Time to wake up to climate change and the accelerating phosphorus cycle

We urgently need to wake up to the role that climate change will be playing in the phosphorus cycle.  The paper will attempt to address the complexities, controversies and uncertainties of estimating the effects that climate change is having on the phosphorus cycle.  Citing an example from three UK catchments, the effect of climate change on average winter phosphorus loads is predicted to increase by up to 30% by the 2050s, and these effects will only be off-set by large-scale agricultural changes (e.g. a 20–80% reduction in phosphorus inputs).  Achieving phosphorus-related quality water in diverse and productive agricultural landscapes under a changing climate is going to be a massive challenge.  It is less than a century since we started mining rock phosphate, but in the context of a 4.5-billion-year-old earth and the acceleration due to climate, we are living through a switching point for phosphorus in the earth system.