The impact of environmental shocks due to climate change on intimate partner violence: A structural equation model of data from 156 countries
Climate change-related landslides, storms and floods are associated with intimate partner violence against women two years after the event, according to this study.
Low- and middle-income countries are disproportionately impacted by climate change’s acute (e.g., flooding) and chronic (e.g., rising sea levels) effects. Countries undergoing climate shocks are more likely to see increased intimate partner violence against women, possibly because climate disasters reaffirm the gender-based economic disparities.
Mannell and colleagues analyzed 363 nationally representative surveys from 156 countries to estimate the prevalence of intimate partner violence, defined as physical or sexual violence against a woman from her partner in the last year. Each survey represented one year of data for its respective country encompassing 1993-2019. Most countries had five or fewer years represented.
The researchers analyzed this data against climate shock data from the Emergency Events Database, filtering for eight events linked to climate change: earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, extreme temperatures, droughts, floods, storms and wildfires. – PLOS
Journal Reference:
Mannell J, Brown LJ, Jordaan E, Hatcher A, Gibbs A, ‘The impact of environmental shocks due to climate change on intimate partner violence: A structural equation model of data from 156 countries’, PLOS Climate 3(10): e0000478 (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000478
But can it drive to Lapland? A comparison of electric vehicle owners with the general population for identification of attitudes, concerns and barriers related to electric vehicle adoption in Finland
Transportation is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions with private car use accounting for a large proportion of those emissions. Battery powered electric vehicles (EV) are a currently available technology that has the potential to significantly reduce emissions from car use. Therefore, promoting a shift from internal combustion engine vehicles to EVs should be supported by policy makers aiming to curtail emissions from car use.
To design policies and interventions to promote EV adoption, information is needed on how people perceive electric vehicles and what are the real and perceived barriers preventing their adoption. With this objective in mind, it was investigated what the current EV owners in Finland are like and how they compare with the general population. We also endeavored to identify real as well as potentially misperceived barriers to EV adoption and factors affecting EV purchasing intentions.
The study utilizes a sample of 3,857 participants, including 141 electric car owners, who answered a questionnaire investigating lifestyle, car use, environmental and political attitudes as well as household carbon footprint and attitudes towards EVs. EV owners in Finland have more financial security, own more cars, drive more, and have a larger average household carbon footprint than the general population. There are two distinct subgroups among electric car owners, one group being interested in environmental impact of their car use and the other focused on the performance of their cars.
People without experience of EVs generally have negative attitudes towards electric cars and also maintain some misconceptions about EVs. Personal experience with electric vehicles is associated with a positive outlook on these types of vehicles and is the strongest predictor of EV purchasing intentions. – PLOS Climate
Journal Reference:
Sandman N, Sahari E, Koponen A, ‘But can it drive to Lapland? A comparison of electric vehicle owners with the general population for identification of attitudes, concerns and barriers related to electric vehicle adoption in Finland’, PLOS Climate 3(10): e0000346 (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000346
Daytime land surface temperature and its limits as a proxy for surface air temperature in a subtropical, seasonally wet region
Land surface temperatures (LSTs) captured via satellite remote sensing are widely used as a proxy for the surface air temperatures (SATs) experienced outdoors, a key component of human heat exposure. However, LST’s accuracy in capturing SAT can vary through space and time across climate types and geographies and has been less explored in subtropical, seasonally wet regions (where summer precipitation exceeds 570 mm).
Utilizing daytime (11 AM/12 PM local time, ET/EST) Landsat 8 remote sensing data, this study derived LST and evaluated its spatiotemporal patterns, as well as its relationship with SAT retrieved from local weather stations, using the case of Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA. Over 2013–2022, a surface urban heat island effect is distinctly present (mean SUHII = 3.43°C) – most intense during spring months rather than summer months (mean spring SUHII = 4.09°C). As such, LST peaks in May/June as opposed to July/August for many other parts of the northern hemisphere.
In contrast, Miami-Dade SAT is greatest in August, and the strength of its relationship with LST varies by season. LST and SAT are most correlated in winter (R = 0.91) and spring (R = 0.59) months and least correlated during the wetter fall (R = 0.40) months. The relationship between LST and SAT during the summer is statistically insignificant. In this subtropical region with a seasonally wet climate, LST effectively reflects the spatial heterogeneity of the urban thermal landscape, consistent with the literature across urban regions globally.
However, because the strength of the LST-SAT relationship considerably weakens during wet season months, LST data therefore have limits as a proxy for the heat exposure people experience outdoors annually, as they may not accurately represent the magnitude of localized potential heat risks. These findings underscore important considerations in using LST data to identify urban heat exposures and inform potential adaptive responses in seasonally wet, subtropical-to-tropical regions. – PLOS Climate
Journal Reference:
Muse N, Clement A, Mach KJ, ‘Daytime land surface temperature and its limits as a proxy for surface air temperature in a subtropical, seasonally wet region’, PLOS Climate 3(10): e0000278 (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000278
A demand-driven climate services for health implementation framework: A case study for climate-sensitive diseases in Caribbean Small Island Developing States
Here we introduce a demand-driven framework designed to implement climate services in the health sector, with a particular focus on the Caribbean region.
Climate services are essential for supporting informed decision-making and response strategies in relation to climate-related health risks. Through collaborative efforts, we are co-producing a climate-driven dengue early warning system (EWS) to target vector-borne diseases effectively. While challenges exist in implementing such systems, EWSs provide valuable tools for managing epidemic risks by predicting potential disease outbreaks in advance.
The scarcity of operational climate tools in the health sector underscores the need for increased investment and strategic implementation practices. To address these challenges, a demand-driven framework is proposed, emphasizing strategic planning focused on health intervention development, partnership building, data, communication, human resources, capacity building, and sustainable funding.
This framework aims to integrate climate services seamlessly into health systems, thereby enhancing public health resilience and facilitating well-informed decision-making to effectively address climate-sensitive diseases. – PLOS Climate
Journal Reference:
Díaz AR, Rollock L, Boodram L-LG, Mahon R, Best S, Trotman A, et al. ‘A demand-driven climate services for health implementation framework: A case study for climate-sensitive diseases in Caribbean Small Island Developing States’, PLOS Climate 3(10): e0000282 (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000282
Trends and cycles in rainfall, temperature, NDVI, IOD and SOI in the Mara-Serengeti: Insights for biodiversity conservation
Understanding climate and vegetation trends and variations is essential for conservation planning and ecosystem management. These elements are shaped by regional manifestations of global climate change, impacting biodiversity conservation and dynamics. In the southern hemisphere, global climate change is partially reflected through trends in the hemispheric Southern Oscillation (SOI) and regional oscillations such as the Indian Ocean Dipole Mode (IOD). These phenomena influence rainfall and temperature changes, making it crucial to understand their patterns and interdependencies.
Appropriately analyzing these variables and their interrelations therefore requires a robust multivariate statistical model, a tool seldom employed to extract patterns in climate and vegetation time series. Widely used univariate statistical methods in this context fall short, as they do not account for interdependencies and covariation between multiple time series.
State-space models, both univariate and multivariate, adeptly analyze structural time series by decomposing them into trends, cycles, seasonal, and irregular patterns. Bivariate and multivariate state-space models, in particular, can provide deeper insights into trends and variations by accounting for interdependencies and covariation but are rarely used. We use univariate, bivariate and multivariate state space models to uncover trends and variations in historic rainfall, temperature, and vegetation for the Greater Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem in Kenya and Tanzania and potential influences of oceanic and atmospheric oscillations.
The univariate, bivariate and multivariate patterns reveal several insights. For example, rainfall is bimodal, shows significant interannual variability but stable seasonality. Wet and dry seasons display strong, compensating quasi-cyclic oscillations, leading to stable annual averages. Rainfall was above average in both seasons from 2010–2020, influenced by global warming and the IOD. The ecosystem experienced recurrent severe droughts, erratic wet conditions and a 4.8 to 5.8°C temperature rise over six decades.
The insights gained have important implications for developing strategies to mitigate climate change impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human welfare. – PLOS Climate
Journal Reference:
Ogutu JO, Bartzke GS, Mukhopadhyay S, Dublin HT, Senteu JS, Gikungu D, et al. ‘Trends and cycles in rainfall, temperature, NDVI, IOD and SOI in the Mara-Serengeti: Insights for biodiversity conservation’, PLOS Climate 3(10): e0000388 (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000388
Exploring the scalability and sustainability of community-based agroforestry to achieve planetary health benefits in Haiti’s Lower Artibonite Valley
Community-based agroforestry, as a planetary health solution, can rebuild fertile soils, minimize climate risk, diversify farmer incomes, and provide a source of food, raw materials, and other vital ecosystem functions. Utilizing focus groups, individual semi-structured interviews, and field observations, we studied how the Haiti Timber Reintroduction Program (HTRIP), an agroforestry program operating in Haiti since 2005, leveraged institutional infrastructures and social networks to facilitate the adoption, scaling, and sustainability of community-based agroforestry as a solution for planetary health.
Results show that the adoption and scaling of community-based agroforestry was facilitated by support from institutional and social networks. The results underscore the importance of cross-sector collaboration and coordination in creating the enabling conditions necessary for successful community-based agroforestry implementation. Additionally, strengthened social networks, cultivated through long-term participation in the HTRIP, contributed to the program’s sustainability.
While competing socio-political problems in some low-income settings may seem insurmountable – particularly those in fragile states, where our study took place – our research demonstrates that community-based agroforestry solutions are possible. Where culturally relevant, this ecologically and socially based practice could be scaled up to amplify its benefits to more communities. We encourage further research to explore the scaling up of regenerative practices such as agroforestry for climate resilience and planetary health. – PLOS Climate
Journal Reference:
Blaise GC, Allred SB, Morreale SJ, Meredith GR, Sprenkle-Hyppolite S, Buck LE, et al. ‘Exploring the scalability and sustainability of community-based agroforestry to achieve planetary health benefits in Haiti’s Lower Artibonite Valley’, PLOS Climate 3(10): e0000406 (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000406
Future Amazon basin wetland hydrology under projected climate change
Climate change over the Amazon basin has the potential to cause major hydrological and ecological impacts over the region’s extensive wetlands. To investigate this the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) land surface model is first extended to include riverine inundation.
Potential impacts of future climate change on Amazon basin wetlands are then evaluated by driving this updated JULES model with modelled meteorology projections from six different climate simulations reaching approximately 4°C global warming at the end of the 21st Century. The projected changes in inundation extent and seasonality are assessed over four major wetland regions. The simulations project, on average, a significant decrease in total Amazon basin inundated area of 11% (range: -36% to +9%) by the 2090s. This considerable spread is primarily driven by disparity in simulated precipitation changes, ultimately driven by sea surface temperature differences.
The wetter contemporary climate simulations simulate the greatest drying by the end of this Century, resulting in the largest wetland area reductions. The largest qualitative disagreement is over the western Iquitos wetland, with inundated area changes ranging from a very large reduction of -53% to an increase of 12%.
A new wetland classification scheme is developed to summarise the projected changes in wetland seasonality. The largest drops in simulated wetland season length occur over the Central/East Manaus and West Iquitos wetland regions, with reductions of up to 10 and 8 months respectively. Such significant changes in future inundation are likely to have a major impact on regional wetland hydrology and their ecosystems. – PLOS Water
Journal Reference:
Gedney N, Rudorff C, Betts RA, ‘Future Amazon basin wetland hydrology under projected climate change’. PLOS Water 3(9): e0000225 (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000225
An exceptional phytoplankton bloom in the southeast Madagascar Sea driven by African dust deposition
A study links an unusual plankton bloom off the coast of Madagascar to drought in Southern Africa. Climate warming has intensified droughts around the world. When vegetation dies from lack of water, the wind can pick up and carry unprotected soil particles for thousands of kilometers. These dust particles can then act as fertilizer when deposited in seawater.
Dionysios Raitsos and colleagues show that dust from drought-stricken Southern Africa caused a bloom of marine phytoplankton off the southeast Madagascar coast from November 2019 through February 2020. The team used standardized anomalies of dust aerosol optical depth from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and in situ coarse mode aerosol optical depth retrieved by a nearby Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) station to quantify the density of atmospheric dust aerosols over the Madagascar area through time.
Dust aerosol optical depth anomalies averaged over the bloom region were the highest ever observed during the 17 years CAMS has been collecting data. This dust cloud coincided with heavy rains, which deposited the iron-rich particles into the sea, creating ideal nutrient conditions for phytoplankton growth.
The authors identify multiple potential sources of these iron-rich dust aerosols in Southern Africa, which experienced high air temperature and drought from 2012–2020. According to the authors, as the climate warms, additional phytoplankton blooms caused by the same mechanism are to be expected—and these blooms could take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. – PNAS Nexus
Journal Reference:
John A Gittings, Giorgio Dall’Olmo, Weiyi Tang, Joan Llort, Fatma Jebri, Eleni Livanou, Francesco Nencioli, Sofia Darmaraki, Iason Theodorou, Robert J W Brewin, Meric Srokosz, Nicolas Cassar, Dionysios E Raitsos, ‘An exceptional phytoplankton bloom in the southeast Madagascar Sea driven by African dust deposition’, PNAS Nexus 3(10), pgae386 (2024). DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae386
Perceptions of carbon dioxide emission reductions and future warming among climate experts
A new survey of climate experts reveals that a majority believes the Earth to be headed for a rise in global temperatures far higher than the 2015 Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 to well-below 2°C.
The study also shows that two-thirds of respondents — all of them authors on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — believe we may succeed in achieving net zero CO2 emissions during the second half of this century. This indicates some optimism that mitigation efforts may be starting to bend the emissions curve toward what would be needed to achieve the Paris temperature goal.
A majority also acknowledged the potential for atmospheric CO2 removal, with a median response indicating a belief that the technology could remove up to five gigatons of carbon dioxide (GtCO2) a year by 2050. That is at the lower end of the range believed to be necessary to meet the Paris targets.
“We wanted to survey some of the top climate experts in the world to get some insight into their perceptions of different future climate outcomes,” says the paper’s lead author, Seth Wynes, a former postdoctoral fellow at Concordia, now an assistant professor at the University of Waterloo.
“These scientists also engage in important climate change communication, so their optimism or pessimism can affect how decision-makers are receiving messages about climate change.” – Concordia University
Journal Reference:
Wynes, S., Davis, S.J., Dickau, M. et al. ‘Perceptions of carbon dioxide emission reductions and future warming among climate experts’, Communications Earth & Environment 5, 498 (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-024-01661-8
Arctic soil carbon trajectories shaped by plant–microbe interactions
Utilizing one of the longest-running ecosystem experiments in the Arctic, a Colorado State University-led team of researchers have developed a better understanding of the interplay among plants, microbes and soil nutrients – findings that offer new insight into how critical carbon deposits may be released from thawing Arctic permafrost.
Estimates suggest that Arctic soils contain nearly twice the amount of carbon that is currently in the atmosphere. As climate change has caused portions of Earth’s northernmost polar regions to thaw, scientists have long been concerned about significant amounts of carbon being released in the form of greenhouse gases, a process fueled by microbes.
Much of the efforts to study and model this scenario have focused specifically on how rising global temperatures will disrupt the carbon currently locked in Arctic soils. But warming is impacting the region in other ways, too, including changing plant productivity, the overall composition of vegetation across the landscape, and the balance of nutrients in the soil. These changes in plant composition will also affect the way carbon is cycled from the soil into the atmosphere, according to this study. The work was led by Megan Machmuller, a research scientist in CSU’s Soil and Crop Sciences Department. – Colorado State University
Journal Reference:
Machmuller, M.B., Lynch, L.M., Mosier, S.L. et al. ‘Arctic soil carbon trajectories shaped by plant–microbe interactions’, Nature Climate Change (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-024-02147-3
Parameterization of Tree and Shrub Stem Wood Density Adaptions to Multiple Climate and Soil Factor Gradients
This study provides new insights into how wood density in trees and shrubs adapts to different climate and soil conditions. Led by Dr. SONG Xiang from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the research offers a more detailed understanding of vegetation responses to environmental factors, with implications for improving Earth system models and dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs).
Wood density, a critical trait for both the quality and function of plant species, plays a significant role in predicting vegetation distributions and ecosystem dynamics. However, current global models typically treat wood density as a uniform constant across plant functional types, such as broadleaf trees, needle-leaf trees, and shrubs. This generalization can lead to inaccuracies when predicting how different plant types interact with their environments.
“Our research shows that this simplification in current models could introduce serious biases,” explained Dr. SONG. “By incorporating the variability in wood density across different plant functional types and environmental gradients, we can greatly enhance the accuracy of simulations, particularly for tree morphology and forest dynamics.” – Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Journal Reference:
Song, X., Li, J. & Zeng, X., ‘Parameterization of Tree and Shrub Stem Wood Density Adaptions to Multiple Climate and Soil Factor Gradients’, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s00376-024-4034-9
Warming triggers stomatal opening by enhancement of photosynthesis and ensuing guard cell CO2 sensing, whereas higher temperatures induce a photosynthesis-uncoupled response
Microscopic pores on the surface of leaves called stomata help plants “breathe” by controlling how much water they lose to evaporation. These stomatal pores also enable and control carbon dioxide intake for photosynthesis and growth.
As far back as the 19th century, scientists have known that plants increase their stomatal pore openings to transpire, or “sweat,” by sending water vapor through stomata to cool off. Today, with global temperatures and heat waves on the rise, widening stomatal pores are considered a key mechanism that can minimize heat damage to plants.
But for more than a century, plant biologists have lacked a full accounting of the genetic and molecular mechanisms behind increased stomatal “breathing” and transpiration processes in response to elevated temperatures.
University of California San Diego School of Biological Sciences PhD student Nattiwong Pankasem and Professor Julian Schroeder have constructed a detailed picture of these mechanisms.
“With increasing global temperatures, there’s obviously a threat to agriculture with the impact of heat waves,” said Schroeder. “This research describes the discovery that rising temperatures cause stomatal opening by one genetic pathway (mechanism), but if the heat steps up even further, then there’s another mechanism that kicks in to increase stomatal opening.” – University of California – San Diego
Journal Reference:
Pankasem, N., Hsu, P.-K., Lopez, B.N.K., Franks, P.J. and Schroeder, J.I., ‘Warming triggers stomatal opening by enhancement of photosynthesis and ensuing guard cell CO2 sensing, whereas higher temperatures induce a photosynthesis-uncoupled response’, New Phytologist (2024). DOI: 10.1111/nph.20121
Featured image credit: kjpargeter | Freepik
