Global emergence of unprecedented lifetime exposure to climate extremes.

Climate extremes are escalating under anthropogenic climate change. Yet, how this translates into unprecedented cumulative extreme event exposure in a person's lifetime remains unclear. Here we use climate models, impact models and demographic data to project the number of people experiencing cumulative lifetime exposure to climate extremes above the 99.

Enhanced heating effect of lakes under global warming.

Lakes play a crucial role in shaping both local and regional climates through heat exchange with the atmosphere. Amid global climate change, these interactions have undergone significant shifts. However, our understanding of the global heat release from lakes to the atmosphere, and its future trajectory, remains limited.

Cascading droughts: Exploring global propagation of meteorological to hydrological droughts (1971-2001).

An understanding of the spatiotemporal behaviour of Meteorological drought (MD) and Hydrological drought (HD) is crucial for analysing how drought propagation occurs. Here, drought events were treated as three-dimensional grid structures spanning space (latitude and longitude) and time. 31 years (1971-2001) of global MD and HD events were analysed for evidence of propagation, and the most severe 20 MD events explored in detail.

Using net-zero carbon debt to track climate overshoot responsibility.

Current emissions trends will likely deplete a 1.5 °C consistent carbon budget around the year 2030, resulting in at least a temporary exceedance, or overshoot. To clarify responsibilities for this budget exceedance, we consider "net-zero carbon debt," a forward-looking measure of the extent to which a party is expected to breach its "fair share" of the remaining budget by the time it achieves net-zero carbon emissions.

Impacts of irrigation expansion on moist-heat stress based on IRRMIP results.

Irrigation rapidly expanded during the 20 century, affecting climate via water, energy, and biogeochemical changes. Previous assessments of these effects predominantly relied on a single Earth System Model, and therefore suffered from structural model uncertainties. Here we quantify the impacts of historical irrigation expansion on climate by analysing simulation results from six Earth system models participating in the Irrigation Model Intercomparison Project (IRRMIP).

Impacts of land-use and land-cover changes on temperature-related mortality.

Background: Land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) can substantially affect climate through biogeochemical and biogeophysical effects. Here, we examine the future temperature-mortality impact for two contrasting LULCC scenarios in a background climate of low greenhouse gas concentrations. The first LULCC scenario implies a globally sustainable land use and socioeconomic development (sustainability).

Contribution of climate change to the spatial expansion of West Nile virus in Europe.

West Nile virus (WNV) is an emerging mosquito-borne pathogen in Europe where it represents a new public health threat. While climate change has been cited as a potential driver of its spatial expansion on the continent, a formal evaluation of this causal relationship is lacking. Here, we investigate the extent to which WNV spatial expansion in Europe can be attributed to climate change while accounting for other direct human influences such as land-use and human population changes.

Projected decline in European bumblebee populations in the twenty-first century.

Habitat degradation and climate change are globally acting as pivotal drivers of wildlife collapse, with mounting evidence that this erosion of biodiversity will accelerate in the following decades. Here, we quantify the past, present and future ecological suitability of Europe for bumblebees, a threatened group of pollinators ranked among the highest contributors to crop production value in the northern hemisphere. We demonstrate coherent declines of bumblebee populations since 1900 over most of Europe and identify future large-scale range contractions and species extirpations under all future climate and land use change scenarios.

Declining cost of renewables and climate change curb the need for African hydropower expansion.

Across continental Africa, more than 300 new hydropower projects are under consideration to meet the future energy demand that is expected based on the growing population and increasing energy access. Yet large uncertainties associated with hydroclimatic and socioeconomic changes challenge hydropower planning. In this work, we show that only 40 to 68% of the candidate hydropower capacity in Africa is economically attractive.

Neglected implications of land-use and land-cover changes on the climate-health nexus.

Climate change can substantially affect temperature-related mortality and morbidity, especially under high green-house gas emission pathways. Achieving the Paris Agreement goals require not only drastic reductions in fossil fuel-based emissions but also land-use and land-cover changes (LULCC), such as reforestation and afforestation. LULCC has been mainly analysed in the context of land-based mitigation and food security.

Overcoming global inequality is critical for land-based mitigation in line with the Paris Agreement.

Transformation pathways for the land sector in line with the Paris Agreement depend on the assumption of globally implemented greenhouse gas (GHG) emission pricing, and in some cases also on inclusive socio-economic development and sustainable land-use practices. In such pathways, the majority of GHG emission reductions in the land system is expected to come from low- and middle-income countries, which currently account for a large share of emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU). However, in low- and middle-income countries the economic, financial and institutional barriers for such transformative changes are high.

An all-Africa dataset of energy model "supply regions" for solar photovoltaic and wind power.

With solar and wind power generation reaching unprecedented growth rates globally, much research effort has recently gone into a comprehensive mapping of the worldwide potential of these variable renewable electricity (VRE) sources. From a perspective of energy systems analysis, the locations with the strongest resources may not necessarily be the best candidates for investment in new power plants, since the distance from existing grid and road infrastructures and the temporal variability of power generation also matter. To inform energy planning and policymaking, cost-optimisation models for energy systems must be fed with adequate data on potential sites for VRE plants, including costs reflective of resource strength, grid expansion needs and full hourly generation profiles.

Predicting the evolution of the Lassa virus endemic area and population at risk over the next decades.

Lassa fever is a severe viral hemorrhagic fever caused by a zoonotic virus that repeatedly spills over to humans from its rodent reservoirs. It is currently not known how climate and land use changes could affect the endemic area of this virus, currently limited to parts of West Africa. By exploring the environmental data associated with virus occurrence using ecological niche modelling, we show how temperature, precipitation and the presence of pastures determine ecological suitability for virus circulation.

Global increase in methane production under future warming of lake bottom waters.

Lakes are significant emitters of methane to the atmosphere, and thus are important components of the global methane budget. Methane is typically produced in lake sediments, with the rate of methane production being strongly temperature dependent. Local and regional studies highlight the risk of increasing methane production under future climate change, but a global estimate is not currently available.

A spatiotemporal atlas of hydropower in Africa for energy modelling purposes.

The modelling of electricity systems with substantial shares of renewable resources, such as solar power, wind power and hydropower, requires datasets on renewable resource profiles with high spatiotemporal resolution to be made available to the energy modelling community. Whereas such resources exist for solar power and wind power profiles on diurnal and seasonal scales across all continents, this is not yet the case for hydropower. Here, we present a newly developed open-access African hydropower atlas, containing seasonal hydropower generation profiles for nearly all existing and several hundred future hydropower plants on the African continent.

Intergenerational inequities in exposure to climate extremes.

Young generations are severely threatened by climate change.

Phenological shifts in lake stratification under climate change.

One of the most important physical characteristics driving lifecycle events in lakes is stratification. Already subtle variations in the timing of stratification onset and break-up (phenology) are known to have major ecological effects, mainly by determining the availability of light, nutrients, carbon and oxygen to organisms. Despite its ecological importance, historic and future global changes in stratification phenology are unknown.

Globally observed trends in mean and extreme river flow attributed to climate change.

Anthropogenic climate change is expected to affect global river flow. Here, we analyze time series of low, mean, and high river flows from 7250 observatories around the world covering the years 1971 to 2010. We identify spatially complex trend patterns, where some regions are drying and others are wetting consistently across low, mean, and high flows.

Correction to: A novel method for assessing climate change impacts in ecotron experiments.

The article was published bearing a typographical error to the second author name listed. The author group regret the error and the name should be referenced and credited as Jakob Zscheischler and not the former.

A novel method for assessing climate change impacts in ecotron experiments.

Ecotron facilities allow accurate control of many environmental variables coupled with extensive monitoring of ecosystem processes. They therefore require multivariate perturbation of climate variables, close to what is observed in the field and projections for the future. Here, we present a new method for creating realistic climate forcing for manipulation experiments and apply it to the UHasselt Ecotron experiment.