An anomalous warm weather event in the Antarctic McMurdo Dry Valleys on 18 March 2022 created an opportunity to characterize soil biota communities most sensitive to freeze-thaw stress. This event caused unseasonal melt within Taylor Valley, activating stream water and microbial mats around Canada Stream. Liquid water availability in this polar desert is a driver of soil biota distribution and activity. Because climate change impacts hydrological regimes, we aimed to determine the effect on soil communities. We sampled soils identified from this event that experienced thaw, nearby hyper-arid areas, and wetted areas that did not experience thaw to compare soil bacterial and invertebrate communities. Areas that exhibited evidence of freeze-thaw supported the highest live and dead nematode counts and were composed of soil taxa from hyper-arid landscapes and wetted areas. They received water inputs from snowpacks, hyporheic water, or glacial melt, contributing to community differences associated with organic matter and salinity gradients. Inundated soils had higher organic matter and lower conductivity (p < .02) and hosted the most diverse microbial and invertebrate communities on average. Our findings suggest that as liquid water becomes more available under predicted climate change, soil communities adapted to the hyper-arid landscape will shift toward diverse, wetted soil communities.

This study analyzes the effects of Hurricane Eta on the Chiriqui Viejo River basin, revealing the significant impact of extreme weather events on the hydrological dynamics of the region. The maximum rainfall recorded on November 4, 2020, reached 223.8 mm, while the flow in Paso Canoa reached 638.03 m3/s, demonstrating the magnitude of the event and the inability of the basin to handle such high volumes of water. Through a detailed analysis, it was observed that soil saturation resulted in direct runoff of up to 70.0 mm that same day, which shows that the infiltration capacity of the soil was quickly exceeded. Despite the damage observed, there are currently no advanced hydrological studies on extreme events in critical basins such as the Chiriqui Viejo River. This lack of research reflects a serious lack of planning and assessment of the risks associated with phenomena of this magnitude. One of the most critical problems found is the lack of specialized hydrology professionals, who are essential to carry out detailed studies and ensure sustainable management of water resources. In a context where climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme events, the absence of hydrologists in the region puts the resilience of the basin to future disasters at risk. The basin's hydraulic system demonstrated its inability to handle high flows, underscoring the need to improve flood control and water retention infrastructure. In addition, the lack of effective hydrological planning and coordination in the management of hydraulic infrastructures compromises both the safety of downstream communities and the sustainability of hydroelectric reservoirs, vital for the region.

Ethiopia's vulnerability to climate change is exacerbated by high poverty rates, rapid population growth, increasing prevalence of vector-borne diseases, and heavy reliance on rain-fed agriculture. This narrative review aims to compile existing data on the impacts of climate extremes on the physical environment, public health, and livelihoods in Ethiopia, thereby highlighting the significance of this region for such a study. Data were sourced from peer-reviewed journal articles from databases like PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science, as well as reports and other unpublished documents. Results show that Ethiopia is facing increasing frequency, severity, duration, and timing of climate-related extreme events. Key challenges include environmental degradation, reduced crop yields, recurring floods, droughts, famines, increased heat waves, and spread of infectious diseases. Average daily rainfall is projected to decrease from 2.04 mm (1961-1990) to 1.97 mm (2070-2099), indicating a worsening climate trend. Moreover, the average annual temperature has risen by 1.3 degrees C since 1960, at a rate of 0.28 degrees C per decade. Flood records indicate a sharp rise, with 274 flood incidents recorded in 2020, causing extensive damage, including an annual soil loss of 1 billion tons in the Ethiopian highlands, reducing land productivity by 2.2% annually. Droughts from 1964 to 2023 affected 96.5 million people, reduced GDP by 4%, decreased agricultural output by 12%, and increased inflation rates by 15%. The regions of Afar, Somali, Gambella, and Benshangul Gumuz exhibit extreme vulnerability to health impacts due to rising temperatures. Addressing climate extremes is critical to mitigate their adverse effects on Ethiopia's environment, public health, and livelihoods.

Extreme weather events are recognized as major drivers of crop yield losses, which threaten food security and farmers' incomes. Given the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather under climate change, it is crucial to quantify the related future yield damages of important crops to inform prospective climate change adaptation planning. In this study, we present a statistical modeling approach to project the changes in crop yields under climate change for eight majorly cultivated field crops in Germany, estimating the impacts of nine types of extreme weather events. To select the most relevant predictors, we apply the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression to district-level yield data. The LASSO models select, on average, 62% of the features, which align with well-known biophysical impacts on crops, suggesting that different extremes at various growth stages are relevant for yield prediction. We project on average 2.5-times more severe impacts on summer crops than on winter crops. Under RCP8.5, crop yields experience a mean change from -2.53% to -8.63% in the far future (2069-98) for summer crops and from -0.80% to -2.88% for winter crops, without accounting for CO2 fertilization effects. Heat impacts are identified as the primary driver of yield losses across all crops for 2069-98, while shifting precipitation patterns exacerbate winter and spring waterlogging, and summer and fall drought. Our findings underscore the utility of LASSO regression in identifying relevant drivers for projecting changes in crop yields across multiple crops, crucial for guiding agricultural adaptation. While the present analysis can identify empirical relationships, replicating these findings in biophysical models could provide new insights into the underlying processes.

Climate change and extreme weather events are threatening agricultural production worldwide. The anticipated increase in atmospheric temperature may reduce the potential yield of cultivated crops. Agroforestry is regarded as a climate-resilient system that is profitable, sustainable, and adaptable, and has strong potential to sequester atmospheric carbon. Agroforestry practices enhance agroecosystems' resilience against adverse weather conditions via moderating extreme temperature fluctuations, provisioning buffers during heavy rainfall events, mitigating drought periods, and safeguarding land resources from cyclones and tsunamis-type events. Therefore, it was essential to comprehensively analyze and discuss the role of agroforestry in providing resilience during extreme weather situations. We hypothesized that integrating trees in to the agro-ecosystems could increase the resilience of crops against extreme weather events. The available literature showed that the over-story tree shade moderates the severe temperature (2-4 degrees C) effects on understory crops, particularly in the wheat and coffee-based agroforestry as well as in the forage and livestock-based silvipasture systems. Studies have shown that intense rainstorms can harm agricultural production (40-70%) and cause waterlogging. The farmlands with agroforestry have been reported to be more resilient to heavy rainfall because of the decrease in runoff (20-50%) and increase in soil water infiltration. Studies have also suggested that drought-induced low rainfall damages many crops, but integrating trees can improve microclimate and maintain crop yield by providing shade, windshield, and prolonged soil moisture retention. The meta-analysis revealed that tree shelterbelts could mitigate the effects of high water and wind speeds associated with cyclones and tsunamis by creating a vegetation bio-shield along the coastlines. In general, existing literature indicates that implementing and designing agroforestry practices increases resilience of agronomic crops to extreme weather conditions increasing crop yield by 5-15%. Moreover, despite its widely recognized advantages in terms of resilience to extreme weather, the systematic documentation of agroforestry advantages is currently insufficient on a global scale. Consequently, we provide a synthesis of the existing data and its analysis to draw reasonable conclusions that can aid in the development of suitable strategies to achieve the worldwide goal of adapting to and mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change.

Frequent extreme weather events result in substantial economic losses for farming communities, posing a significant threat to the livelihood security of smallholder farmers in the Sundarbans region of India. Various agricultural enterprises in this area are continually at risk due to saline water intrusion, crop damage from heavy rainfall, and flooding. We examine the strategies farmers have adopted to sustain their livelihoods in the face of these extreme weather events. We collected primary data from a randomly selected sample of 1,200 farmers across six blocks in the Sundarbans region, focussing on farm households engaged in diverse agricultural enterprises, including field crop cultivation, livestock rearing, and fish farming. We used the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to prioritize the coping mechanisms adopted by these farming communities. The assessment of coping mechanisms was based on four criteria: ease of implementation, cost, effectiveness, and durability for long-term application. Effectiveness got the highest weights of 0.492 followed by the durability of the coping strategy weights of 0.309. Coping mechanisms pertaining to managing soil health against soil salinity, raising livestock and fish species as well as cultivating field crops were identified and prioritized according to their perceived efficacy against extreme weather events. Our results can inform the formulation of robust and sustainable development policies for agricultural and allied sectors in the Indian Sundarbans.

Chromium (VI) in soil poses a significant threat to the environment and human health. Despite efforts to remediate Cr contaminated soil (Cr-soil), instances of re-yellowing have been observed over time. To understand the causes of re-yellowing as well as the influence of overdosed chemical reductant in remediating Cr-soil, experiments on excess reducing agent interference and soil re-yellowing mechanisms under different extreme conditions were conducted. The results show that the USEPA method 3060A & 7196A combined with K2S2O8 oxidation is an effective approach to eliminate interference from excess FeSO4 reducing agents. The main causes of re-yellowing include the failure of reducing agents, disruption of soil lattice, and interactions between manganese oxides and microorganisms. Under various extreme conditions simulated across the four seasons, high temperature and drought significantly accelerated the failure of reducing agents, resulting in the poorest remediation effectiveness for Cr-soil (91.75 %). Dry-wet cycles promoted the formation of soil aggregates, negatively affecting Cr(VI) removal. While these extreme conditions caused relatively mild re-yellowing (9.46 %-16.79 %) due to minimal soil lattice damage, the potential risk of re-yellowing increases with the failure of reducing agents and the release of Cr(VI) within the lattice. Prolonged exposure to acid rain leaching and freezethaw cycles disrupted soil structure, leading to substantial leaching and reduction of insoluble Cr, resulting in optimal remediation effectiveness (94.37 % -97.73 %). As reducing agents gradually and the involvement of the water medium, significant re -yellowing occurred in the remediated soil (51.52 %). Mn(II) in soil enriched relevant microorganisms, and the Mn(IV)-mediated biological oxidation process was also one of the reasons for soil re -yellowing.

This paper presents a framework to assess the vulnerability of the electrical power grid (EPG) to extreme weather events. The paper presents a methodology based on the Extra-Trees classifier and historical weather data to identify the EPG assets that are most likely to be affected in future extreme weather conditions under various climate change scenarios. The developed methodology considers the EPG different asset classes (lines, towers, poles, transformers, substations.) and identifies the weather parameters that are most relevant to their vulnerability. The paper presents results concerning wind speed, wind gusts, soil type, and altitude, which are used to train a model that predicts the probability of an asset being damaged based on the future weather parameters. The methodology was developed has been applied to a dataset of historical events in Portugal, from the major Portuguese DSO, thus assessing the future vulnerability of the EPG under three different scenarios of climate change. The developed methodology is a successful tool, that would not only help prevent occurrences of faults/failures in the Electrical Power Grid and its recovery from these occurrences, but also to have a better perception of a geographically safe future expansion of infrastructures. In this way it contributes to a continuous, non-faulty EPG operation, fulfilling society's demands by generating maps that identify the most vulnerable areas for each future climate scenario.

In the face of increasing temperature at high latitudes, ecosystem respiration (RE) is a key to determining sink and source dynamics of a boreal forest. In this paper, we analyzed four-year RE data obtained in an open black spruce forest-a typical boreal forest ecosystem with permafrost in Interior Alaska. RE measured as nighttime CO2 effluxes for both the ecosystem and the forest floor were clearly situated along the exponential temperature dependent curve, except for the data obtained in extremely dry conditions in mid-summer. More than 93 % of RE data measured at nighttime with high vapor pressure deficit (VPD > 400 Pa) were lower than the values predicted from the temperature-dependent curve. Consequently, the year 2013 (with an unusually dry summer) had a 15 % lower amount of annual RE than that could be expected from the temperature-dependent curve without considering the effect of high VPD. The suppression of RE under dry conditions was also related to decreases in soil moisture and net ecosystem productivity. Finally, assuming daytime RE could be extrapolated from the temperature-dependent curves, annual daytime RE estimated with the effect of high VPD was decreased by up to 62% from RE estimated without the VPD effect. The down-regulation of RE presented in this study postulates a possible negative feedback for the carbon budget of boreal forests in response to climate warming.

In the future, climate models predict an increase in global surface temperature and during winter a changing of precipitation from less snowfall to more raining. Without protective snow cover, freezing can be more intensive and can enter noticeably deeper into the soil with effects on C cycling and soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics. We removed the natural snow cover in a Norway spruce forest in the Fichtelgebirge Mts. during winter from late December 2005 until middle of February 2006 on three replicate plots. Hence, we induced soil frost to 15cm depth (at a depth of 5 cm below surface up to -5 degrees C) from January to April 2006, while the snow-covered control plots never reached temperatures < 0 degrees C. Quantity and quality of SOM was followed by total organic C and biomarker analysis. While soil frost did not influence total organic-C and lignin concentrations, the decomposition of vanillyl monomers (Ac/Ad)(V) and the microbial-sugar concentrations decreased at the end of the frost period, these results confirm reduced SOM mineralization under frost. Soil microbial biomass was not affected by the frost event or recovered more quickly than the accumulation of microbial residues such as microbial sugars directly after the experiment. However, in the subsequent autumn, soil microbial biomass was significantly higher at the snow-removal (SR) treatments compared to the control despite lower CO2 respiration. In addition, the water-stress indicator (PLFA [cy17:0 + cy19:0] / [16:1 omega 7c + 18:1 omega 7c]) increased. These results suggest that soil microbial respiration and therefore the activity was not closely related to soil microbial biomass but more strongly controlled by substrate availability and quality. The PLFA pattern indicates that fungi are more susceptible to soil frost than bacteria.