The global land carbon sink has increased since the pre-industrial period, mainly caused by increasing atmospheric CO₂ emissions and climate change. However, the large year-to-year variations can mask or amplify this trend. Here, we detect the time for the anthropogenic signal to emerge over natural variations in land carbon sink. We removed the circulation-induced variations in the global land carbon sink and effectively reduced the detection time of anthropogenic signal.

We investigated how machine learning can forecast extreme vegetation responses to weather. Examining four models, no single one stood out as the best, though "echo state networks" showed minor advantages. Our results indicate that while these tools are able to generally model vegetation states, they face challenges under extreme conditions. This underlines the potential of artificial intelligence in ecosystem modeling, also pinpointing areas that need further research.

Climate extremes are intensifying. The impacts of heatwaves and droughts can be made worse when they happen at the same time. Dheed is a global database of dry and hot compound extreme events from 1950 to 2022. It can be combined with other data to study the impacts of those events on terrestrial ecosystems, specific species or human societies. Dheed's analysis confirms that extremely dry and hot days have become more common on all continents in recent decades, especially in Europe and Africa.