Recent studies have shown an increasing trend in hydroclimatic disturbances like droughts, which are anticipated to become more frequent and intense under global warming and climate change. Droughts adversely affect the vegetation growth and crop yield, which enhances the risks to food security for a country like India with over 1.2 billion people to feed.

Research is needed by global change scientists on how global vegetation biomes respond to ongoing climate warming. To address this issue, we selected study sites with significant climate warming for diverse vegetation biomes, and used global gridded temperature and remote sensing data over the past 32 years (1982–2013).

The urban heat island effect (UHI) for inner land regions was investigated using satellite data, ground observations, and simulations with an Single-Layer Urban Canopy Parameterization (SLUCP) coupled into the regional Weather Research Forecasting model (WRF, http://wrf-model.org/index.php). Specifically, using the satellite-observed surface skin temperatures (Tskin), the intensity of the UHI was first compared for two inland cities (Xi’an City, China, and Oklahoma City (OKC)), which have different city populations and building densities.

Misiones, Argentina, contains the largest remaining tract of Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest ecoregion; however, ~50% of native forest is unprotected and located in a mosaic of plantations, agriculture, and pastures. Existing protected areas are becoming increasingly isolated due to ongoing habitat modification. These factors, combined with lower than expected regional carnivore densities, emphasize the need to understand the effect of fragmentation on animal movement and connectivity between protected areas.

Ice-albedo feedback due to the albedo contrast between water and ice is a major factor in seasonal sea ice retreat, and has received increasing attention with the Arctic Ocean shifting to a seasonal ice cover. However, quantitative evaluation of such feedbacks is still insufficient. Here we provide quantitative evidence that heat input through the open water fraction is the primary driver of seasonal and interannual variations in Arctic sea ice retreat.

We evaluated a program of payments for ecosystem services in Uganda that offered forestowning households annual payments of 70,000 Ugandan shillings per hectare if they conserved their forest. The program was implemented as a randomized controlled trial in 121 villages, 60 of which received the program for 2 years. The primary outcome was the change in land area covered by trees, measured by classifying high-resolution satellite imagery. We found that tree cover declined by 4.2% during the study period in treatment villages, compared to 9.1% in control villages.

This paper investigated the meteorological role of an extraordinary rain event over Artvin. Although alert messages were prepared by the Turkish State Meteorological Service on August 23 at 09:00 UTC, 11 people died and infrastructures, buildings, private property, and public goods were damaged as a result of the flash flood. It is hoped that more detailed studies will be performed on synoptic development leading to extreme summer precipitation events in the eastern Black Sea.

Hamtah and Chhota Shigri are two nearby, well monitored glaciers of western Himalaya, lying in the same climatic zone and driven by the same climatic conditions. In this study, topographical characteristics of both the glacier have been explored to understand the role of topography in controlling the glacier response.