University of Reading

• We analyse the effect of automation on individual odds of labour market exclusion, as measured by long-term unemployment and inactivity, across 27 European countries and the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2019. • We employ repeated cross-sections of individual-level data to compute probabilities of exclusion outcomes due to automation adoption, controlling for several individual, macroeconomic, and region-specific characteristics, and for potential selection mechanisms. • On average, the adoption of new automation technologies is associated with an increase in the probability of exclusion outcomes, although limited inactivity. • Our findings are consistent with the view that automation may exacerbate psychological discouragement and raise detachment from the labor force, increasing the unwillingness to seek jobs. • This relationship is heterogeneous across demographic groups, with younger individuals being relatively more affected. Labor market exclusion represents a major concern in several European economies, particularly affecting highly exposed demographic groups. This paper examines the potential effect of automation technologies on the risk of being locked into protracted unemployment or inactivity, using Labour Force Survey data for the European Union 27 countries and the United Kingdom, between 2009 and 2019. Our study employs repeated cross-sections of individual-level data to compute probabilities of exclusion outcomes due to automation adoption, controlling for several individual, macroeconomic, and region-specific characteristics, and for potential selection mechanisms. Findings highlight that, on average, the adoption of new automation technologies is associated with a higher probability of being inactive. This is consistent with the view that automation may exacerbate job insecurity, psychological discouragement, and detachment from job-seeking. This relationship is heterogeneous across demographic groups, with younger individuals being relatively more affected.

Many flying insects, such as bees, wasps, and hoverflies, live aboveground, but depend on soil for nesting, development, and overwintering. In agricultural landscapes, soil is managed for production and therefore frequently subjected to disturbances such as ploughing, potentially influencing flying insects during their belowground life stages. To investigate the effects of ploughing on ground-nesting flying insects, we conducted a two-year field experiment in twelve wildflower strips. All strips were ploughed and sown during establishment and were 0, 1, 2 or 3 years old at the start of the experiment. Within wildflower strips, we compared unploughed control plots with adjacent treatment plots that were ploughed between the two sampling years. This design allowed us to assess the ploughing effect across different ages and whether time since establishment influenced insects. We used emergence traps to sample insects emerging from the soil and measured insect biomass, abundance, and body size. We found that ploughing substantially reduced ground-nesting flying insect biomass. When wildflower strips were left unploughed, biomass increased rapidly, particularly during the first years after their establishment. Ploughing consistently reduced insect biomass to equally low levels regardless of how long the wildflower strips had been established. This was driven primarily by declines in the abundance of large insects. Our findings highlight that even moderate reductions in ploughing frequency - for example, only every second year - can benefit ground-nesting flying insects and point to the potential for incorporating reduced ploughing frequencies into agricultural management and agri-environmental schemes. • Ploughing reduced the biomass of ground-nesting insects in wildflower strips. • Biomass rose rapidly in unploughed sites, especially during the first years. • Biomass dropped to equally low levels after ploughing, regardless of recovery time. • Large insects were most affected by ploughing, causing biomass drops. • Reducing ploughing, even to every two years, enhances insect biomass.

The assessment and quantification of agricultural sustainability remain disjointed with many methodological frameworks used by the research community. Defining ‘indicators’ as measurable variables used to assess targeted areas of sustainability, this study provides a systematic review of studies simultaneously employing indicators across social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainability to assess the farm-level performance of European arable agriculture. Based on strict search criteria, 36 publications were identified, employing 22 different frameworks and multiple unique indicator combinations. Overall, the analysis demonstrates that whilst many existing assessment structures are similar in their overall approach, there are large differences in the total number of indicators used and a common trend towards a higher number of environmental, rather than economic or social indicators. Across the three pillars, common indicators included the treatment and accessibility of labour, production efficiency, environmental care during production, and impacts on soil quality, suggesting that improvements in these areas on farms are considered to support their sustainability. The review also identified trade-offs between the broad applicability and site specificity of sustainability assessment frameworks, suggesting that a minimal set of indicators incorporating these key areas could be used across frameworks to support comparisons. This review identifies research gaps, summarises conflicting methodologies, and provides scientific reference and guidance for the evaluation of the sustainability of European agricultural systems.

The last decade has seen an explosion of meta-philosophical work on conceptual engineering. Beyond simple analysis of concepts, conceptual engineering allows for evaluation and improvement of concepts accord- ing to the purposes for which they will be used. This paper sketches a pluralist account of conceptual engineering and provides a distinction between two different and often conflicting kinds of conceptual engineer- ing: naturalist conceptual engineering (NCE) and moral conceptual en- gineering (MCE), distinguished not by their methods, but by their roles, functions, and purposes. Using the examples of health and animal wel- fare, we demonstrate the application of both MCE and NCE and show how the different contexts in which a concept is used can create con- flicting demands but also how concordance between these demands can strengthen a concept.

The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) holds an ice volume equivalent to ~7 m of global sea-level rise, making its future evolution a critical component of sea-level projections. The rate and magnitude of ice loss strongly depend on ice–climate feedbacks, yet most Earth System Models (ESMs) still treat ice sheets as static entities, limiting their ability to simulate these essential interactions. The UK Earth System Model (UKESM) is a state-of-the-art ESM which includes dynamic models of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, as well as a sophisticated climate - ice sheet coupling based on the explicit exchanges of water and energy. However, the impacts of this interactivity on projected climate and ice sheet evolution remain insufficiently quantified.To assess the role of ice–climate feedbacks within a sophisticated, coupled ESM framework, we performed two multi-century climate simulations under high-emissions forcing (SSP5–8.5) using UKESM: a control run with a fixed GrIS geometry, and an interactive run in which the ice sheet evolves freely in response to climate drivers. For computational efficiency, an ice sheet acceleration mode was applied from 2100 onward, whereby the ice sheet model integrates ten years for each year of atmospheric-oceanic simulation. This method effectively projects the ice sheet’s evolution over two millennia (2100–4100) within a 200-year atmosphere-ocean simulation (2100–2300), although it does not fully include feedbacks from meltwater-driven changes in ocean circulation.By comparing these simulations, we quantify the impacts of simulating a dynamic GrIS in the Earth System, ranging from local alterations in Greenland’s mass balance and sea-level contribution to remote downstream effects on atmospheric circulation. We identify that positive feedbacks—primarily from reduced surface albedo and lowering ice sheet elevation—become dominant after 2100, driving accelerated mass loss and influencing North Atlantic atmospheric circulation patterns. This study highlights the importance of two-way ice–climate coupling in ESMs for improving predictions of future climate and sea level changes.

Arid and semi-arid regions are highly sensitive to hydroclimate changes. In recent decades, precipitation and evapotranspiration have declined across vast global drylands, posing critical challenges to water security and fragile ecosystems. However, these drying trends remain poorly understood and inadequately represented in climate models. Here, using observations and CMIP6 multi-model simulations, we interpret hydroclimatic changes in (semi-)arid regions and associated model biases by presenting a theoretical framework. From an energetic perspective, precipitation and evapotranspiration changes are directly linked to climate forcings through variations in atmospheric diabatic cooling (δQ), which is primarily governed by the response of surface sensible heat flux (δSHdown) to surface shortwave radiation changes (δDSSR). Reanalysis and single-forcing simulations reveal that aerosol surface shortwave radiative effects—rather than greenhouse gases—dominate hydrological changes in dry regions, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. Since the 1970s, aerosol emissions have increased δDSSR and reduced δSHdown, with the consequent decreases in δQ driving the observed drying trends. In CMIP6 simulations, the substantial underestimation of aerosol-induced solar brightening contributes to pronounced discrepancies with observations. By highlighting the critical role of aerosol effects, this work provides an effective approach for understanding and projecting dryland hydroclimatic responses to shortwave radiative forcings under broader scenarios.

Water plays a central connecting role within the climate system, linking meteorological, hydrological, and earth system processes with societal dimensions such as water resource demands and risks associated with pollution, droughts, and floods. Global water challenges are addressed through multiple international agendas related to sustainable development, climate change, biodiversity, and water security. While these agendas share broadly aligned objectives, they differ in scope, scale, and modes of operationalization. Together, they shape how scientific knowledge is mobilized, policies are formulated, and actions are implemented. As the 2030 Agenda approaches its conclusion, there is a growing need to review and map global water agendas in order to better understand their interactions and support more coherent responses to complex water challenges.Rather than viewing global water agendas as parallel and independent efforts, they can be understood as interconnected learning pathways through which shared objectives, knowledge, and practical experience evolve over time. From this perspective, synergies emerge across these learning pathways through reflection, coordination, and exchange between science, policy, and practice. Clarifying how such synergies can be recognized, supported, and strengthened is therefore essential for advancing more integrated and impactful responses to global water challenges.The Strategic UN Synergy Working Group (SUN) operates within the IAHS HELPING Science for Solutions Decade (2023–2032) and aims to strengthen the contribution of hydrological science to international policy processes and practical implementation programmes. Guided by the HELPING paradigm, SUN facilitates bottom-up engagement, open science, and co-creation principles to support learning across scales and the translation of hydrological knowledge into policy and action.This contribution introduces the vision, structure, and core activities of the SUN Working Group, with a focus on understanding global water agendas and supporting synergies through a science–policy–practice approach. SUN builds on the understanding of global water agendas as interconnected learning pathways, and we will illustrate how coordinated learning pathways can help advance more coherent, integrated, and future-oriented global water agenda.

Limiting future global warming and achieving net zero emissions will require significant reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions alongside deployment of nature-based carbon dioxide (CO2) removal strategies. However, warming-induced emissions from natural ecosystems can introduce positive climate feedbacks that diminish mitigation potential and reduce the remaining carbon budget. Wetlands are a key example of this challenge. While wetland restoration is widely proposed as a nature-based climate solution as it can enhance CO2 sequestration, wetlands are also the largest natural source of methane (CH4), a potent GHG and key driver of atmospheric chemistry. Rising temperatures may amplify wetland CH4 emissions, offsetting CO2 uptake from restoration efforts and resulting in positive climate feedbacks, with potential implications for air quality and Earth system stability. Quantifying these feedbacks is critical for evaluating the net climate effectiveness of wetland-based mitigation. In this work, we investigate how large-scale global wetland restoration affects future CH4 emissions, atmospheric composition and climate under two warming pathways. Using historically reconstructed wetland areas, we develop two global wetland scenarios: protection of current wetlands, and restoration to 1900 coverage by 2050 with protection thereafter. Wetland CH4 emissions are estimated using an offline emission scheme driven by soil respiration and temperature outputs from eight CMIP6 Earth System Models under SSP1-2.6 (2°C warming and lower air pollution) and SSP3-7.0 (4°C warming and higher air pollution). These emissions are implemented in a CH4 emission-driven version of the UK Earth System Model (UKESM) to simulate responses in atmospheric CH4 mixing ratio, oxidising capacity and air quality. Associated climate impacts are evaluated by quantifying changes in the net GHG balance and radiative forcing, accounting for carbon sequestration and avoided drained emissions.We find that wetland restoration amplifies warming-driven CH4 emissions, by 57% (91 Tg yr-1) under SSP3-7.0 and by 30% (48 Tg yr-1) under SSP1-2.6 by 2100. In comparison, protecting wetlands at current levels leads to smaller increases (33% and 11%, respectively). As a result of enhanced CH4 emissions, wetland restoration increases atmospheric CH4 mixing ratios by approximately 100 ppb under SSP1-2.6 and 145 ppb under SSP3-7.0. While global impacts on air pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter are small, more substantial regional impacts may have implications for human health. Our results provide a comprehensive assessment of wetland restoration as a climate strategy under future warming, highlighting its potential to deliver net-zero goals while also identifying important trade-offs and implications for mitigation and policy.

At the end of May 2025, extremely strong wildfires in Canada produced several pyrocumulonimbus clouds which lifted wildfire smoke particles up to the lower stratosphere (> 10 km height). A dense stratospheric smoke plume developed which reached stratospheric aerosol optical depths up to 3.2 which is comparable with a moderate volcanic eruption. EarthCARE’s lidar ATLID captured this event and enabled us to study stratospheric smoke shortly after emission and to track a single smoke plume on its transport way towards Europe.The spaceborne lidar allowed to precisely study the maximum plume height and revealed a lofting of the smoke plume top height from 13.6 km above Canada to 17.4 km above Europe and a further slight ascent during the transport towards Asia. The self-lofting of dense smoke plumes can be explained by the absorption of solar radiation which heats the ambient air and creates buoyancy. The self-lofting is strongest for optically thick smoke plumes close to the source region and gets weaker when the plume is horizontally more spread and thus optically thinner.ATLID detected an enhanced depolarization ratio of 0.26±0.02 which indicates non-spherical smoke particles in the stratosphere. This finding is in line with previous observations of stratospheric smoke layers, but clearly demonstrates a difference to tropospheric observations of Canadian smoke in Europe, which are characterized by a low depolarization ratio and hence a spherical shape (Haarig et al., 2018).The novel high-spectral-resolution lidar (HSRL) capability of ATLID allowed us for the first time to study the evolution of the lidar ratio of a stratospheric smoke layer during long-range transport. Higher values around 70 sr were observed shortly after emission, which decreased during the first days of transport to values of 49±7 sr.As another highlight, EarthCARE observed a significant downmixing of stratospheric smoke at a strong tropopause fold over the Mediterranean and North Africa (Haarig et al., 2025). These observations directly show a pathway of removal of the stratospheric smoke and closes the life cycle from injection to removal. Additionally, the synergistic EarthCARE observations will be used to estimate the radiative impact of this strong stratospheric smoke event.ReferencesHaarig, M., et al. (2018), Depolarization and lidar ratios at 355, 532, and 1064 nm and microphysical properties of aged tropospheric and stratospheric Canadian wildfire smoke. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 18 (16), 11847–11861.Haarig, M. et al. The life cycle of a stratospheric smoke plume as seen from EarthCARE - tracking a plume from Canada to Europe. ESS Open Archive. October 22, 2025.