Earths Future最新文献

{"title":"Enhancing Hydrological Extremes Forecasting Capabilities in Data-Scarce Regions Through Transfer Learning With Data Augmentation","authors":"Yehai Tang,&nbsp;Xiongpeng Tang,&nbsp;Zhanliang Zhu,&nbsp;Chao Gao,&nbsp;Lei Liu,&nbsp;Fubo Zhao,&nbsp;Silong Zhang","doi":"10.1029/2025EF006060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EF006060","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Hydrological extremes forecasting in data-scarce basins remains a longstanding challenge in hydrological science. Despite significant advancements in transferring hydrological knowledge from data-rich to data-sparse basins, such as regionalization techniques for hydrological prediction and novel deep learning (DL)-based Transfer learning (TL) methods, the application of models trained in data-rich basins introduces inevitable noise into predictions within data-sparse basins. This potential distortion could misinterpret rainfall-runoff patterns within specific basins. This study introduces a TL framework based on data augmentation (DA-TL) within the context of hydrological modeling. The framework employs augmented rainfall data as input for conceptual models to generate pretraining runoff samples, addressing the challenges of sample scarcity and imbalance in target basins. Subsequently, TL is applied to fine-tune predictions in the target basin, thereby mitigating inappropriate hydrological knowledge transfer associated with cross-basin learning. The DA-TL framework was validated across nine river basins in China, representing three distinct climate zones (semi-arid, semi-humid, and humid regions). Results indicate that the DA-TL approach outperforms current DL methods for regionalized hydrological modeling. Specifically, under varying data scarcity scenarios, DA-TL achieved average Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency improvements of 3.8% and 1.0% compared to similar-basin modeling and all-basin modeling strategies, respectively. Model interpretability analyses reveal that the effectiveness of the DA-TL framework primarily stems from its adept learning of the runoff generation and routing processes in target basins. These findings underscore the potential of using synthetic data derived from process-based models for pretraining in TL, offering promising avenues for improving hydrological extremes forecasting accuracy in observation-limited regions.</p>","PeriodicalId":48748,"journal":{"name":"Earths Future","volume":"13 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2025EF006060","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Climate Change and Population Aging Exacerbate Flood Risk to the Elderly in European Regions","authors":"Wenyu Yang,&nbsp;Ziyong Zhao,&nbsp;Zhenyu Wang,&nbsp;Xuan Wang,&nbsp;Ruifei Li,&nbsp;Pei Hua,&nbsp;Xiangju Cheng,&nbsp;Yungang Liu,&nbsp;Haijun Wang,&nbsp;Peter Krebs,&nbsp;Jin Zhang","doi":"10.1029/2025EF006366","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EF006366","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Floods threaten human lives globally, yet the flood risk to the elderly (above 65) remains uncertain within warming climates and population aging. Hence, this study incorporated the General Circulation Model and Shared Socioeconomic Pathway projections into the hydraulic modeling framework, to analyze the flood risk to the elderly in Europe under climatic and socioeconomic changes. Results demonstrated that central Europe has experienced an increase in both surface runoff and streamflow (exceeding 50%), which have jointly contributed to intensified flooding in the major basins (Loire, Rhine, Elbe, and Danube) within the region. Among them, the Elbe basin exhibited a significant increase in 100-year flood peak (∼107%) and elderly population (∼15%), resulting in 51,300 (CI: 45,300–60,500) of the elderly population being exposed to high-hazard floods under a high greenhouse gas scenario (SSP5-8.5), with at most 58% (29,800, CI: 25,100–33,700) of them being densely settled or in low-&amp; middle-income groups. Among aging cities, Prague was severely affected by floods, with 40%–54% of the exposed elderly in high-risk areas. Followed by Dresden and Hamburg, where up to 18% of the exposed elderly were threatened by high-risk floods. This study revealed regional inequalities induced by flood exposure within the context of warming climates and population aging. The methods and findings are expected to provide additional insights into sustainable flood risk management under global change.</p>","PeriodicalId":48748,"journal":{"name":"Earths Future","volume":"13 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2025EF006366","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Terrestrial Water Cycle Acceleration-Deceleration: Non-Binary and Space-Time Divergent","authors":"G. Destouni,&nbsp;D. Althoff,&nbsp;M. Zarei","doi":"10.1029/2025EF006059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EF006059","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Changes in the terrestrial water cycle are often discussed as either an acceleration or a deceleration of the cycle. However, different combinations of precipitation, runoff, and evapotranspiration changes are possible, and it is largely unknown which combinations actually occur around the world. We quantify water flux changes and their combinations from 1980–2000 to 2001–2020 based on: (a) observational data for 3,614 hydrological catchments with worldwide distribution; (b) a new ensemble of machine learning (ML) models, trained and tested on data for these catchments and applied globally; and, comparatively, (c) four alternative data sets for water flux changes from 1981–1995 to 1996–2010 in 1,561 catchments worldwide. The changes in precipitation, runoff, and evapotranspiration are mostly in opposite directions, with 51 ± 7% of the catchments or land area (based on (a–b); 56 ± 4% based on (c)) experiencing acceleration or deceleration in two fluxes and the opposite in the third. Unidirectional changes in all water fluxes are observed only in 27.5 ± 2.5% and 21.5 ± 4.5% of the catchments or land area (based on (a–b); 23.5 ± 6.5% and 19.5 ± 4.5% based on (c)) for full deceleration and full acceleration, respectively. Different terrestrial water fluxes thus concurrently decelerate and accelerate at both local and global scales. Interpretation of the ML modeling further shows different driver-impact relationships for the water flux changes over time than across space. This space-time difference challenges the usefulness of space-for-time substitution approaches for temporal flux changes. The ML model ensemble developed in this study offers a promising approach for addressing this challenge.</p>","PeriodicalId":48748,"journal":{"name":"Earths Future","volume":"13 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2025EF006059","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Explainable Earth Surface Forecasting Under Extreme Events","authors":"Oscar J. Pellicer-Valero,&nbsp;Miguel-Ángel Fernández-Torres,&nbsp;Chaonan Ji,&nbsp;Miguel D. Mahecha,&nbsp;Gustau Camps-Valls","doi":"10.1029/2024EF005446","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF005446","url":null,"abstract":"<p>With climate change-related extreme events on the rise, high-dimensional Earth observation data present a unique opportunity for forecasting and understanding impacts on ecosystems. This is, however, impeded by the complexity of processing, visualizing, modeling, and explaining this data. We train a convolutional long short-term memory-based architecture on the novel DeepExtremeCubes data set to showcase how this challenge can be met. DeepExtremeCubes includes around 40,000 long-term Sentinel-2 minicubes (January 2016–October 2022) worldwide, along with labeled extreme events, meteorological data, vegetation land cover, and a topography map, sampled from locations affected by extreme climate events and surrounding areas. When predicting future reflectances and vegetation impacts through the kernel normalized difference vegetation index, the model achieved an <span></span><math>\u0000 <semantics>\u0000 <mrow>\u0000 <msup>\u0000 <mi>R</mi>\u0000 <mn>2</mn>\u0000 </msup>\u0000 </mrow>\u0000 <annotation> ${mathrm{R}}^{2}$</annotation>\u0000 </semantics></math> score of 0.9055 in the test set. Explainable artificial intelligence was used to analyze the model's predictions during the October 2020 Central South America compound heatwave and drought event. We chose the same area exactly 1 year before the event as a counterfactual, finding that the average temperature and surface pressure are generally the most important predictors. In contrast, minimum evaporation anomalies play a leading role during the event. We also found the anomalies of the reflectances in the timestep before the extreme event to be critical predictors of its impact on vegetation. The code to replicate all experiments and figures in this paper is publicly available at https://github.com/DeepExtremes/txyXAI.</p>","PeriodicalId":48748,"journal":{"name":"Earths Future","volume":"13 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2024EF005446","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Impact of Soil Preconditioning on the Evolution of Heatwaves Under Constrained Circulation: A Case Study of the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heatwave","authors":"Suqin Q. Duan,&nbsp;Karen A. McKinnon,&nbsp;Isla R. Simpson","doi":"10.1029/2025EF006216","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EF006216","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Pacific Northwest (PNW) experienced a record-breaking heatwave in late June 2021. Previous studies showed that an anomalous upper-level anticyclone and associated subsidence heating, fueled by upwind latent heat release, were the main drivers. Land-atmosphere interactions have generally been found to play a secondary but important role; however their temporal evolution and state dependence on prior soil moisture (SM) and evaporative regimes remain largely unexplored. To assess this, we run 100 ensemble members of the heatwave with varying initial land surface conditions in the Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2). The circulation outside the PNW is constrained to observations, ensuring that the large-scale dynamical drivers are reproduced while local land-atmosphere interactions are free to evolve in the PNW region under differing soil-moisture states. While circulation largely dictates the heatwave's magnitude (peak day temperatures about 17<span></span><math>\u0000 <semantics>\u0000 <mrow>\u0000 <mo>°</mo>\u0000 </mrow>\u0000 <annotation> ${}^{circ}$</annotation>\u0000 </semantics></math>C above the climatological mean), perturbations of the SM preconditioning across a realistic range for the time of year lead to about 3<span></span><math>\u0000 <semantics>\u0000 <mrow>\u0000 <mo>°</mo>\u0000 </mrow>\u0000 <annotation> ${}^{circ}$</annotation>\u0000 </semantics></math>C spread in CESM2. We demonstrate how the land-atmosphere interactions evolve as ensemble members fall below a critical SM threshold where evapotranspiration reduces substantially. We also investigate how an antecedent rain event might have affected this heatwave event. Finally, we simulate the same circulation induced heatwave but in a future climate state with higher greenhouse gases and drier soils. Beyond mean warming effects, drier soils increase the probability of shifting from a wet regime into a transitional regime, exacerbating and elongating the heatwave.</p>","PeriodicalId":48748,"journal":{"name":"Earths Future","volume":"13 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2025EF006216","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Deep Root Loss and Regeneration in the Anthropocene Drive Continental-Scale Changes in Deep Soil Structure","authors":"Annalise Guthrie,&nbsp;Daniel Hirmas,&nbsp;Pamela L. Sullivan,&nbsp;Li Li,&nbsp;Hoori Ajami,&nbsp;Kamini Singha,&nbsp;Alejandro N. Flores,&nbsp;Hang Wen,&nbsp;Aoesta Rudick,&nbsp;Sharon Billings","doi":"10.1029/2025EF006326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EF006326","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Deep soils represent a dynamic interface between surface soils and saprolite or bedrock, influencing water flow, solute and gas exchange, and mineral and organic matter transformations from local to global scales. Root architecture reflects land cover and soil heterogeneity, enabling vegetation access to resources that vary temporally and spatially while shaping soil structure and formation. However, how land use can influence roots and soil structure relatively deep in the subsurface (&gt;30 cm) remains poorly understood. We investigate how cropland-related land use and subsequent vegetation recovery alter rooting dynamics and soil structure in deeper horizons. Using a large-scale data set representing multiple land uses as a means of varying root abundance across four soil orders, we demonstrate that B horizon root loss and regeneration are linked to changes in multiple soil structural attributes deep within soil profiles. Our findings further suggest that the degree of soil development modulates the extent of structural transformations, with less-developed soils showing greater susceptibility to root-associated structural shifts. The greatest change in structural development and distinctness was observed in Inceptisols, while Ultisols exhibited the least change. Such soil structural changes affect water flowpaths, carbon retention, and nutrient transport throughout the subsurface. This work thus underscores the need for Earth system models to capture dynamic soil structural attributes that respond to land-use change. We suggest that changes in deep-rooting abundance, such as those accelerating in the Anthropocene, may be an important agent of subsurface structural change with meaningful implications for contemporary and future ecosystem feedbacks to climate.</p>","PeriodicalId":48748,"journal":{"name":"Earths Future","volume":"13 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2025EF006326","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Advancing Human Displacement Modeling: A Case Study of the 2022 Summer Floods in Pakistan","authors":"P. M. Kam,&nbsp;T. Cache,&nbsp;B. Biess,&nbsp;S. Lohrey,&nbsp;S. di Vincenzo,&nbsp;J. W. McCaughey,&nbsp;R. M. Horton,&nbsp;L. Thalheimer","doi":"10.1029/2025EF006788","DOIUrl":"10.1029/2025EF006788","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The devastating 2022 summer flood in Pakistan displaced about 7 million people in the Sindh province alone. Up to one-third of the country's area, mostly the country's south, was flooded. Effective response to intensifying and compounding hazards requires a better understanding of these processes. We can gain insights if impact assessments include socio-economic components and uncertainties arising from the interactions between impacts. However, the quantitative evidence from impact assessments remains limited and fragmented, due to methodological challenges and data limitations. Using the open-source impact assessment platform CLIMADA, we study to what extent flood-related hazards can be used to quantify displacement outcomes in a data-limited region. Using flood depth, exposed population, and impact functions, we link flood vulnerability to displaced people. This allows us to estimate internal displacement resulting from the flood event, and to further assess how displacement varies across the region. We find that a flood depth threshold of 0.67 m, with a confidence interval (CI) from 0.35 to 1.10 m, provides a best fit to all data from Sindh province. We find a negative correlation between displacement and the degree of urbanization. By testing the performance of our model in explaining differing displacement estimates reported across Pakistan, we show the limitations of existing impact assessment frameworks. We emphasize the importance of estimating potential displacement alongside other impacts to better characterize, communicate, and ultimately mitigate the impacts of flooding hazards.</p>","PeriodicalId":48748,"journal":{"name":"Earths Future","volume":"13 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2025EF006788","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145129328","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reply to Edgeworth et al. (2024): The Anthropocene Is a Time Interval, and More Besides","authors":"Jan Zalasiewicz,&nbsp;Martin J. Head,&nbsp;Colin N. Waters,&nbsp;Colin Summerhayes,&nbsp;Simon Turner,&nbsp;Michael Wagreich,&nbsp;Luc Aquilina,&nbsp;Alejandro Cearreta,&nbsp;Abhik Chakraborty,&nbsp;Agnieszka Gałuszka,&nbsp;Irka Hajdas,&nbsp;Juliana Ivar do Sul,&nbsp;Reinhold Leinfelder,&nbsp;Michel Magny,&nbsp;Francine M. G. McCarthy,&nbsp;John R. McNeill,&nbsp;Buhm Soon Park,&nbsp;Ulrich Pöschl,&nbsp;Jürgen Renn,&nbsp;Libby Robin,&nbsp;Yoshiki Saito,&nbsp;Sverker Sörlin,&nbsp;Julia Adeney Thomas,&nbsp;Helmuth Trischler,&nbsp;Mark Williams,&nbsp;Nathanaël Wallenhorst,&nbsp;Fabienne Will","doi":"10.1029/2024EF005612","DOIUrl":"10.1029/2024EF005612","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Anthropocene was introduced to denote a dramatic, ongoing, planetary shift from prolonged relative Holocene stability, driving the Earth system into a new functional state outside its natural variability. Now stratigraphically-grounded, the Anthropocene is de facto a new epoch, not the subjective filtering of all anthropogenic impacts in Earth history.</p>","PeriodicalId":48748,"journal":{"name":"Earths Future","volume":"13 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2024EF005612","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145110949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing Vulnerability of Relevant Sites for Amphibian Conservation Through Spatiotemporal Analyses of Global Change Factors in Europe","authors":"Rocío Tarjuelo,&nbsp;Fernando Ascensão,&nbsp;Pedro Aragón","doi":"10.1029/2025EF006211","DOIUrl":"10.1029/2025EF006211","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Amphibians are among the most imperiled vertebrates, threatened by habitat loss and climate change. Despite significant advances in our understanding of these species, there remains a critical gap in identifying the most urgent areas for conservation, especially considering their distinct taxonomic and conservation statuses. Here, we identified Relevant Sites for Amphibian Conservation (RSAC) for Europe (50 km x 50 km grid cells), defined as regions having the highest taxonomic diversity and/or presence of endangered species. We determined regional vulnerability by examining temporal trends of temperature and precipitation over the past 40 years, future climate projections, and the spatial distribution of roads. We integrated this information into a threat-level index and estimated the potential resilience of the amphibian communities based on the species' reproductive capacity. We identified 525 RSAC, half of which are in Central and Eastern Europe, and the other half distributed along the Mediterranean Basin. Mean annual temperature increased in almost all RSAC, but increments were smaller in the Mediterranean and Atlantic regions. RSAC in the Mediterranean showed changes toward shorter droughts and increasingly extreme rainfall, whereas RSAC in Central and Eastern Europe presented trends toward lower daily precipitation and fewer days of uninterrupted rainfall. Regions with the highest concentration of roads may further exacerbate the impacts of the acute climatic changes observed in RSAC of Central Europe. Our framework based on the evolution of threats and the integration of life-history traits can be applied to evaluate vulnerability of other taxa and biome to global change drivers.</p>","PeriodicalId":48748,"journal":{"name":"Earths Future","volume":"13 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2025EF006211","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145111263","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Evolving Concept of the Anthropocene: A Reply to Zalasiewicz et al.","authors":"Matthew Edgeworth,&nbsp;Andrew M. Bauer,&nbsp;Erle C. Ellis,&nbsp;Stanley C. Finney,&nbsp;Philip L. Gibbard,&nbsp;Mark Maslin,&nbsp;Dorothy J. Merritts,&nbsp;Michael J. C. Walker","doi":"10.1029/2025EF006882","DOIUrl":"10.1029/2025EF006882","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The claim that the Anthropocene is de facto a new epoch is disputed, along with the suggestion that Earth system transformation from one state to another can be pinned down to a single year. The epoch proposal was formally rejected in 2024 but, crucially, that was not a rejection of the Anthropocene itself. As the material event of human-induced planetary transformation continues to unfold at increasing rates all about us, research into the Anthropocene is as vital and relevant as ever. It is important to realize, however, that the concept of the Anthropocene is evolving. The long-standing assumption that it must be a time interval, and must therefore be accorded a precisely-defined date of start, is being called into question. The interdisciplinary field of Anthropocene research is straining to break free from the confines of rigid definitions and the imposition of an isochronous timeline to mark the supposed start, which cuts out vast amounts of relevant pre-1952 evidence from consideration. A broader, more flexible and less exclusive definition of the Anthropocene is in order. In this reply we respond to criticisms by epoch proponents and further outline the Anthropocene as an unfolding event of major significance in Earth history.</p>","PeriodicalId":48748,"journal":{"name":"Earths Future","volume":"13 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2025EF006882","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145111264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}