Hydropower is critical to eastern and southern Africa but it is at risk from climate variability. Conway et al. examine river basins and rainfall variability to explore potential hydropower disruption for present and planned generation sites, highlighting the risks to supply and their spatial interlinkages.

All energy generation technologies emit greenhouse gases during their life cycle as a result of construction and operation. Pehl et al. integrate life-cycle assessment and energy modelling to analyse the emissions contributions of different technologies across their lifespan in future low-carbon power systems.

Models show that several aspects of Earth’s top-of-atmosphere energy budget and the magnitude of projected global warming are correlated, enabling us to infer that future warming has been underestimated.

How deep ocean circulation is linked to changes in atmospheric CO₂ concentration remains uncertain. Here, the authors show that deep equatorial Atlantic Ocean water mass provenance was similar throughout all interglacials of the past 800 kyr, despite variable interglacial atmospheric CO₂ concentrations.

Human activity and related land use change are the primary cause of soil erosion. Here, the authors show the impacts of 21st century global land use change on soil erosion based on an unprecedentedly high resolution global model that provides insights into the mitigating effects of conservation agriculture.