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Europe's transport infrastructure is not ready to face climate change

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-26-3345-2026
22 July 2026

Climate extremes like floods, heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires are disrupting Europe’s transport. This study combines a review of past events and future projections to assess current losses and the future exposure of transport infrastructure. Exposure to extremes is projected to rise, but lower emissions can reduce it. Urgent action is needed to reduce emissions and adapt the Trans-European Transport Network to a changing climate.

From continental to street scales: climate change impacts on atmospheric composition over Europe and London

We use innovative coupled modelling to quantify how natural emissions, chemistry, deposition and transport influence climate change responses of air pollutants from continental to urban scales across Europe. We highlight uncertainties in climate-sensitive biogenic emissions as key to future projections of ozone and fine particulate matter. High resolution modelling is essential for evaluating the benefits and trade-offs of climate change for achieving WHO air quality targets and guidelines.

Brief communication: Temperature-driven shrinkage of a disappearing Himalayan glacier

Glacier AX010 in Nepal, monitored since the 1970s, has been shrinking at an accelerating rate, mainly due to rising temperatures. Drone surveys, modeling, and reanalysis data show mass loss began in the early 1970s and intensified after 2000. While rising temperatures drive shrinkage, precipitation changes have neither accelerated nor mitigated mass loss. At the current rate, the glacier may disappear within 10–20 years.

Wildfire-induced disruptions to evapotranspiration, runoff, and water-balance closure across California's water supply watersheds

Large wildfires are reshaping California’s water-supply forests. Using 40 years of satellite and river data, we found that severe fires greatly reduce vegetation water use, sometimes increasing runoff during dry years. Recovery varies widely across basins and can take many years. The work shows that wildfire can disturb the entire water budget and highlights the need to include fire effects when planning for future water resources.

Heterogeneity of tropical diversity and ecosystems: reefal meiofaunas in equatorial western and eastern African islands

Oceanic islands hold great ecological value as they support endemic biodiversity and act as steppingstones of dispersal. We investigated benthic meiofaunas from two exotic tropical archipelagoes (São Tomé-Príncipe in western Africa and Zanzibar in eastern Africa) and revealed marked heterogeneity in their diversity and biogeographic patterns. High endemicity of the São Tomé-Príncipe fauna underlines the effectiveness of dispersal barriers and urges conservation of those vulnerable ecosystems.

Beyond the 100-year flood: probabilistic flood hazard assessment for King and Pierce Counties under future climate scenarios

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-26-3231-2026
13 July 2026

Flooding is a growing risk for communities around Puget Sound, where rising seas and changing rainfall patterns combine with rivers and tides. We used advanced computer models to simulate decades of water levels and river flows to better understand how often and how severely flooding may occur in the future. Our results show that climate change will increase both the frequency and extent of flooding, highlighting the urgent need for adaptation planning.

Contrasting dynamics of lake- and marine-terminating glaciers under same climatic conditions

We studied a unique glacier in South Greenland that ends in both a lake and the ocean. Using satellite data and field work, we found that the two glacier fronts behave very differently even under the same climate. At the lake glacier we identify a floating ice tongue and we infer little melt below water. The lake glacier experienced a sudden large breakup. Our work suggests that lake and marine glacier fronts must be treated differently in model simulations.

Biosignatures of microbial mats in Pleistocene coral reef cores from IODP Expedition 389 (Hawaiian Drowned Reefs)

Drilling beneath Hawai‘i's sea-level into ancient coral reefs, scientists have recovered "living rocks" from more than 100 000 years ago. These massive microbial crusts grew on the coral framework and are exceptionally well preserved archives of former life, showing delicate structures of microbes that usually vanish. Using electron microscopy, researchers found ancient microbial mats and indicators of light-dependent bacteria, thriving in the coral reefs of that time.

Ocean alkalinity enhancement reduces silica ballasting during export due to amplified dissolution

Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) is a negative emission technology that may alter marine diatom communities and particle export. We show that unequilibrated OAE did not change bloom magnitude or particle fluxes, but reduced silica ballasting. The losses intensified during sinking, consistent with pH-enhanced silica dissolution. Our results show that OAE can modify biological-pump efficiency through export-phase alteration of BSi:POC, even when community biomass production remains unchanged.

Livestock grazing, plant community and abiotic factors shape blue carbon stocks in Nordic coastal marshes

Coastal marshes store high amounts of carbon but remain understudied in Nordic region. We measured organic carbon stored in plants and soil across grazed and ungrazed marshes along environmental gradients. Livestock grazing limited reed dominance, reduced aboveground carbon and altered roots allocation. Soil carbon was mainly controlled by soil properties rather than grazing at large scale. Our results show how grazing and environmental conditions jointly shape carbon storage in coastal marshes.

In-depth characterisation of organic matter thermal lability and composition from Arctic Permafrost thaw slumps

Abrupt permafrost thaw mobilizes ancient organic matter, which could fuel further warming, yet its fate remains uncertain. We studied thaw slumps in Arctic Canada using thermal, radiocarbon, and molecular analyses. Recently thawed debris and runoff exiting the slumps contained old, thermally stable organic matter, compositionally similar to surrounding permafrost. This suggests that much of the thaw-mobilised carbon survives initial transport and may be processed or sequestered downstream.

Review article: The Foundation-Patuxent-Academy ice stream system, Antarctica

We review research about a group of fast-flowing Antarctic ice streams, the Foundation-Patuxent-Academy System. Previously, we knew little about how these ice streams flow, how they interact with each other and the ocean, what their geological history was, and how they might evolve in a warming world. By reviewing existing research, we have identified the future research needed to determine how these ice streams function, and how they might contribute to future global sea level rise.

Understanding changes in Iceland's streamflow dynamics in response to climate change

Iceland relies heavily on hydropower, making it important to understand changes in streamflow. Rivers reflect a warming, wetter climate, with rainfall increasingly replacing snowfall. Annual streamflow has generally increased, most notably during the cool season, while summer flows have declined in some non-glacial rivers. Glacial rivers show increasing melt-season flows over 1973–2023 but declining trends over 1993–2023, reflecting glacier retreat and recent North Atlantic sea surface cooling.

Detection and attribution of the role of anthropogenic climate change in industrial-era retreat of Pine Island Glacier

At least since we began measuring in detail, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has lost a lot of ice, but we don't know precisely how important climate change is in this. Here, we put a number on the role of climate change in retreat of a glacier in this ice sheet, for the first time. We show that climate change made the shrinking of this glacier much worse. Our work also suggests that what happened on very long timescales (the last 10,000 years) might also matter for retreat of the ice sheets today.

Quantification of inmixing of Asian Monsoon air by multi-species classification in a match flight experiment

During the PHILEAS aircraft campaign a self-matching experiment was conducted to study the mixing of Asian Summer monsoon air into the upper troposphere – lower stratosphere. We present the first 3-D tomographic observations of this mixing for multiple trace gas species. We use advanced clustering to identify the types of air and their transport pathways, particularly into the stratosphere. Simulations of surface-origin tracers link several of these air types to different source regions.

Climate models with moderate climate sensitivity best simulate the magnitude of Earth's energy imbalance

Observations show an increasing imbalance between how much energy the Earth absorbs from the Sun and emits back to space, leading to climate change. We evaluate how well climate models simulate both the magnitude and trend of the imbalance. We find that models capture the magnitude but underestimate the trend, which is not related to how models handle volcanic aerosols when switching to future scenarios. The models that best simulate the magnitude are the ones with moderate climate sensitivity.

Air–Sea Interactions and Biogeochemical Responses to Medicane Daniel

This study examines Medicane Daniel, showing how a warm-core eddy (WCE), high ocean heat content (OHC), and a marine heatwave (MHW) sustained its intensity near Libya. Using high-resolution Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) observations, we reveal fine-scale eddy dynamics and larger WCE structures than those captured by conventional datasets, highlighting their role in air–sea interactions. Enhanced moisture convergence supported storm intensification, while storm-induced mixing and upwelling increased chlorophyll, nutrient, and oxygen concentrations.

Influence of tropospheric temperature on the formation and aging of secondary organic aerosol from biogenic vapor mixtures

We investigate how temperature (213–313K) affects secondary organic aerosol (SOA) particles derived from isoprene and α-pinene mixtures. Isoprene's suppression on α-pinene dimer formation varied with temperatures. Particles formed at higher temperatures are more oxidized yet more volatile than those formed at lower temperatures and then warmed. This work highlights the need to consider both temperature and biogenic vapor interaction to accurately describe SOA formation, aging, and global burden.

Estuarine mixing

This review presents major aspects of estuarine mixing. Due to the large amounts of brackish water in estuaries produced by mixing of fresh river discharge and salty ocean water, mixing is one major characteristic of what is an estuary. Mixing is quantified locally as well as on estuary-wide scales. Diagnostics of integrated mixing are given for estuarine volumes bounded by transects as well as surfaces of constant salinity moving with the flow. Examples for real-world estuaries are given.

Global and diurnal variations in tropospheric ammonia observed from a constellation of hyperspectral infrared sounders in three different LEO orbits

The diurnal cycle of NH₃ remains under-constrained at a global scale. To address this gap, we construct an integrated constellation with hyperspectral infrared sounders in three different Low-Earth-Orbits to achieve quasi-geostationary-like global monitoring coverage of NH₃ and provide six maps of global NH₃for every 4-hour in each day. This constellation has the potential to enhance the global climate-monitoring capacity of polar-orbiting meteorological satellites.