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Climate scientists preferably use the term climate anomaly to explain any significant abnormal change of surface air temperature or precipitation in the weather pattern of any region. As a result, abnormal heat waves and extremely hot weather, severe winter snowfall and blizzards, long droughts, heavy rainfall, and extraordinary floods occur. Such anomalies were more often observed in different regions of the world during the last three decades. The term climate change, led by global warming due to the rising amount of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, is generally considered the main cause. The ENSO phenomenon is also linked to the climate anomalies of the last three decades. In 2022 Europe, the USA, China, and Pakistan were affected by such climate anomalies. The Yangtze River region of China, the main rivers of European land, and the lakes and rivers of the dry land region of the USA experienced the worst long drought, creating an extreme shortage of water and electricity generation. On the other hand, Germany and southern China experienced the worst floods. Abnormally hot weather in the summer and extreme winter snowfall and blizzards severely affected people in Europe and the USA. In 2022, Pakistan was also severely affected by floods caused by abnormally heavy monsoon rainfall. Out of 170 districts, 38 were worst affected, causing the deaths of 1739 people, while houses and croplands of 33 million people were badly affected. Sindh was the most affected province, where heavy rainfall and poor drainage created catastrophic damage. Balochistan, southern Punjab, and districts of the Malakand region were severely affected by flash floods. The present study is based on the hypotheses that climatic anomalies (abnormal excessive rainfall and melting of snow) were the main causes of the flood disaster of 2022 in Pakistan. Failure of the National Disaster Management Authority is the secondary factor causing economic and human loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Litterfall is a major pathway for transferring aboveground biomass to the forest floor and thus plays an important role in building forest soil carbon stocks. However, inter- and intra-annual variability of litterfall remains poorly documented, especially in North American temperate and boreal forests, due to the lack of recent long-term studies at high sampling frequencies. This potentially creates uncertainties in estimates of forest carbon budget models. The objectives of the present study were to 1) quantify the mean annual flux, interannual variability, and seasonality of litterfall in three sites (dominated respectively by sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.), balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill. 1768), and black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.)) in eastern Canada over a period of 22–32 years, 2) relate the litterfall amounts and temporal variations to the changes in the size of major organic matter pools in these ecosystems, and 3) compare our litterfall estimates with reference values used in national greenhouse gas inventories. Litterfall production decreased from the sugar maple to the balsam fir and black spruce sites, preponderantly due to species composition. Litterfall evolution was related to the aboveground biomass of live trees in both conifer sites; in contrast, in the broadleaf site, changes in forest composition and structure were apparently the main drivers. The litterfall seasonality varied between broadleaf and conifer sites and could be explained by a sigmoidal model. Substantial departures from the seasonality for some given years were likely due to important climatic anomalies. Forest floor biomass remained stable over time at all three sites despite the increase in litterfall at the balsam fir and sugar maple sites and rapid forest floor turnover at the latter site. Our analyses of litterfall suggest that reference values from the literature used for national greenhouse gas inventories underestimate annual litterfall and forest floor carbon stocks for temperate and boreal forests. [Display omitted] • Litterfall evolution was related to aboveground biomass only in conifer sites • Mean annual flux and seasonality of litterfall varied by forest type • Climatic anomalies altered annual litterfall production and seasonality • Carbon budget model underestimated carbon stock of litterfall and forest floor [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: While Hippocrates recognized that health is influenced by the external environment, it is only recently that the relationship between health and climate has become a focus of community and public health services. Advances in understanding of weather and climate sciences on the one hand and human health on the other are providing new opportunities for early detection, prediction and prevention of the adverse health effects of hazards as diverse as tropical cyclones, floods, heatwaves and cold spells, air quality, wildfires, droughts and disease epidemics. Early warning of disease outbreaks and a timely response makes prevention possible. For some climate-sensitive diseases, our understanding is sufficient to make health forecasting possible; for others, the relationship between the disease and any causal environmental effect remains unclear, and the focus of active research programs. Institutional changes are also taking place to improve operational and research cooperation between the health sector and the weather and climate communities, ranging from joint service delivery platforms to combined research and development programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We explored recent changes of ecosystem services (ES) in Mediterranean forests. • Timber volume increment, water provision, and carbon sequestration showed a decline since 1990. • Recent changes in ES were largely driven by the structure of the forest stands. • Temporal analyses revealed more potential trade-offs between ES than purely static assessments. The Mediterranean Region constitutes a biodiversity hotspot and its forests have provided multiple ecosystem services (ES) to human societies for millennia. In the last decades, many Mediterranean forests have undergone a decreasing level of direct human pressure and a growing exposure to environmental stress factors (e.g. wildfires and droughts). However, the degree to which these processes have affected the provision of ES remains largely unexplored. We used an extensive database of 3417 permanent plots (period 1990–2015, 25 years) from the Spanish National Forest Inventory in Catalonia (North-Eastern Spain) and a range of four ecological models to measure and estimate changes in five different ES: wild mushrooms production, timber volume increment, water provision, carbon sequestration and erosion mitigation. We then assessed general trends in ES, their spatial–temporal patterns and searched for potential trade-offs in their delivery. Using mixed-effects models, we explored the differences among three biogeographical regions, as well as the effect of different environmental and site level drivers, including descriptors of stand structure and development, the legacies of management practices and disturbances, as well as the influence of historical climate conditions and their recent anomalies. Our results show a general decline of timber volume increment, water provision and carbon sequestration, along with an increase in erosion mitigation across inland and montane regions. Fitted model parameters suggest a predominant role of stand structure in driving changes in forest ES supply in the study area. In particular, stands with high basal areas were associated with steeper declines in most ES, whereas high mean tree diameter generally contributed to ES increases. Finally, our results showed a series of potential trade-offs among temporal changes in ES that were not reflected in exclusively static analyses, highlighting the relevance of including the temporal dimension in regional assessments of ES. Future forest management and planning could better account for overall ES value as well as expected changes in their future provision, paving the way to landscape planning that balances these two essential components of forest ES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Climate effects on migration are estimated for 3 countries over a 22 years. • Mobility declines when temperature increases in Botswana. • Precipitation increases reduce (augment) migration in Botswana and Kenya (Zambia). • Migratory responses correspond with how local employment varies with climate. One of the major unresolved questions in the study of vulnerability to climate change is how human migration will respond in low and middle-income countries. The present study directly addresses this lacuna by using census data on migration from 4 million individuals from three middle-income African countries over a 22-year period. We link these individuals to climate exposures in their origins and estimate climatic effects on migration using a fixed-effects regression model. We show that climate anomalies affect mobility in all three countries. Specifically, mobility declines by 19% with a 1-standard deviation increase in temperature in Botswana. Equivalent changes in precipitation cause declines in migration in Botswana (11%) and Kenya (10%), and increases in migration in Zambia (24%). The mechanisms underlying these effects appear to differ by country. Negative associations between precipitation anomalies, unemployment, and inactivity suggest migration declines may be due to an increased local demand for workers to offset production risk, while migration increases may be indicative of new opportunities in destinations. These country-specific findings highlight the contextually-specific nature of climate-migration relationships, and do not support claims that climate change is widely contributing to urbanization across Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Perceptions of climate anomalies vary substantially in occurrence and magnitude. • Perceptions do not generally correlate with instrumental climate data. • Weak evidence of an association between traditional knowledge and perceptions. Local perceptions of climate anomalies influence adaptation behaviour. Specifically, perceptions that are more accurate and homogenous at the community-level are more likely to facilitate the collective action required to adapt to the local effects of climate anomalies experienced by many indigenous communities. We combine primary data on perceptions of climate anomalies from 200 individuals in six Penan villages in Sarawak, Malaysia with instrumental climate data. We find that perceptions of climate anomalies vary substantially in terms of occurrence and magnitude, and do not generally correlate with instrumental climate data. We operationalise the Penan forest sign language (Oroo') as a measure of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and find only weak evidence of a systematic statistical association with perceptions of climate anomalies among our sampled respondents. Our findings suggest caution in advancing adaptation strategies in indigenous communities that are predominantly premised on TEK. Instead, our findings suggest that in designing adaptation measures, indigenous communities may benefit by engaging in forums where community members and external stakeholders can come together, share their perceptions and observations of climate change, and reach a collective consensus on the community-level effects of climate change and pathways towards adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]