We are in a climate and ecological emergency, where climate change and direct anthropogenic interference with the biosphere are risking abrupt and/or irreversible changes that threaten our life-support systems. Efforts are underway to increase the resilience of some ecosystems that are under threat, yet collective awareness and action are modest at best. Here we highlight the potential for a biosphere resilience sensing system to make it easier to see where things are going wrong, and to see whether deliberate efforts to make things better are working. We focus on global resilience sensing of the terrestrial biosphere at high spatial and temporal resolution through satellite remote sensing, utilising the generic mathematical behaviour of complex systems – loss of resilience corresponds to slower recovery from perturbations, gain of resilience equates to faster recovery. We consider what subset of biosphere resilience remote sensing can monitor, critically reviewing existing studies. Then we present illustrative, global results for vegetation resilience and trends in resilience over the last 20 years, from both satellite data and model simulations. We close by discussing how resilience sensing nested across global, biome-ecoregion, and local ecosystem scales, could aid management and governance at these different scales, and identify priorities for further work.

AbstractMany scenarios for limiting global warming to 1.5°C assume planetary‐scale carbon dioxide removal sufficient to exceed anthropogenic emissions, resulting in radiative forcing falling and temperatures stabilizing. However, such removal technology may prove unfeasible for technical, environmental, political, or economic reasons, resulting in continuing greenhouse gas emissions from hard‐to‐mitigate sectors. This may lead to constant concentration scenarios, where net anthropogenic emissions remain non‐zero but small, and are roughly balanced by natural carbon sinks. Such a situation would keep atmospheric radiative forcing roughly constant. Fixed radiative forcing creates an equilibrium “committed” warming, captured in the concept of “equilibrium climate sensitivity.” This scenario is rarely analyzed as a potential extension to transient climate scenarios. Here, we aim to understand the planetary response to such fixed concentration commitments, with an emphasis on assessing the resulting likelihood of exceeding temperature thresholds that trigger climate tipping points. We explore transients followed by respective equilibrium committed warming initiated under low to high emission scenarios. We find that the likelihood of crossing the 1.5°C threshold and the 2.0°C threshold is 83% and 55%, respectively, if today's radiative forcing is maintained until achieving equilibrium global warming. Under the scenario that best matches current national commitments (RCP4.5), we estimate that in the transient stage, two tipping points will be crossed. If radiative forcing is then held fixed after the year 2100, a further six tipping point thresholds are crossed. Achieving a trajectory similar to RCP2.6 requires reaching net‐zero emissions rapidly, which would greatly reduce the likelihood of tipping events.

The stability and resilience of the Earth system and human well-being are inseparably linked1-3, yet their interdependencies are generally under-recognized; consequently, they are often treated independently4,5. Here, we use modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for climate, the biosphere, water and nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and subglobal scales. We propose ESBs for maintaining the resilience and stability of the Earth system (safe ESBs) and minimizing exposure to significant harm to humans from Earth system change (a necessary but not sufficient condition for justice)4. The stricter of the safe or just boundaries sets the integrated safe and just ESB. Our findings show that justice considerations constrain the integrated ESBs more than safety considerations for climate and atmospheric aerosol loading. Seven of eight globally quantified safe and just ESBs and at least two regional safe and just ESBs in over half of global land area are already exceeded. We propose that our assessment provides a quantitative foundation for safeguarding the global commons for all people now and into the future.

Climate tipping points occur when change in a part of the climate system becomes self-perpetuating beyond a warming threshold, leading to substantial Earth system impacts. Synthesizing paleoclimate, observational, and model-based studies, we provide a revised shortlist of global "core" tipping elements and regional "impact" tipping elements and their temperature thresholds. Current global warming of ~1.1°C above preindustrial temperatures already lies within the lower end of some tipping point uncertainty ranges. Several tipping points may be triggered in the Paris Agreement range of 1.5 to

AbstractThe Sustainable Development Goals aim to improve access to resources and services, reduce environmental degradation, eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. However, the magnitude of the environmental burden that would arise from meeting the needs of the poorest is under debate—especially when compared to much larger burdens from the rich. We show that the ‘Great Acceleration’ of human impacts was characterized by a ‘Great Inequality’ in using and damaging the environment. We then operationalize ‘just access’ to minimum energy, water, food and infrastructure. We show that achieving just access in 2018, with existing inequalities, technologies and behaviours, would have produced 2–26% additional impacts on the Earth’s natural systems of climate, water, land and nutrients—thus further crossing planetary boundaries. These hypothetical impacts, caused by about a third of humanity, equalled those caused by the wealthiest 1–4%. Technological and behavioural changes thus far, while important, did not deliver just access within a stable Earth system. Achieving these goals therefore calls for a radical redistribution of resources.

The Swedish Varve Chronology is an unparalleled tool for linking the deglacial history of Sweden with associated palaeo-environmental change at an annual time scale, and it forms part of Sweden's cultural heritage. A full deglacial chronology connected to the present day does not yet exist; a notable gap is in southeasternmost Sweden, where few varved records are successfully connected to reconstruct ice-margin retreat. Deglaciation in southern Sweden covers both the climate transition to the Bølling warm period (~14.7 ka BP) and the ice-margin transition from a subaqueous to terrestrial terminus. To facilitate investigations into the links between ice-margin dynamics and abrupt climate change, we revisited the varve chronologies of southern Sweden. We digitized unpublished records, reanalysed existing varve thickness records, and obtained and analysed new varve series both on land and offshore. This combined approach has enabled us to refine and extend the existing south coast chronology east and 78 km northwards. Our new Skåne-Småland chronology records 725 years of deglaciation, in addition to a younger floating chronology in parts. This chronology suggests that the glacial-lake terminating Fennoscandian Ice Sheet in southern Sweden initially retreated northwards at ~110–160 m a−1 slowing to 60–70 m a−1 near the palaeo-shoreline. Between today's mainland and the (now) island of Öland the retreat rates increase three- to fivefold. Ice-margin retreat was initially oriented towards the north (as along the south coast), but later pivoted towards the northwest, signifying a landward retreat of terrestrial ‘Swedish’ ice that became divorced from the Baltic Sea ice-sheet catchment. Our new 725-year-long varve thickness series reveals repeated multidecadal scale episodes of increased sedimentation. These likely signify phases of enhanced ice-sheet melting that repeat and persist throughout the deglaciation of Skåne-Småland.

The Earth's oceans are one of the largest sinks in the Earth system for anthropogenic CO2 emissions, acting as a negative feedback on climate change. Earth system models project that climate change will lead to a weakening ocean carbon uptake rate as warm water holds less dissolved CO2 and as biological productivity declines. However, most Earth system models do not incorporate the impact of warming on bacterial remineralisation and rely on simplified representations of plankton ecology that do not resolve the potential impact of climate change on ecosystem structure or elemental stoichiometry. Here, we use a recently developed extension of the cGEnIE (carbon-centric Grid Enabled Integrated Earth system model), ecoGEnIE, featuring a trait-based scheme for plankton ecology (ECOGEM), and also incorporate cGEnIE's temperature-dependent remineralisation (TDR) scheme. This enables evaluation of the impact of both ecological dynamics and temperature-dependent remineralisation on particulate organic carbon (POC) export in response to climate change. We find that including TDR increases cumulative POC export relative to default runs due to increased nutrient recycling (+1/41.3μ%), whereas ECOGEM decreases cumulative POC export by enabling a shift to smaller plankton classes (-1/40.9μ%). However, interactions with carbonate chemistry cause opposite sign responses for the carbon sink in both cases: TDR leads to a smaller sink relative to default runs (-1/41.0μ%), whereas ECOGEM leads to a larger sink (+1/40.2μ%). Combining TDR and ECOGEM results in a net strengthening of POC export (+1/40.1μ%) and a net reduction in carbon sink (-1/40.7μ%) relative to default. These results illustrate the degree to which ecological dynamics and biodiversity modulate the strength of the biological pump, and demonstrate that Earth system models need to incorporate ecological complexity in order to resolve non-linear climate-biosphere feedbacks.

Agricultural intensification has significantly increased yields and fed growing populations across the planet, but has also led to considerable environmental degradation. In response an alternative process of ‘Sustainable Intensification’ (SI), whereby food production increases while environmental impacts are reduced, has been advocated as necessary, if not sufficient, for delivering food and environmental security. However, the extent to which SI has begun, the main drivers of SI, and the degree to which degradation is simply ‘offshored’ are uncertain. In this study we assess agroecosystem services in England and two contrasting sub-regions, majority-arable Eastern England and majority-pastoral South-Western England, since 1950 by analysing ecosystem service metrics and developing a simple system dynamics model. We find that rapid agricultural intensification drove significant environmental degradation in England in the early 1980s, but that most ecosystem services except farmland biodiversity began to recover after 2000, primarily due to reduced livestock and fertiliser usage decoupling from high yields. This partially follows the trajectory of an Environmental Kuznets Curve, with yields and GDP growth decoupling from environmental degradation above ~£17,000 per capita per annum. Together, these trends suggest that SI has begun in England. However, the lack of recovery in farmland biodiversity, and the reduction in UK food self-sufficiency resulting in some agricultural impacts being ‘offshored’ represent major negative trade-offs. Maintaining yields and restoring biodiversity while also addressing climate change, offshored degradation, and post-Brexit subsidy changes will require significant further SI in the future.

We explore the evolutionary nature of interactions between government policy, farm decision-making and ecosystem services in Shucheng County, Anhui Province, 1950–2015. Analyses of ecological, social and economic trends are complemented by interviews with local farmers. Since the Household Responsibility System started in 1980, there has been a trade-off between rising levels of provisioning services and falling levels of regulating services with evidence that critical thresholds have been passed for water quality. Using a Framework for Ecosystem Service Provision, we argue that farmers have acted only as ecosystem service providers and have not influenced the policies that have brought about the trade-offs. Over the period, ecological degradation is best described as an example of ‘creeping normalcy’ where cumulative conventional actions by individual farmers produce unsustainable losses in regulating services. The Chinese government should act to balance the various ecosystem services through valuation and national policy. In this respect, there is a need for agencies that can provide place-based advice to farmers that will allow them to maintain productivity levels while pursuing restorative actions. Even with new policies, the draw of urban employment, high production costs and an ageing population threaten the viability of farming in these marginal agricultural areas.

The Eocene-Oligocene transition (EOT), ~34 Ma, marks a tipping point in the long-term Cenozoic greenhouse to icehouse climate transition. Paleorecords reveal stepwise rapid cooling and ice growth across the EOT tightly coupled to a transient benthic δ13C excursion and a major and permanent deepening of the carbonate compensation depth (CCD). Based on biogeochemical box modeling, Merico et al. (2008) suggested that a combination of (1) glacioeustatic sea level fall-induced shelf-basin carbonate burial fractionation and (2) shelf carbonate weathering can account for the carbon cycle perturbation, but this finding has been questioned. Alternative proposed mechanisms include increased ocean ventilation, decreased carbonate burial, increased organic carbon burial, increased silicate weathering, and increased ocean calcium concentration. Here we use an improved version of the biogeochemical box model of Merico et al. (2008) to reevaluate these competing hypotheses and an additional mechanism, the expansion of "carbon capacitors" such as permafrost and peatlands. We find that changes in calcium concentration, silicate weathering, and carbonate or organic carbon burial each yield a response that is fundamentally at odds with the form and/or sign of the paleorecords. Shelf-basin carbonate burial fractionation (CCD change), plus shelf carbonate weathering, sequestration of 12C-enriched carbon into carbon capacitors, and possibly increased ocean ventilation (δ13C excursion), offers the best fit to the paleorecords. Further work is needed to understand why the EOT carbon cycle perturbation is so unique when the forcing mechanisms hypothesized to be responsible (cooling and ice growth) are not peculiar to this event.

During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), the carbon isotopic signature (δ13C) of surface carbon-bearing phases decreased abruptly by at least 2.5 to 3.0‰. This carbon isotope excursion (CIE) has been attributed to widespread methane hydrate dissociation in response to rapid ocean warming. We ran a thermohydraulic modeling code to simulate hydrate dissociation due to ocean warming for various PETM scenarios. Our results show that hydrate dissociation in response to such warming can be rapid but suggest that methane release to the ocean is modest and delayed by hundreds to thousands of years after the onset of dissociation, limiting the potential for positive feedback from emission-induced warming. In all of our simulations at least half of the dissociated hydrate methane remains beneath the seabed, suggesting that the pre-PETM hydrate inventory needed to account for all of the CIE is at least double that required for isotopic mass balance.

Most paleo-episodes of ocean acidification (OA) were either too slow or too small to be instructive in predicting near-future impacts. The end-Cretaceous event (66 Mya) is intriguing in this regard, both because of its rapid onset and also because many pelagic calcifying species (including 100% of ammonites and more than 90% of calcareous nannoplankton and foraminifera) went extinct at this time. Here we evaluate whether extinction-level OA could feasibly have been produced by the asteroid impact. Carbon cycle box models were used to estimate OA consequences of (i) vaporization of up to 60 × 1015 mol of sulfur from gypsum rocks at the point of impact; (ii) generation of up to 5 × 1015 mol of NOxby the impact pressure wave and other sources; (iii) release of up to 6,500 Pg C as CO2 from vaporization of carbonate rocks, wildfires, and soil carbon decay; and (iv) ocean overturn bringing high-CO2 water to the surface. We find that the acidification produced by most processes is too weak to explain calcifier extinctions. Sulfuric acid additions could have made the surface ocean extremely undersaturated (Ωcalcite

Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) have been emplaced throughout Earth's history, erupting great quantities (>104 km3) of lava in long-lived (>105 y) events that have been linked to major environmental disruptions. The largest LIP eruptions (e.g. Siberian Traps) are widely considered to have had an impact on global climate through basalt CO2 degassing but the impact of the more numerous smaller LIPs is debated. Here we test the hypothesis that LIPs had a greater impact on Earth's climate history than previously estimated because of the 'cryptic degassing' of intruded and crust-contaminated magma, injecting extra CO2 over and above that coming from sub-aerial basalts. We use biogeochemical box models to investigate the potential impact of the Columbia River Basalts (CRB) during the mid-Miocene where multiple palaeorecords for this geologically relatively recent event enable more rigorous data-model comparison. We find that the effect on the long-term carbon cycle of basalt degassing from the CRB alone is negligible, but that a total CRB emission of 4090-5670 Pg of carbon with 3000-4000 Pg of this carbon emitted during the Grande Ronde Basalt eruptions, a flux within the acceptable estimated range when cryptic degassing is included, does well in reproducing the record of benthic δ13C and atmospheric CO2 change during the core of the Miocene Climatic Optimum. Nevertheless, mechanisms other than degassing are required to drive observed warmth before 16.3 Ma and to match observed calcite compensation depth behaviour after ~15.4 Ma. Hence, our findings rule out the possibility that CRB emplacement alone can fully explain the mid-Miocene record but they demonstrate the enhanced climate impact that occurs when substantial cryptic degassing accompanies LIP emplacement. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.