research highlights
POLAR SCIENCE

Antarctic fast-ice trends
Cryosphere 15, 5061–5077 (2021)

Credit: Enrique Aguirre Aves/The ImageBank/Getty

Fast ice — stationary sea ice attached toland or floating ice shelves — plays animportant role in ocean–atmosphereinteractions. In Antarctica, fast ice can befound over the continental shelf and ranges
from 50–250 km wide, dependingon location and climatic variability.
To understand changes that occurredfrom 2000 to 2018, Alexander Fraser of
the University of Tasmania, Australia, andcolleagues analyse the recently publishedNASA MODIS-derived 18-year dataset on
the extent of Antarctic fast ice (at 1 km
spatial and 15 d temporal resolution).
They find that the continent haseight distinct regions that constitutea –0.19 ± 0.18% per year trend(–882 ± 824 km2 per year) in the change
in area. There are four regions showing
increasing trends, in East Antarctica
and the Bellingshausen Sea, and fourwith decreasing trends, mostly in West
Antarctica, with the largest in the western
Ross Sea area. These satellite-generated
baseline data provide information on
bathymetric controls of fast ice, as well as
information on annual variations in its
extent, whilst highlighting the need for morestudies to understand the possible impactsof climate change.
Bronwyn Wake
Published: xx xx xxxx
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01240-1

Nature Climate Change | www.nature.com/natureclimatechangeresearch highlights
POLAR SCIENCE

Antarctic fast-ice trends
Cryosphere 15, 5061–5077 (2021)

Ross Sea area. These satellite-generated
baseline data provide information on
bathymetric controls of fast ice, as well as
information on annual variations in its
extent, whilst highlighting the need for morestudies to understand the possible impactsof climate change.
BWhaving the highest sequestration rates. Soil
carbon sequestration was also higher forsystems with broadleaf trees. These results
highlight another benefit of agroforestry forclimate change mitigation.
AF
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01239-8

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01240-1
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSAGROFORESTRY

More than skin deep

Shaming as pressureInt. Organ. https://doi.org/g5dg (2021)

Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 323, 107689 (2022)
Credit: Enrique Aguirre Aves/The Image Bank/Getty

Fast ice — stationary sea ice attached toland or floating ice shelves — plays animportant role in ocean–atmosphereinteractions. In Antarctica, fast ice canbe found over the continental shelf andranges from 50–250 km wide, dependingon location and climatic variability.
To understand changes that occurredfrom 2000 to 2018, Alexander Fraser of
the University of Tasmania, Australia, andcolleagues analyse the recently publishedNASA MODIS-derived 18-year dataseton the extent of Antarctic fast ice (at 1 km
spatial and 15 d temporal resolution). Theyfind that the continent has eight distinct
regions that constitute a –0.19 ± 0.18%
per year trend (–882 ± 824 km2 per year)
in the change in area. There are four
regions showing increasing trends, in East
Antarctica and the Bellingshausen Sea, andfour with decreasing trends, mostly in West
Antarctica, with the largest in the western

Natural climate solutions, such as plantingtrees, have been gaining popularity as
potential mitigation techniques for climatechange. However, such efforts generally
involve the conservation or reforestation oflarge areas of land, making it, in some cases,difficult to balance these efforts with theneed to use the land to support livelihoods.
Agroforestry systems can be a compromise,with benefits for both people and carbon
sequestration. Moreover, it is not just thetrees themselves that can sequester carbon
in these systems.
Stefanie Mayer from the Technical
University of Munich, Germany, andcolleagues conduct a meta-analysis toinvestigate the capacity for agroforestry
systems in temperate ecosystems tosequester carbon in the soil. They determine
sequestration rates for three types ofsystems: alley cropping systems, hedgerows
and silvopastoral systems. They find that formost of the observations, the agroforestry
systems had higher organic carbon content
in the topsoil and subsoil, with hedgerows

TROPHIC CASCADES

Predators buffer impacts

Glob. Chang. Biol. https://doi.org/g5dm (2021)

The impacts of heatwaves — predicted to increase in frequency and intensity withclimate change — can result in the extinction or forced migration of species. In thecontext of natural ecosystems, the loss of individual species has the potential to trigger
a trophic cascade that leads to secondary extinctions, while the presence of particularspecies, structures or interactions may, alternatively, have a stabilizing, buffering effect.
Samuel R. P.-J. Ross, from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and colleagues in Japan, theUSA and Ireland investigated the possible interactions between abiotic and biotic drivers ofbiodiversity change in a freshwater system, utilizing a two-factor experimental design withor without fish predators and altered heatwave presence and intensity. They demonstratethat the presence of fish with predators interacted significantly with heatwaves, helping tomitigate the destabilizing effects of heatwaves on algal communities, which is most likely
due to the indirect effects of predators on macroinvertebrates. These findings highlight theneed for more research into how community structure and biotic interactions influence
ecological resilience to climate change.
TAM
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01242-z
Nature Climate Change | www.nature.com/natureclimatechange

Credit: Siraj Ahmad / Alamy Stock Photo

The Paris Agreement marks a significant step
toward international collaboration on climatechange. However, many scholars and policy
professionals are concerned that countries
may not honour their Paris pledges. Some
believe that naming and shaming, that is,denouncing countries publicly for failing tomeet their commitments, could effectively
reduce wrongdoing through increasing
domestic support.
Dustin Tingley of Harvard University
and Michael Tomz of Stanford University,
USA, examine whether and how naming
and shaming affects domestic support forcompliance with the Paris Agreement. This
research, based on online experiments withnational representative samples in the USA,shows that shaming by foreign countries
can increase public support for compliance,
and the approach is most effective for partial
compliers: countries that make only partial
progress toward the stated goal.
They further find that counter-rhetoric,such as contrition, can reduce the pressurecaused by shaming. Finally, responses differ
by political party; Democrats were more
responsive to shaming than Republicans.
Their findings demonstrate both thestrengths and the limits of shaming as a toolof enforcement.
LY
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01241-0
Tegan Armarego-Marriott, Alyssa Findlay,Bronwyn Wake and Lingxiao Yan