined from 2019 to 2024, likely as a result of gradual technological and operational developments, and existing federal regulations.🧪 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🪰Increasing damage from geometrid moths in mountain birch forests led to higher emissions of volatile organic compounds and altered their composition in subarctic Sweden. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🔌☀️Future climate change is projected to increase solar photovoltaic power generation in Sweden by about 5% compared to historical periods, while optimized panel tilt can boost output by 3 to 6%. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Tidal marsh vegetation survives extreme storms better than expected, with only ~30% average biomass loss. The findings help predict marsh survival during major storms, reducing uncertainty around nature-based flood protection. 🌍🧪 @natureportfolio.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s44...

🔥Fire-derived ozone increases carbon losses from the Amazon by about one quarter of direct fire emissions, with damage persisting during extreme drought despite stomatal limitation 🌳 @tropoz.bsky.social @flossie-brown.bsky.social 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌲Drought is perceived as a major threat to European forests, and while professionals prioritize species diversity, broadleaf-conifer mixtures and assisted regeneration, timber price increases may favor maintaining conifers. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌞Clean energy resources are right above our heads. In Hong Kong, rooftop solar could generate 3.77 TWh of electricity annually and avoid 24.9 billion kg of CO₂ over its lifetime. Most installations could pay back their costs within a few years. 🧪https://www.nature.com/articles/s44458-026-00157-0

✈️ Aircraft emissions can degrade air quality and result in excess deaths due to particulate matter and ozone 🧪 @eng.cam.ac.uk 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

A surprising isotopic fingerprint in β-alanine from asteroid Bennu and the Murchison meteorite go.nature.com/4inhMfw — Mcintosh, O.M., Baczynski, A.A., Rasmussen, C. et al. Commun Earth Environ (2026) doi.org/10.1038/s432... #OpenAccess #BehindThePaper | @commsearth.nature.com

🔥Fire governance must move beyond uniform suppression toward legitimate, adaptive, and context-specific policies aligned with ecological dynamics and local livelihoods. @thebotanics.bsky.social @rbgkew.bsky.social @mobotgarden.bsky.social 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

❄️European snow-cover extent has undergone an unprecedented seasonal reorganization since around 1850: December–January snow cover extent shrinks by up to 20%, while April–May snow cover extent declines by up to 30%. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌏The 2025 Mw 8.8 Kamchatka megathrust earthquake exhibited only limited shallow slip and seafloor deformation, which explains the suppressed far-field amplitudes despite substantial local run-up. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🏙️Recycled steel slag pavements in China could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 19%, reduce fine particle pollution by 13%, prevent up to 128,980 premature deaths, and deliver major economic gains. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

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Data from Belize document shows a shift from wetland-adjacent maize farming at 6,000 BP to upland maize farming by 3,500 BP correlating with climate change and population growth in the Maya lowlands. www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌊Combining #Indigenous Knowledge with #ArcticOcean modelling can strengthen climate science while supporting community needs, creating ongoing, two-way partnerships.🧪 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Textural, mineralogical, and chemical analyses of the Jezero crater Margin unit from Perseverance’s SuperCam identify multiple episodes of aqueous alteration driven by early carbon-rich fluids, paleolake/groundwater interaction, and late-stage hydrothermal activity. www.nature.com/articles/s43...

A hydropower plant destroyed in Nepal’s August 2026 floods had already failed in a similar event just 14 months earlier, yet was rebuilt on the same site. A Comment argues that governance and financing can lock low-carbon infrastructure into hazardous locations. 🌏🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s44...

💻 📈AI is becoming a major electricity user. Powering AI data centers could require about 1% of the world's electricity by 2030. Growth is concentrated in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, creating uneven pressures on power systems. 🧪 Read more: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

🌳Long-term drought exposure enhances Amazon tree resilience to extreme drought through structural adjustments at ecosystem and tree levels, which reduces transpiration declines and enables full recovery. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

💧Severe meteorological droughts reduced streamflow and increased water temperature and specific conductance in the Upper Colorado River Basin between 1998 and 2022. @eesaberkeleylab.bsky.social 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Mediterranean woodlands persisted in coastal Lebanon for hundreds of millennia, supporting diverse ungulates and shaping distinct hominin foraging strategies, highlighting ecological contrasts with the southern Levant 🦌 @gabrieleru1.bsky.social 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

The central Levant maintained stable Mediterranean seasonality and resource‑rich C3 woodlands across multiple glacial-interglacial cycles, acting as a persistent ecological refugium for hominins 🧪 @gabrieleru1.bsky.social 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🚨We're hiring! 🚨Communications Sustainability is looking for a new Associate or Senior Editor (full-time, permanent position). 🌏 Madrid, Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Pune or New Delhi 🗓️Apply by September 28 Want to shape influential science for a greener future? Join our team! tinyurl.com/325d4b6k

🔥Modelling future wildfires remains highly uncertain, despite improvements in fire-process representation and the introduction of hybrid frameworks integrating observations, process-based modelling, and machine learning. @bburnedscience.bsky.social 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌎Indigenous communities and ancestral heritage in Alaska face escalating climate threats. This Perspective argues that, by validating Indigenous knowledge systems, archaeology can help sustain intergenerational resilience. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🏔️The 2025 Blatten rock and ice avalanche in Switzerland happened in four kinematic stages, preceded by over two weeks of escalating precursory activity and with high mobility driven by extreme frictional weakening. 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🔥Fire occurrences are a major driver of severe, seasonally intense nitrogen dioxide pollution in West Africa, necessitating urgent policy interventions to mitigate the significant risks to human health. 🧪 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌎U.S. estuaries show widespread warming, eutrophication, and oxygen declines over the last two decades, with rising chlorophyll a is primarily driven by nutrient changes. @sc.edu @rutgersuniversity.bsky.social 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌱Pollen, charcoal, and biomarkers from 90-million-year-old Antarctic peatland sediments reveal that fire dynamics in the earliest peatlands of the warm, CO₂-rich Cretaceous world closely resembled modern ecosystems. @nu-eccor.bsky.social @awi.de 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌧️Assimilation of mid-tropospheric vapor isotopes significantly improves short-term weather forecasts and mean-to-extreme precipitation, especially at mid-latitudes. @utokyoofficial.bsky.social @colorado.edu @kit.edu 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌊Central Pacific El Niño activity increased between the first and second millennia CE, while volcanic eruptions likely drove cooling episodes. @climatereefs.bsky.social @marumunibremen.bsky.social @thomasfelis.bsky.social @andydolman.bsky.social 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🐧Penguin observation just got improved: Three of Antarctica's largest emperor penguin colonies were monitored year-round from 2017–2024, overcoming historical winter observation limitations and demonstrating lower winter than summer movement. @bas.ac.uk www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🚜👩‍🌾Regenerative agriculture spreads through international influencers, shaping shared principles, while local peers tailor practices to context. @w-u-r.bsky.social 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...