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Pesticide use in agriculture helps protect crop yields and support global food security, but environmental contamination and residues on food products pose risks to ecosystems and human health. This Review explores transboundary pesticide impacts of internationally traded foods, finding that fruit and vegetables have the highest embodied impacts.
Multiple record-breaking climate events have been observed, posing socioeconomic risks. This Review outlines observed and projected changes in record-breaking events, revealing 300–350% increases in the frequency of daily record heat in 2016–2024 relative to a stationary climate.
Coastal dunes are highly dynamic systems. This Review considers the foredune-building feedback between sand transport and vegetation and how their influence on foredune morphology, size and stability is affected by climate change and anthropogenic disturbances.
Natural hydrogen is generated through chemical and radioactive processes in the Earth’s crust, and could be an important future clean chemical feedstock and energy resource. This Review examines the processes of geological hydrogen generation, migration, accumulation and preservation that enable the development of exploitable reserves.
The collision of the Indian, Arabian and Eurasian plates formed the Tibetan and Iranian plateaus, but its timing and processes remain debated. This Review explores the evidence behind initial collision estimates and discusses the tectonic and geodynamic implications.
Deforestation footprints identify trade- and consumption-linked hot spots of forest loss. This Review synthesizes existing footprint assessments, finding that Brazil, Indonesia and China are major drivers of commodity-linked deforestation, but that estimates are influenced by method choice.
2024 was one of the wettest years on record, witnessing record-breaking extreme precipitation events across the globe, several of which were compound events. Extreme rainfalls were unprecedented in arid regions and parts of the Global South, with severe monsoon rains and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones causing severe casualties and economic losses.
Sea ice extent remained anomalously low in 2024. Annual mean Antarctic and Arctic sea ice extent was 10.38 million km2 and 10.42 million km2, respectively, the 2nd and 7th lowest of the satellite record.
Global sea level rose 0.59 cm in 2024 relative to 2023, reaching a total increase of 10.5 cm over the 31-year satellite record of sea level. Regionally, over 40% of the ocean reached its highest annual sea level value in 2024.
Global CO2 emissions in 2024 increased 0.9% on the previous year, totalling 36.3 Gt CO2. These ongoing emissions further deplete remaining carbon budgets, with some estimates suggesting the 1.5 °C budget will be surpassed within the next 5 years — and may have been already.
Wildfire burned area was 367 Mha in 2024, ranked 17th since 2001. An estimated 1,965 Tg C was released from these fires, 41% of which came from the Americas, far exceeding their usual 25% contribution.
2024 witnessed record-high global vegetation greenness, far outpacing the previous high set in 2020. A total of 67.7% of vegetated land surfaces experienced greening, notably in Eurasian and tropical grasslands, and global croplands.
2024 global mean lake surface water temperature (LSWT) was 0.3 °C greater than the 2001–2023 average, the fourth highest on record. Particularly strong positive — and record-breaking — LSWT anomalies occurred throughout Canada and north-eastern Europe, in some cases exceeding 2 °C.
Global terrestrial water storage (TWS) anomalies continue to decrease, reaching a record low of –7,404 km3 in 2024, a reduction of 796 km3 from 2023. TWS gains in Africa, Australia, Europe, and central and western Antarctica were offset by substantial losses in northwestern Canada, South America, southern Africa and Greenland.
2024 shattered temperature records, surpassing 2023’s historic highs to become the warmest year ever recorded. Extreme heatwaves hit West Africa in February, South America and Eastern Europe in March, Southeast Asia in April, and Mexico in June.
2024 saw multiple high-impact compound events. Record-breaking global temperatures combined with regional weather variability to create compound floods, spatially compounding droughts and heatwaves, and hazard sequences with often devastating impacts.
Global full-depth ocean heat content (OHC) gain since 1960 reached a record 452 ± 77 ZJ in 2024. OHC was 15 ± 9 ZJ higher than in 2023, primarily associated with warming in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Crop yield losses to insect pests pose a risk to food security. This Review assesses global trends of crop pest prevalence associated with global environmental change, identifies the underlying ecological mechanisms and proposes strategies for effective, sustainable management of pests to support future food security.
Closure of the Tethys Seaway marked the last connection between the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans. This Review explores how mantle convection and associated volcanic activity caused Tethys Seaway closure and discusses the implications for ocean circulation, faunal diversification and climate.
Climate change affects Tibetan lakes through its influence on precipitation, glacial meltwater flux, and permafrost degradation. This Review discusses the observed response of the physical and biogeochemical properties of lakes, including salinity and trophic complexity, to changes in lake size and looks towards future priorities in lake monitoring and modelling.
