Research Papers
Peer-reviewed research papers and academic studies on climate change
Double‐ITCZ Bias Reduces Southern Hemisphere Influence on Tropics via Oceanic Pathways
Abstract Many coupled climate models exhibit an Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) south of the Equator in the annual‐mean tropical Pacific that is more pronounced than observed. This bias impacts winds,...
Low Cross‐Product Agreement in Global Coastal Marine Heatwaves (1982–2023) and Implications for Trend Attribution
Abstract Coastal marine heatwaves (MHWs) derived from satellite and blended sea surface temperature (SST) products often disagree, but the magnitude and drivers of this uncertainty remain poorly quantified. Using four...
Precipitation Intensity Increased Across the South Pacific Convergence Zone in the Industrial Age
Abstract The position, strength, and variability of precipitation in the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) remain challenging for coupled ocean‐atmosphere climate models to represent, leaving future rainfall projections in this...
Calcium Solubility of Bridgmanite in Subducted Basalt in Earth's Lower Mantle
Abstract The calcium solubility in bridgmanite and the resulting abundance of davemaoite under lower‐mantle pressure‐temperature conditions have been under debate following a recent report of extensive calcium dissolution in bridgmanite....
Back‐Propagating Earthquake Rupture Controlled by Fluid‐Modulated Effective Normal Stress
Abstract Back‐propagating earthquake rupture (BPR), where slip migrates opposite to the main rupture direction, is observed in several earthquakes but its origin remains poorly understood, particularly the role of fluids....
Ecohydrologic Processes Modify Urban Rainfall Intensification in Land‐Atmosphere Simulations
Abstract Ecohydrologic processes influence urban water and energy cycles including convective rainfall. Coupled land‐atmosphere models, however, lack fine‐scale representation of urban ecohydrology processes. This study integrates these processes into ensemble...
Earth's Infrared Background: A Physics‐Based Null Hypothesis for the Global‐Scale Subannual Variability of Outgoing Longwave Radiation
Abstract Much of the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) emitted to space can be described as a noisy ‘background’ of random variability. A rigorous characterization of this background provides an objective...
Trends and Sensitivities of Low‐Cloud Cover and Top Height From Spaceborne Lidar Observations
Abstract Low clouds effectively cool the Earth by reflecting incoming solar radiation. Detecting low‐level clouds with passive satellite sensors can be ambiguous, whereas active remote sensing instruments directly measure cloud‐top...
Does Zonal Wave 3 Affect Total Antarctic Sea Ice Area?
Abstract While it is well‐established that Zonal Wave Three (ZW3) can drive regional expansion or contraction of Antarctic sea ice, it is unclear whether it has an effect on circumpolar...
Mapping CO2 Migration Pathways: Interactions With Geological Structures
Abstract Unintended CO2 releases from carbon capture and storage sites could impact water resources or reverse climate mitigation efforts through atmospheric emissions. Comprehensive understanding of how CO2 migrates in the...
Fault Geometrical Control on Fault Slip: Experimental Validation of Theoretical Models
Abstract Slip distribution along tectonic faults is recognized as highly heterogeneous across all spatial scales and is linked to various aspects of the earthquake cycle, such as aftershock density and...
Tsunami Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances Triggered by the 29 July 2025 Mw 8.8 Kamchatka Earthquake Observed in Japan and Taiwan
Abstract The 29 July 2025 Mw 8.8 Kamchatka earthquake generated notable seismic and tsunami waves. The total electron content (TEC) derived by more than 1,400 ground‐based global navigation satellite system...
Issue Information
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The Role of the Heterogeneous Variation of East Asian Subtropical Jet in the 2024 Heatwave Over Yangtze‐Huaihe River Basin
Abstract The Yangtze‐Huaihe River Basin (YHRB) has witnessed severe heatwaves in summer 2024, characterized by extremely high temperatures during both daytime and nighttime. Based on the daily maximum and minimum...
BetaDescribe: Providing rich descriptions from protein sequences
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. SignificanceDetermining protein function remains a major bottleneck in biology, particularly for proteins lacking close homologs with known...
Observation-constrained sensitivities of Arctic methane emissions to warming
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. SignificanceThe natural emissions of methane in pan-Arctic have increased in response to rapid warming and heatwaves. However,...
Constructing a lower-bound estimate of the global number of insect species on a hyperdiverse empirical foundation
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. SignificanceFor more than 40 y, entomologists have attempted to estimate the number of insect species on Earth,...
Neural tissues and chondrostean traits in a Carboniferous actinopterygian
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. SignificanceSoft-tissue preservation in fossils is rare and generally limited to robust tissues such as muscles and integument....
Evaluation of a proposed link between the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site and mouse-adapted MERS-coronavirus MA30
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. SignificanceThis study formally evaluates a hypothesis that has been advanced by some scientists and public commentators in...
Reward prediction is encoded by orexin neuron activity during motivated behavior
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. SignificanceOur observations highlight that orexin activities are implicated in the motivational process in rats and that dynamic...
Competing models of hominin body size evolution
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. SignificanceDespite its central role in hominin evolution, there is little consensus on how body size increased through...
Deuterated water and the formation of the satellites of Uranus
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. SignificanceWhile the nearly perpendicular tilt of Uranus’s spin axis could have been caused by a giant impact,...
Biomolecular assemblies through weak noncovalent interactions: Higher-order transient structures and their condensate phase
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. Recent data suggest that many membrane proteins spontaneously organize into spatial patterns through weak noncovalent interactions. These...
Why environmental scientists need ethics training more than ever before
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026.
Superstatistics approach to turbulent circulation fluctuations
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. SignificanceFluid turbulence, a subject of immense practical relevance, belongs to the domain of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. However,...
Assessing the foundations of forensic identification evidence: A critical examination of proficiency test design and results
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. Proficiency testing is widely used to assess expertise in medicine, engineering, and other high-stakes fields. In forensic...
A scalable, dividing cell model for the robust propagation and quantification of human sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease prions
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. SignificanceDeveloping effective treatments for human prion diseases is severely impeded by the inability to propagate the infectious...
Pierre Chambon, a pioneer of molecular biology and gene regulation in eukaryotes
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. The scientific world has lost one of its great architects with the passing of Pierre Chambon, a...
In This Issue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026.
A climate-environmental quality screening framework for climate mitigation and adaptation portfolios: a review and action roadmap
Climate mitigation and adaptation are often evaluated through carbon metrics, but climate actions also redistribute effects across air, water, soils, ecosystems, public health, and communities. This Review narrows its contribution...
Tracing the Abyssal Water Pathways in the Indian Ocean
Abstract Antarctic‐origin abyssal waters occupy a significant fraction of the global ocean volume and play a key role in deep circulation and ventilation, yet their volume is declining rapidly in...
Tidal Mixing on the Antarctic Continental Slope Enhances Ocean Heat Transport With Implications for Sea Ice
Abstract Ocean microstructure measurements collected during three austral summers (2023–2025) along the Antarctic continental slope off Dronning Maud Land show enhanced subsurface mixing. Mean turbulent dissipation between 100 and 800...
The Short and Long Timescale Responses of the Inner Magnetospheric EMIC Waves to the Solar Wind Dynamic Pressure
Abstract The causal relationships between solar wind dynamic pressure and Electromagnetic Ion‐Cyclotron (EMIC) H+ ${mathrm{H} }^{+}$, He+ ${mathrm{H}mathrm{e} }^{+}$, O+ ${mathrm{O} }^{+}$ waves at L=3−6 $L=3-6$ are investigated with transfer...
The Observed Circumpolar Decline of Antarctic Bottom Water Volume
Abstract Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) formation is a key component of the global overturning circulation, ventilating the abyssal ocean and sequestering heat and carbon. Using a new reconstruction from the...
Role of the Atmospheric Circulation in the Observed Warming Over Europe Using a Neural Network
Abstract Quantifying the role of the atmospheric circulation in the temperature increase in Europe over the recent decades remains an open question. Here, we present an innovative dynamical adjustment framework...
Drivers of Trends in Northern Hemisphere Cold Spell Characteristics Over 1980–2025
Abstract This study quantifies trends in winter cold spell (CS) frequency, intensity, persistence and spatial extent across the Northern Hemisphere (NH) over 1980–2025. Cold spells are identified using a tracking...
Does Three‐Dimensional Structure Affect Tsunami Excitation and Stress Drop Estimates?—The Case of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake
Abstract Reliable calculations of coseismic sea‐surface deformation and stress drop are essential for understanding megathrust earthquake rupture and tsunami behavior. However, the impacts of realistic three‐dimensional (3D) structure, such as...
Airborne Observations Reveal Underestimated Riverine Methane Emissions Across the Amazon
Abstract Strongly increasing trends in global methane in recent decades highlight the importance of understanding source‐sink attributions and climate feedback mechanisms, especially for large natural sources like wetlands. Here, we...
A Reconciled Satellite Record Reveals a Negative Low Cloud Feedback Over the Past 47 Years
Abstract Low‐cloud feedback continues to dominate uncertainty in climate sensitivity, with no direct observational estimate to date. Here we provide the first such estimate by combining satellite and reanalysis data...
Marine Secondary Aerosols Are Required for Modeling Clouds in the Arctic
Abstract Arctic aerosol, cloud, and surface radiation budgets are highly sensitive to how dimethylsulfide (DMS) is represented in atmospheric models. We investigate the impact of (a) the gas‐phase DMS oxidation...
Interplanetary Electric Fields for Extreme Magnetic Storms
Abstract Using a list of sudden‐commencement storms, the ring‐current index, and 1‐h near‐Earth solar‐wind measurements from solar cycles 20–25, we develop extreme‐value statistical models relating storm intensity D=max{−Dst} $D=max left{-Dstright}$...
Ground‐Truthed Fiber‐Optic Sensing Reveals Internal Tide Bores Over Madeira's Steep Slope
Abstract We demonstrate the combined utility of distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) and repeat conductivity‐temperature‐depth (CTD) profiling for observing internal tide dynamics over a sloping seafloor. While DAS has been widely...
Shifts in experiencing downpours
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02702-0Shifts in experiencing downpours
Female climate leadership
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02704-yFemale climate leadership
Dual pressures of climate change and wildfire hazard on wine-growing potential in California
This study presents an integrated analysis to assess climate change impacts on wine grape cultivation in California by jointly considering spatial suitability, wine quality, and wildfire weather. Species distribution modeling...
Decarbonising UK industrial clusters: the role of green finance and the risk(s) of lock-in
This study provides a comprehensive examination of financial flows involved in initiating the low-carbon transition of the UK’s industrial clusters. Green finance assumes a pivotal role in mobilising the capital...
Beyond awareness: navigating the attitude-behavior gap in climate action among urban Egyptian youth
Urban youth in the Global South are critical for climate action, yet barriers to their engagement remain poorly understood. This mixed-methods study of 155 Cairo University students reveals a critical...
Sea Ice Latent Heat Becomes More Active in the Arctic Sea Ice Energy Budget
Abstract Arctic sea ice has experienced rapid decrease in recent decades. The sea ice property changes have altered its thermodynamic processes, enhancing the heat exchange among atmosphere‐ocean‐ice surface. However, heat...